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Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?


Gordo

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Alan, I agree of course I agree on caution and many other reasons, but it is apparent that many people, including the Italian minister of health, contend that this is the foremost global issue presently and this emergency should never stop.

I'm not very concerned about the touted complications and the touted long covid. Maybe I'm wrong, but flu may have complications. Many illnesses have complications. These are not enough to create an eternal state of emergency.

Honestly, I'm far more concerned now about the possibility of an imminent nuclear war that would shed deadly radionuclides all around the atmosphere. 

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6 hours ago, mccoy said:

I'm not very concerned about the touted complications

I think you misunderstood the implications of the message presented earlier.  The message is that COVID causes complications that may put people into hospitals and kill them, so when someone goes into a hospital with, say heart failure, if the COVID caused the heart failure, then the ultimate reason for hospital admission is the COVID that caused the heart failure.  If someone dies because their heart stops as a result of terminal cancer, then their cause of death was not a disease of the heart.  And, a lot of the times, the COVID will tip the balance in a disease to where hospital admission is required for that disease.

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12 hours ago, AlanPater said:

think you misunderstood the implications of the message presented earlier.  The message is that COVID causes complications that may put people into hospitals and kill them, so when someone goes into a hospital with, say heart failure, if the COVID caused the heart failure, then the ultimate reason for hospital admission is the COVID that caused the heart failure.  If someone dies because their heart stops as a result of terminal cancer, then their cause of death was not a disease of the heart.  And, a lot of the times, the COVID will tip the balance in a disease to where hospital admission is required for that disease.

Sorry for having misunderstood but of course, nothing to say about serious complications. Those are really what vaccines should hopefully avoid and they constitute a realistic parameter of public health concern.

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How COVID-19 triggers massive inflammation

the study also finds that antibodies that people develop when they contract COVID-19 can sometimes lead to more inflammation, while antibodies generated by mRNA COVID-19 vaccines seem not to.

"We wanted to understand what distinguishes patients with mild versus severe COVID-19," says Lieberman. "We know that many inflammatory markers are elevated in people with severe disease, and that inflammation is at the root of disease severity, but we hadn't known what triggers the inflammation."

The investigators analyzed fresh blood samples from patients with COVID-19 coming to the emergency department at Massachusetts General Hospital. They compared these with samples from healthy people and patients with other respiratory conditions.

They found that SARS-CoV-2 can infect monocytes — immune cells in the blood that act as "sentinels" or early responders to infection — as well as macrophages, similar immune cells in the lungs. 

The fact that monocyte and macrophages can be infected with SARS-CoV-2 was a surprise, since monocytes don't carry ACE2 receptors, the classic entry portal for the virus, and macrophages have low amounts of ACE2. Lieberman thinks SARS-CoV-2 infection of monocytes might have previously been missed in part because researchers often study frozen blood samples, in which dead cells do not show up.

The fact that monocyte and macrophages can be infected with SARS-CoV-2 was a surprise, since monocytes don't carry ACE2 receptors, the classic entry portal for the virus, and macrophages have low amounts of ACE2. Lieberman thinks SARS-CoV-2 infection of monocytes might have previously been missed in part because researchers often study frozen blood samples, in which dead cells do not show up.

A certain group of monocytes was especially likely to be infected: those carrying a receptor called CD16. These "non-classical" monocytes make up only about 10 percent of all monocytes, but their numbers were increased in patients with COVID-19, the researchers found. They were also more likely to be infected: about half were infected, as compared with none of the classical blood monocytes.

The CD16 receptor appears to recognize antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The researchers believe these antibodies may actually facilitate infection of monocytes carrying the receptor.

when the team studied healthy patients who had received mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, the antibodies they developed did not appear to facilitate infection.

Lieberman and her colleagues believe these findings may have implications for using monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID-19, helping to explain why the treatment works only when given early.

