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Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Briefly Noted: UK Lockdown Hoax?

About a week and a half ago I ran a piece that featured a lengthy interview with a medical expert, Dr. Theresa Deisher, who has over 30 years' experience in the field of commercial biotechnology. The interview largely focused on Deisher's skeptical views regarding the new Covid vaccines. Deisher expressed serious reservations not only about the lack of transparency in the hasty development of the vaccine but also, very pertinently, about whether such vaccines are actually needed or desirable. Let me quote that pertinent part from the blog (Briefly Noted: Covid Vaccine Hoax?):


She also doesn't believe the vaccine is necessary to begin with. Fairly early in the interview she makes the point that, while initially we were unsure how this virus would behave, the intervening months have shown that it's behaving much like other similar respiratory viruses. What she means is--and she explains this--these viruses come in "waves", with each succeeding wave yielding a virus that is more contagious than the previous wave, but also less virulent. The result we're seeing fits that pattern: more infections, but fewer serious outcomes. In other words, she adds, it's on its way to being a common cold or flu type of phenomenon: Endemic, but something we can readily deal with.

And so she states, in effect, that there's really no point to this vaccine. No point, because why would you give a vaccine that has serious side effects to perfectly healthy people who are unlikely to suffer great harm?

Commenting on the need for a vaccine, Deisher laid out that “this virus to date has less than a 0.03% fatality rate and most of those people, I believe it's 92% or above, have other health problems; we're making a vaccine at warp speed for a virus that doesn't look like it's going to need a vaccine.”She added that “[i]t is possible, but I don’t believe it is desirable, nor do I believe that it’s safe,” with as much as “15% of the very healthy young volunteers [experiencing] significant side effects.”


There's much more about vaccines in general and these Covid vaccines in particular. Deisher isn't an anti-vaxxer by any means, but she is a skeptic with regard to this one. 

The reason I'm reviewing this has to do with the news you may have heard about a new and severe UK lockdown. Note how I phrased that. The lockdown is new and severe. Listening to the mainstream news might lead you to believe that the mutation of Covid that is supposedly causing this extreme response is some new monster virus. However, there are skeptics within the UK medical establishment, and they are demanding that the government produce some, well, real data to justify their extreme policy decisions. You can read about this at PJ Media, but the point I want to make is that what these very mainstream medical experts are saying directly supports what Dr. Deisher was also saying not long ago--maybe more transmissible, but apparently less severe:


New Strain of COVID-19, Fears of Increased Transmissibility Have U.K. Health Experts Asking Questions


To read this account of what's going on in the UK is to realize how sketchy much of the policy making is in the public health field--at least with regard to Covid.

First they quote some bozo name Boris--no, not a Russian, so don't worry that I'm off into pandemic conspiracy la la land. Note the admission Boris makes. More transmissible, less serious--maybe:


... the new strain could increase the R rate by “0.4 or greater” and might be “up to 70% more transmissible”.

“While we are fairly certain the variant is transmitted more quickly, there is no evidence to suggest that it is more lethal or causes more severe illness,” ...


Therefore, lock it all down?

Understandably, actual medical people are up in arms. 


Carl Heneghan, professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care, is skeptical. Following Johnson’s announcement, Heneghan made a call for the government to release the data it relied on to make such severe restrictions. 


What a concept--release the evidence! Let a thousand data points bloom, so to speak! Except that, increasingly, transparency in decision making is not the model according to which "representative" governments conduct their affairs. It's increasingly along the lines of what Rand Paul recently said:


“If Fauci has his way, you’ll never give up on the mask,” warned Paul. “It’s all about submission. They want you to submit to their will, whether there’s any science. In fact, like on schools, I’ve been telling Fauci for six months, the evidence is that if you open schools, you will not get a surge. The whole world accepts it, except for Dr. Fauci. He finally accepted it last week, six months after I started showing him the evidence.”


