UPDATED: Briefly Noted: Covid, Covid, Covid!

COVID: So while making coffee just now I listened to CBS radio announcing that states have been asked to "pause", i.e., stop, giving the Johnson & Johnson vax. A limited number of people have dropped dead as a result of blood clots associated with the injection. I presume that this will lead non-brain dead people to reconsider participating in a vast experiment that involves injecting untested substances into their bodies.

COVID: That's especially true given that study after study has demonstrated that 1) for most people Covid presents just about "zero" risk (that's a quote from Stanford's Dr. John Ioannidis) and 2) there actually are effective medical treatments. Speaking of which, a Canadian firm has come up with an anti-viral nasal spray--they liken it to a hand sanitizer for your nose. This is it:

'REVOLUTIONARY' Nasal spray kills off 99.99 per cent of Covid virus, new research shows'

The active agent is nitric oxide, which is well known as an antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial, vasodilator, immuno-modulator, wound healing promotor. It was discovered by Dr. Ferid Murad, who won a Nobel (1998) for his part in the research. I confidently expect Murad's reputation to be totally trashed, now that he's gotten himself involved in developing a cheap, safe, easy to use, highly effective medical treatment for Covid. That's the way things work now, right? Anyone who suggests using known antiviral agents that are cheap and safe are smeared as quacks. We cherish our pandemic.

COVID: Also heard on the radio--the dread Michigan "variant" is sweeping across the nation! It's reputed to be 33% more transmissible but "no more" deadly than Covid Classic. "No more", of course, includes the possibility of "less", but that's not the sort of thing that's put out on the "news". The whole thing is, like, Duh! This is exactly the course of development that people who actually know something about respiratory viruses have been confidently predicting for the past year. All these viruses mutate constantly--because that's what viruses do--and those mutations lead to 1) easier transmission but 2) lower risk. It's part of why sensible, responsible public health authorities don't get involved in vast, risky, experiments on the general population via injections of untested substances, when the problem to be addressed has such a low risk to begin with. Natural immunity develops and is preferable. As Dr. Michael Yeadon warns, Do not turn yourself over into the hands of eugenicists bearing supposed "gifts".

UPDATE: Don Surber weighs in on Michigan:

ITEM 6: Axios reported, "Michigan can't vaccinate its way out of a COVID-19 spike, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said at a briefing Monday, during which she called on the state 'to close things down.'

"Why it matters: Michigan's average daily case count has jumped about seven times from a low point in February, per the New York Times. It's a reality check for the nation, CNN writes."

Wait a second.

Michigan has been the most locked down state in the 48 contiguous states. Maybe what it needs is to get everyone outdoors again in the sunshine, and air out all the houses and offices because lockdowns have not worked.

But this is a political appointee providing cover for a power-tripping maniacal Democrat governor.

We cherish our pandemic. Still. Always?