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Anti-inflammatory potential of Quercetin in COVID-19 treatment

SARS-CoV-2 is a betacoronavirus causing severe inflammatory pneumonia, so that excessive inflammation is considered a risk factor for the disease. According to reports, cytokine storm is strongly responsible for death in such patients. Some of the consequences of severe inflammation and cytokine storms include acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute lung injury, and multiple organ dysfunction syndromes. Phylogenetic findings show more similarity of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with bat coronaviruses, and less with SARS-CoV. Quercetin is a carbohydrate-free flavonoid that is the most abundant flavonoid in vegetables and fruits and has been the most studied to determine the biological effects of flavonoids. Inflammasomes are cytosolic multi-protein complexes assembling in response to cytosolic PAMP and DAMPs, whose function is to generate active forms of cytokines IL-1β and IL-18. Activation or inhibition of the NLRP3 inflammasome is affected by regulators such as TXNIP, SIRT1 and NRF2. Quercetin suppresses the NLRP3 inflammasome by affecting these regulators. Quercetin, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, analgesic and inflammatory compound, is probably a potential treatment for severe inflammation and one of the main life-threatening conditions in patients with COVID-19.

https://journal-inflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12950-021-00268-6

Potential Clinical Benefits of Quercetin in the Early Stage of COVID-19: Results of a Second, Pilot, Randomized, Controlled and Open-Label Clinical Trial

Results
The interim results reveal that after 1 week of treatment, 16 patients of the QP group were tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 and 12 patients had all their symptoms diminished; in the SC group, 2 patients were tested SARS-CoV-2 negative and 4 patients had their symptoms partially improved. By 2 weeks, the remaining 5 patients of the QP group tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, whereas in the SC group out of 19 remaining patients, 17 tested negatives by week 2, one tested negative by week 3 and one patient, still positive, expired by day 20. Concerning blood parameters, the add on therapy with QP, reduced LDH (−35.5%), Ferritin (−40%), CRP (−54.8%) and D-dimer (−11.9%).

Conclusion
QP statistically shortens the timing of molecular test conversion from positive to negative, reducing at the same time symptoms severity and negative predictors of COVID-19.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8238537/

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Shanghai residents question human cost of China's COVID quarantines

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Lu, 99, was a long-time resident at Shanghai's Donghai Elderly Care hospital, her loved ones secure that she was getting round-the-clock care at the city's largest such centre.

That was before COVID-19 struck China's biggest city last month, the country's worst outbreak since the virus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, infecting multiple patients, doctors and care workers at the 1,800-bed facility.

FILE PHOTO: COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai

Orderlies posted cries for help on social media, saying they were overwhelmed. Relatives told Reuters that there had been several deaths.

 

Lu, whose relatives asked that she be identified only by her surname, had coronary heart disease and high blood pressure. She caught COVID and, though she had no symptoms, was being transferred to an isolation facility, her family was told on March 25.

FILE PHOTO: COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai© Reuters/ALY SONG FILE PHOTO: COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai

    She died there seven days later, the cause of death listed as her underlying medical conditions, her granddaughter said.

Among the questions she has about Lu's final days was why elderly patients had to be quarantined separately, away from the care workers most familiar with their conditions under China's quarantine rules.

Her frustrations reflect those of many with China's no-tolerance COVID policy. Everyone testing positive must quarantine in specialised isolation sites, whether they show symptoms or not.

Shanghai has become a test case for the country's strict policy. Home quarantine is not an option and, until public outrage prompted a change, Shanghai was separating COVID-positive children from their parents.

From March 1 to April 9, China's financial hub reported some 180,000 locally transmitted infections, 96% of which were asymptomatic. It reported no deaths for the period.

A Donghai staffer who answered the phone on Sunday declined to answer questions, directing Reuters to another department, which did not respond to repeated calls.

Asked for comment, the Shanghai government sent a local media report with a first-person account of life at one of the quarantine centres. The unidentified author said he wanted to dispel fears that such sites were terrible, saying he received ample meals and medicine but recommending people bring earplugs and eye masks.

 

Video: China sees highest COVID cases since Wuhan (Reuters)

 
 
Play Video
China sees highest COVID cases since Wuhan
 

The authorities did not offer further comment.

The United States has raised concerns about China's COVID approach, advising its citizens on Friday to reconsider travel to China "due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws and COVID-19 restrictions." Beijing dismissed the U.S. concerns as "groundless accusations".

    'DIDN'T DARE BELIEVE IT'

When Lu was being quarantined, the family asked, "Who is going to care for her? Will there be care workers, doctors?," her granddaughter said. "My grandmother is not someone who can live independently.

"If the care worker had COVID and no symptoms, why couldn't they stay together?," she said. "The chaos and tragedies happening in Shanghai this time really boil down to cruel policies."

A relative of Donghai patient Shen Peiying, who gave his surname as Qiu, said he believes the quarantine policy contributed to the April 3 death of the bedridden 72-year-old.

She had not caught COVID, he said, citing test records he saw on China's health app. After weeks of little communication, staff rang to say Shen had died from a chest infection.

