Covid-19 Diary : Thursday 4 November, 2021

The last few days have seen the US official Covid death count pass through the three quarter million mark, the world total death count pass through the five million mark, and we’re within three days of the world total Covid case count reaching 250 million.

These somber milestones have been greeted by commentaries such as offered by this man, blaming 100,000, perhaps 200,000 of the US deaths on unvaccinated people, and going further by claiming that “anti-science aggression” is now a leading cause of death in America.

Rather amusingly, as part of his “leading cause of death” claim, he compares these 100k – 200k dead to death from global terrorism (0 Americans killed by global terrorism in the last long while), nuclear proliferation (0 Americans killed, ever), and cyberattacks (again, 0 Americans killed).

But the underlying concept is of course familiar – people choosing to wrap themselves in the mantle of “science” and claiming that anyone who disagrees with them is either “not following the science” or is “anti-science” or just, simply, incurably idiotic.

But is it really anti-science to look at the skyrocketing number of deaths reported in VAERS since the introduction of Covid vaccines and wonder what is causing that?  Or is it anti-science to ignore those deaths and pretend they either don’t exist or aren’t important?

Is it really anti-science to express concern about third doses of still experimental vaccines being approved on the basis of short-term studies of only several hundred people?  Or is it anti-science to pretend that you only need a brief study, by the vaccine manufacturer rather than by a neutral third party, to support dosing people still further with experimental vaccines?

Is it really anti-science to advocate for ivermectin as an early-stage Covid treatment, and claiming the support of over 100 strongly positive studies for holding that position?  Or is it anti-science to ignore those 100+ studies, many peer-reviewed, and pretend there’s no evidence to support ivermectin use?

Is it really anti-science to express concern when noting how the same people who object to using ivermectin because we don’t know enough about it (decades of use, billions of doses, and over 100 studies) then turn around and enthusiastically endorse a brand new mutagenic drug about which nothing is known, and which has only had one study, by its manufacturer, to support it?

I could continue, but that’s probably enough.  Remember, when people have facts to support their case, they argue the facts.  When they don’t, they resort to attacking the people who disagree with them, because that is all they can do.  It seems to me that Peter Hotez, and his precious professorship, MD, and PhD, is dangerously close to being anti-science himself.

And as for the culpability for some hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, I rest that fairly and squarely at the feet of the “scientific experts” telling us “stay at home until you can’t breathe, and only then ask for treatment” while pretending ivermectin doesn’t help.

Talking about the brand new mutagenic drug (molnupiravir), the UK has become the first nation to approve it for use, although goodness only knows what they’ve used as evidence to support their decision, or how they were able to find evidence to support this new and potentially alarming, massively overpriced drug while not seeing any of the overwhelming body of support for ivermectin.

I realized something this week.  The vaccine manufacturers have two “competitors” that they seek to suppress.  One of those is low-cost treatments such as ivermectin.  And they’re doing a great job of suppressing the scientific truth of that.

The other competitor is natural immunity.  I’d been wondering for a while why we haven’t been giving greater focus to the benefit of natural immunity – that conferred as a result of having suffered a Covid infection.  Although I’ve seen credible studies suggesting that natural immunity is real, beneficial, more resistant to new virus variants, and longer lasting than the vaccines, it seems that “conventional wisdom” either suggests the opposite, or, as a reluctant compromise, concedes some vague benefits from natural immunity while strongly suggesting you should get vaccinated, too.

Indeed, many countries refuse to recognize natural immunity as grounds for allowing you to enter their country.  Those that do accept natural immunity have tended to limit its acceptability to no more than six months.

Now, to be clear, I absolutely am not suggesting that you should deliberately get infected with Covid so as to acquire natural immunity.  No, no, a thousand times no, that would not be a good idea.  But if you have been as unfortunate as to get a Covid infection, do you now have a valuable outcome – natural immunity?