Right. It's almost as if they're thinking, If we can get people to submit to masking up for no scientific reason, submit to closure of schools and businesses for no scientific reasons, well then maybe we can get them to accept an Election Hoax, too! It's like that Pavlov's dog thing--just say "settled science" and get instant submission. No questions asked.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, Dr. Heneghan is persisting in trying to rock the boat:


In any case, he and his colleagues are calling for evidence that this new strain is truly more transmissible, especially since the government agency is only moderately confident in the assertion regarding transmissibility:

I would want to have very clear evidence rather than “we think it’s more transmissible” so we can see if it is or not. It has massive implications, it’s causing fear and panic, but we should not be in this situation when the Government is putting out data that is unquantifiable.


And maybe, just maybe, that's the point.


9 comments:

  1. Having had lasting adverse reactions to a popular, widely-prescribed antibiotic - Cipro - and to a tetanus/diphtheria booster, I asked my trusted physician “what about Covid19 vaccination?” Her response: “I won’t say no, but I will say wait until many, many others have received it….” The double “many” really got my attention. So I will wait. Maybe forever.

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  2. The article on Deisher commented that second waves are often more transmissible but less lethal. (My words) If that is the case, why would that not be ridden out, using normal care and skipping a vaccine about which there are some fairly heavy duty doubts as to its safety and the necessity for using it at all. Risk v. reward.

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    1. "So I will wait. Maybe forever."

      Yes, me too. Until I need to take a bus, or subway, or ...

      "People in France who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine will be banned from using public transport and engaging in other activities under a newly introduced law."

      https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1341435310576726016

      Frank

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    2. I will just drive my car.

      Rob S

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    3. Me, too, Rob S. Don’t do public transport and so far Gavin Newsom and his Asian health officer have not said vaccination would be manditory. That won’t ever get off the ground here, IMO.

      Delete
  3. The propaganda is strong with this world. I'm floored by the stupidity.

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  4. I was talking this morning with some running buddies who work in medical fields. One is a midwife at a large Dallas hospital. The other is a ER RN at another large Fort Worth hospital. They had both received the first vaccine shot and were telling the rest of us that it was fine and safe. Then the midwife one mentioned that where she works has over 570 employees out with COVID. The RN was aghast as was wondering why people who know better were not taking all the proper precautions. I was speechless over the unnoted thing to both.... If employees who are trained in infection prevention and who also have access to all the PPE that the rest of us do not are still coming down with COVID, that maybe, just maybe all the recommendations by all the "experts" aren't worth anything.

    I still walk around in stores with my worthless leaky cloth mask but am disgusted that so many people seem to happily want to submit so that they feel protected. And if I say or question anything, I am the awful one who wants people to die. Maddening!!

    On a good note, my FIL, who is 80, recently came down with COVID. He was feeling terrible and was having trouble breathing and went to the local ER in small town Texas. Just as the hospital wanted to admit him, his regular doctor intervened and gave him a dose of monoclonal antibodies. He was not admitted to the hospital because if he had gone in, he would not have received the antibodies. A few hours later, he was much better and back to his normal self. Good news and an option that I have not heard much about. Just wanted to pass that along.

    --ArmyMom

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    1. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-monoclonal-antibodies-treatment-covid-19

      Thanks, ArmyMom

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  5. My opinion is that Bris Johnson, like Bill Barr, was boosted into office with a particular anti-deplorable mission, i.e. delay, dissimulate, water down BriXit until it simply disappears. He has done more damage to it that Teresa May ever hoped to.

    This is a world wide assault on the peasantry. The ChiCom Croup is a master stroke to reduce the middle-class to impotency. Hong Kong, BriXit, the U.S. economy, the Trump admin, the Netanyahu gov't, the death of the internet as an "open marketplace of ideas", E.U. pressure and isolation of Hungary and Poland (which a Harris/Biden admin will exacerbate). Many troublesome facets for DM are being mitigated.
    Tom S.

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