Qiu has refused to consent to her cremation, citing such unanswered questions as what care she received after her regular care worker was quarantined.

"If they were all in quarantine, who was there to take care of the patients?," Qiu said.

Shanghai is doubling down on the quarantine policy, converting schools, recently finished apartment blocks and vast exhibition halls into centres, the largest of which can hold 50,000 people. Authorities said last week they have set up over 60 such facilities.

    These steps, including sending patients to quarantine sites in neighbouring provinces, have been greeted by the public with a mixture of awe at their speed and horror over conditions, prompting some Shanghai residents to call for home quarantine to be allowed.

While Chinese state media has shown hospitals with just two or three patients per room, patients like those sent to Shanghai's giant exhibition centres say they live side by side with thousands of strangers, without walls or showers and with ceiling lights on at all hours.

    Videos on Chinese social media have shown hastily converted quarantine sites, including a ramshackle vacant factory where a number of camping beds were placed, a site made out of shipping containers and a school with a poster saying blankets and hot water were not available.

A source verified the first video. Reuters could not independently verify the others.

    Management of such sites has been a concern.

    One viral video last week showed patients at a site called the Nanhui makeshift hospital fighting for supplies. Reuters could not reach the facility on Sunday for comment.

Among those posting on social media was Shanghai resident Li Tong, who asked for help after his wife was sent there. He said things got better when more staff arrived to organise the patients but that he was shocked by what the videos showed and what his wife told him.

"I didn't dare believe it, that Shanghai in 2022 could be like this," he said.

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12 hours ago, mccoy said:

That's where our western governments took example from...👿👿

Yep. And it took a life of its own, turning established public health science on its head and politicizing it to an extent unseen since the early days of the USSR.

The video below is a great discussion of the currents in the last couple of years, with the first part focussing on the unprecedented in recent times censorship and then touches on broader subjects, including the crazy fear, how healthy people ended up being locked up, and masked:
 

 

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1 hour ago, Ron Put said:

Yep. And it took a life of its own, turning established public health science on its head and politicizing it to an extent unseen since the early days of the USSR.

Virologists with credentials (here I refer to the popular podcast from professor Racaniello of Columbia) believe that what happened in the CDC is that the administrative, bureaucratic public health officials took over the more scientifically minded doctors, creating the demential chaos we have unfortunately experienced.

It is a fact that other western agencies (like Canada, Italy and more) just parroted the unreasonable, scientifically wrong CDC guidelines. And virologists in Italy sort of seemed annoyed that the war in Ukraine totally took over the public interests, depriving them of media interviews (now the most interviewed experts are those dealing with geopolitics, military strategy, generals and so on...) It has been a ludicrous situation indeed.

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Zinc in a good diet appears to be helpful, at least in vitro.

Common dietary supplements could protect against COVID, common winter illnesses

We have known for years that food supplements containing zinc can enhance immunity to severe, viral and chronic infections and their potentially grave consequences.

The researchers found that the consumption of zinc alone achieves a relatively low cellular content. To enhance the effect, they combined the zinc with flavonoids—polyphenolic compounds found in many fruits and vegetables. They also added copper in order to prevent an ionic imbalance and improve the treatment's effectiveness.

Such a product will be safe, natural, and effective against several types of viruses, including new mutations and variants

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On 4/12/2022 at 2:07 PM, mccoy said:

Virologists with credentials (here I refer to the popular podcast from professor Racaniello of Columbia) believe that what happened in the CDC is that the administrative, bureaucratic public health officials took over the more scientifically minded doctors, creating the demential chaos we have unfortunately experienced.

It is a fact that other western agencies (like Canada, Italy and more) just parroted the unreasonable, scientifically wrong CDC guidelines. And virologists in Italy sort of seemed annoyed that the war in Ukraine totally took over the public interests, depriving them of media interviews (now the most interviewed experts are those dealing with geopolitics, military strategy, generals and so on...) It has been a ludicrous situation indeed.

Yes. It is a stark example of how fragile democracy is and how easily it can be dismantled by populists. Fear and "enemies" have been a traditional tool of autocrats, and Covid and Trump provided both, aided by most of the media and social media censorship. In a way,

Putin not only united Ukraine for the first time in centuries but also woke up the Western democracies. I hope the woke slumber fades for good, or we'll live to see the demise of the liberal democracies, and the return of the default authoritarian political rule mode predominant for most of human history.