The drug companies say no, because they want to keep pumping as much vaccine into you as possible.  And they’re also ensuring that no-one researches the topic.  Look, for example, at this tweet, matter-of-factly dismissing natural immunity because not enough is known about it.  Shouldn’t we be eagerly researching this, to better understand the benefits we get from natural immunity, and in doing so, better understand the future course of the virus too?

This is what the CDC says on the topic, which, as you can see, is very little, and predictably surrounded by multiple recommendations that everyone should get vaccinated, no matter what.

Call me anti-science if you wish, but it seems to me this is something we should be researching and better understanding.  Maybe research is “anti-science” when you’re trying to sell drugs.

Reader Bruce wrote in to point out he posted a link on Facebook to one of the items in my discussion of the miraculous recovery from Covid in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday (see here if you missed it), and howthe link was automatically tagged with the statement “No evidence suggests a causal link between Ivermectin recommendation and the decline of Covid-19 cases in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh”.

No evidence?  What exactly does Facebook require as evidence, if such a profound transformation in case numbers is considered meaningless?

This is an interesting chart, taken from the UK’s Office for Natural Statistics.  Why are vaccinated people dying at a much greater rate (from all causes, not just the virus) than unvaccinated people in the UK this year?

First, before coming up with possible answers, note how at the start of the year, unvaccinated people were dying much more than vaccinated people.  But over the first few months, as vaccination rates climbed in the UK, this reversed, and for most of the rest of the year, vaccinated people have been dying at twice or more the rate of unvaccinated people.

It has been fairly suggested that, even in this relatively young and healthy age group (10 – 59), vaccinated people tend to be generally less healthy anyway, and that is probably true.  But using this as an explanation is contradicted by the first six or seven weeks when they were dying at a much lower rate.  Something seems to have changed around that time, causing the chart from a clear mortality lead by the unvaccinated, and subsequently, an equally clear lead by the vaccinated.

We really can’t conclude anything from this, because there are too many other possible variables influencing these numbers, but whatever the ultimate explanation, it sure doesn’t look like a great advertisement for vaccinating, does it.

Lastly in the general comments, doctors are becoming “woke”.  Look at these changes in phrasing that the American Medical Association is now advocating doctors should use to describe medical issues.  Do we really want a lecture about critical race theory type issues when discussing diseases?

It was bad enough when doctors tried to ask us if we had firearms at home, now we’re going to have to be barraged by woke social commentaries too.

Current Numbers

The minor country case rate showed Slovenia skyrocketing up from 9th to 6th place, with an extraordinary growth of almost 8,500 new cases per million people in a single week.

No changes in the major country list.

Romania continues to tragically skyrocket up the death rate list at an unprecedented rate.

The most active new case country list shows the high case rate activity to again be concentrated in Europe.  Although Europe as a whole had an average 9% rise, many countries were on the high side of that average (of course), including Austria, top of the list with a 66% rise, the Czech Republic with a 55% rise, and Greece with a 54% rise.  Major rises also occurred in Switzerland (42%), Ireland (36%), Germany (35%), and the Netherlands (33%).  France had a more modest 13% rise in cases.

Falling European countries were most notably Romania, dropping 28% in new cases, Sweden down 13%, and Lithuania down 9%.  The UK dropped 7%.

In North America, Canada had a 5% drop in cases, Mexico was down 21%, and the US had a modest 3% drop.  The world as a whole saw a slight 2% rise in cases.

Top Case Rates Minor Countries (cases per million)

Top Case Rates Major Countries (cases per million)

Top Death Rate Major Countries (deaths per million)

Top Rates in New Cases Reported in the Last Week (new cases per million) for Countries over one million population

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Items below include more implied regulatory capture, the NIH’s strange relationship with EcoHealth Alliance, the most bizarre side-effect yet, does the virus also attack our inner ear, a rethink on mask effectiveness, two examples of the unfair attitude to ivermectin, admiration at the effectiveness of Pfizer’s PR department, what is happening in China and Germany, is it time to reactivate Operation Warp Speed, more on shortages, is snow dangerous, and are windowless dorm rooms the thing of the future.

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Please stay happy and healthy; all going well, I’ll be back again on Sunday.

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