Oh, they just extended the mask transportation rules, even though the evidence for their effectiveness is dubious, at best. Now "The Science" says that we have always been at war with Oceania, and nobody remembers otherwise...

 

1 hour ago, corybroo said:

We have known for years that food supplements containing zinc can enhance immunity to severe, viral and chronic infections and their potentially grave consequences.

Excessive zinc supplementation can be dangerous to your health

 

Edited by Ron Put
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Protection by a Fourth Dose of BNT162b2 against Omicron in Israel
Yinon M. Bar-On, M.Sc., Yair Goldberg, Ph.D., Micha Mandel, Ph.D., Omri Bodenheimer, M.Sc., Ofra Amir, Ph.D., Laurence Freedman, Ph.D., Sharon Alroy-Preis, M.D., Nachman Ash, M.D., Amit Huppert, Ph.D., and Ron Milo, Ph.D.
NEJM April 5, 2022
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2201570
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2201570
Abstract
Background
On January 2, 2022, Israel began administering a fourth dose of BNT162b2 vaccine to persons 60 years of age or older. Data are needed regarding the effect of the fourth dose on rates of confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Methods
Using the Israeli Ministry of Health database, we extracted data on 1,252,331 persons who were 60 years of age or older and eligible for the fourth dose during a period in which the B.1.1.529 (omicron) variant of SARS-CoV-2 was predominant (January 10 through March 2, 2022). We estimated the rate of confirmed infection and severe Covid-19 as a function of time starting at 8 days after receipt of a fourth dose (four-dose groups) as compared with that among persons who had received only three doses (three-dose group) and among persons who had received a fourth dose 3 to 7 days earlier (internal control group). For the estimation of rates, we used quasi-Poisson regression with adjustment for age, sex, demographic group, and calendar day.
Results
The number of cases of severe Covid-19 per 100,000 person-days (unadjusted rate) was 1.5 in the aggregated four-dose groups, 3.9 in the three-dose group, and 4.2 in the internal control group. In the quasi-Poisson analysis, the adjusted rate of severe Covid-19 in the fourth week after receipt of the fourth dose was lower than that in the three-dose group by a factor of 3.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.7 to 4.6) and was lower than that in the internal control group by a factor of 2.3 (95% CI, 1.7 to 3.3). Protection against severe illness did not wane during the 6 weeks after receipt of the fourth dose. The number of cases of confirmed infection per 100,000 person-days (unadjusted rate) was 177 in the aggregated four-dose groups, 361 in the three-dose group, and 388 in the internal control group. In the quasi-Poisson analysis, the adjusted rate of confirmed infection in the fourth week after receipt of the fourth dose was lower than that in the three-dose group by a factor of 2.0 (95% CI, 1.9 to 2.1) and was lower than that in the internal control group by a factor of 1.8 (95% CI, 1.7 to 1.9). However, this protection waned in later weeks.
Conclusions
Rates of confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe Covid-19 were lower after a fourth dose of BNT162b2 vaccine than after only three doses. Protection against confirmed infection appeared short-lived, whereas protection against severe illness did not wane during the study period.

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1 hour ago, AlanPater said:

We estimated the rate of confirmed infection and severe Covid-19 as a function of time starting at 8 days after receipt of a fourth dose (four-dose groups) as compared with that among persons who had received only three doses (three-dose group) and among persons who had received a fourth dose 3 to 7 days earlier (internal control group).

...

the adjusted rate of confirmed infection in the fourth week after receipt of the fourth dose was lower than that in the three-dose group by a factor of 2.0 (95% CI, 1.9 to 2.1) and was lower than that in the internal control group by a factor of 1.8 (95% CI, 1.7 to 1.9). However, this protection waned in later weeks.

Thanks Al!  That is the most horrific finding I have seen yet of how fast these vaccines lose effectiveness. 

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12 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

Thanks Al!  That is the most horrific finding I have seen yet of how fast these vaccines lose effectiveness. 

The Omicron variant is so mild that for most is effectively the equivalent of a mild cold, if they develop symptoms at all.

The only reason we are even talking about it is the absurd mass testing still going on, which of course drives the number of "infections." As Stanford's Michael Levitt noted at the beginning, if we did such mass testing for the flu, we would likely have a similar number of infections and a similar number of deaths in bad seasons. And this point this has nothing to do with science, but with vested interests, money, and fear-driven stupidity/conformity. And politics, of course.

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I don't know if Queen Mary University's Norman Fenton's statistical analysis has been posted here before, but I think it's rather important that it'd be included in the discussion, as he makes some good points.

One may agree or disagree on the merit, but the fact that he was permanently banned from You YouTube and most other common public square venues is reprehensible and is dangerous to our society and democracy.

https://rumble.com/embed/vrbbxv/?pub=eqnlt

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12 hours ago, Ron Put said:

if we did such mass testing for the flu, we would likely have a similar number of infections and a similar number of deaths in bad seasons.

Leading Causes of Death

Data are for the U.S.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death
  • Heart disease: 696,962
  • Cancer: 602,350
  • COVID-19: 350,831
  • Accidents (unintentional injuries): 200,955
  • Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 160,264
  • Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 152,657
  • Alzheimer’s disease: 134,242
  • Diabetes: 102,188
  • Influenza and pneumonia: 53,544
  • Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 52,547

Source: Mortality in the United States, 2020, data table for figure 4

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12 hours ago, Ron Put said:

And this point this has nothing to do with science, but with vested interests, money, and fear-driven stupidity/conformity. And politics, of course.

Ron, you saw this sooner and called it out more accurately than anyone else here.  I was perhaps your harshest critic especially in the spring of 2020 when I wanted to believe early failings of government and institutional responses were due to incompetence and I was triggered by your framing it all as malfeasance of "the left" despite my disdain for the Democratic party and everything aligned with them.  

Here's an article I largely agree with placing much blame on the malfeasance and corruption of the left which doesn't trigger me at all: 

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/left-covid-lockdowns-mind-autopsy/

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3 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

Here's an article I largely agree with placing much blame on the malfeasance and corruption of the left which doesn't trigger me at all: 

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/left-covid-lockdowns-mind-autopsy/

The same Grayzone that brought you:

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1 hour ago, AlanPater said:

The same Grayzone that brought you:

Indeed it is!  You should read some of those stories before flippant dismissal.   Their journalistic standards are high and quite rare in this time of so many news outlets being beholden to corporate interests.

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8 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

Ron, you saw this sooner and called it out more accurately than anyone else here.  I was perhaps your harshest critic especially in the spring of 2020 when I wanted to believe early failings of government and institutional responses were due to incompetence and I was triggered by your framing it all as malfeasance of "the left" despite my disdain for the Democratic party and everything aligned with them.  

At the beginning, I still believe Ron exhibited a little too much dismissal. After all, it was an unknown virus and people, in some places, were dying in large amounts, especially the elderly. The evidence was that the hospitals were packed and many states were not prepared. Surely not Italy. Such fatalities on a large scale were unseen before, that I remember, no simple flu here.

Then, the issue became political and not scientific. Nothing bad with it, since it has been a social issue. The politicians though, as it is far too usual, started heeding the people who said the things they wanted to hear, or doing things which did not respect exactly what the scientific committees suggested. Then agencies like the CDC complied to political requests rather than insisting on scientific evidence.

When they made the booster dose mandatory, then it was clear that the situation had completely degenerated (as it is recognized by common sense scientific knowledge).

Presently I fully agree with Ron.

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8 hours ago, mccoy said:

At the beginning, I still believe Ron exhibited a little too much dismissal. After all, it was an unknown virus and people, in some places, were dying in large amounts, especially the elderly.

That was my point of view then.  But for more than a year I have wondered how many of those deaths were truly due to this new virus?  It has been very widely acknowledged that guidelines for counting Covid-19 deaths conflated those dying with Covid-19 and those dying from Covid-19 which may have inflated death statistics by a factor of 10 or more.  "With Covid-19" was determined by highly flawed PCR testing with too high cycle counts while traditional means of diagnosis such as analyzing symptoms were eschewed.  Also how many of the deaths actually caused by Covid-19 might have been avoided if not for so many idiotic policies?  For example, failing to protect the most vulnerable such as in retirement communities, over reliance on ventilators, using drugs with dodgy evidence of benefit like Remdesivir, not treating early symptoms of breathing impairment and inflammatoin, silencing and revoking licenses of doctors who were saving patients by not following institutional treatment guidelines, discounting health promoting lifestyle practices of diet, exercise, stress management,  vitamin D supplementation, etc.  Read the article I posted for a much longer, more detailed and well referenced list of the ways the pandemic was made worse than it might have been.

Edited by Todd Allen
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On 4/17/2022 at 9:52 AM, AlanPater said:

Number of deaths for leading causes of death

As Todd already notes, there are some valid questions about the death count that need to be answered before we accept the CDC tally. Let me add my grain of salt.

The politicization and weaponization of COVID against political opponents (in the US, by the Left against Trump) created an environment where established guidelines and practices were dramatically changed or completely reversed based on hysterical media coverage and Twitter mob sentiment. Public policy was suddenly driven by politics, fear, and unprecedented suppression of scientific and public debate.

Dissenting voices by reputable scientists were attacked at a personal level and careers were destroyed. Attending physicians were disciplined and deplatformed for even discussing possible off-label treatments with otherwise long-used and safe drugs. Cuomo and Newsom, the first in the US to break with established practice and follow China, were hailed as the "True Leaders" by the media and the Left, for suspending basic rights, imposing mask mandates, and crashing the economy. While looking at the 2020 death numbers, we should remember that the definitions of "infection rates" and "death rates" were fundamentally changed at the beginning of the epidemic. Here are some of the problems I see:

1 - The CDC changed guidelines for the certification of COVID-19 deaths in April of 2020,. Mass PCR testing was already having an enormous impact, and adding postmortem test recommendations exacerbated the problem.  And politically-motivated local authorities in places like NY retroactively added the "maybe" COVID dead to the rolls. These changes were unprecedented in the middle of an epidemic and completely broke with established practices, not only increasing the number of "COVID deaths" but also making it impossible to compare with past epidemics.

2 - PCR testing, arguably unsuitable for the purpose, was broadly mandated regardless of the presentation of symptoms. Such testing, done on such a massive scale was a complete departure from established practice norms, and the CDC recommended 42+ cycle tests, now widely acknowledged as ridiculous. But it did serve the purpose of driving up the number of "COVID deaths," as well as spawning a rapidly expanding COVID testing industry that still refuses to die, costing us all billions.

3. The CARES Act perverse financial incentives rewarding providers with a 20% additional reimbursement for a COVID diagnosis likely increased the number of COVID deaths such providers certified. In addition, the HHS allotted $10 Billion for hospitals in "high impacted areas" and California got an additional $50000 per diagnosed COVID patient. They even added $9000 of Federal funeral reimbursement for all COVID deaths.

4. Perhaps most important were the lockdowns and the fear, driven by politicians, bureaucrats, and the legacy and social media, which resulted in an unprecedented drop in emergency and hospital visits by the most vulnerable. The Spring and Summer of 2020 saw a 40% drop in emergency room visits, almost certainly resulting in a significant number of unnecessary deaths, many chalked up as "COVID deaths."

We desperately need a postmortem of the public policies of the last two years to ensure that we never allow the same mistakes to be made again. Unfortunately, just like with the Wuhan lab, bureaucratic cover-up, political biases and media biases, and the threat to vested interests will make it unlikely that we will know the truth, at least within our lifetime.

P.S. @AP: You really should stop attacking the platform or the author, instead of addressing the argument. It's silly, immature, and contributes nothing to the discussion.

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McCoy, Todd and Ron, if you put as much effort into how COVID may have been worse than numbers indicate instead of looking under all the rocks for things that may have been exaggerated about how bad it has been, I am very confident that the balance would be that there was much more value in the actual course of events than in what you may have wanted done instead.  I will admit that they really should have taken better care of care homes, a mistake that should have been avoided considering their experience with other infectious diseases in these homes.

I got my second booster, fourth Pfizer vaccination to counter COVID-19 and its effects, and it was the same injection site pain as the first booster, not bad, but about a day and a half.  My wife had wide spread aches in bones the first night and night sweat the second after her similar second booster Friday, but she had had COVID early in the epidemic.

Edited by AlanPater
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3 hours ago, AlanPater said:

McCoy, Todd and Ron, if you put as much effort into how COVID may have been worse than numbers indicate instead of looking under all the rocks for things that may have been exaggerated about how bad it has been,

AP, you appear to be under the impression that all who question the numbers and the policies do it because of ideology and this is why they "put so much effort."

These are all valid questions, even if you repeatedly refuse to acknowledge it. It is not ideology, it's in fact reasonably informed opinion based on available evidence.

It's not a matter of religious beliefs, yet the Left actively and with religious zeal suppressed open discussion, and persecuted and destroyed those who raised questions and expressed different opinions. This is unprecedented and it should greatly trouble anyone who is not an ideologue or a true believer, regardless on which side of what should have been a reasoned debate they fall.

Edited by Ron Put
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