An article in the British Medical Journal entitled Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity? by Peter Doshi, an associate editor of the Journal, presents evidence of the existence of widespread pre-existent immunity to Covid-19.
In particular, the evidence suggests that something like 60% of the population in many countries have Covid-19 reactive T-cells that facilitate an effective antibody response to the Corona virus. Thus, whereas only a small proportion of the population in most countries test positive for Covid-19 antibodies, a majority may have a T-cell dependent capacity to develop an effective antibody response to Covid-19 such that they remain either asymptomatic after infection or suffer only a mild illness.
If that is correct, it means that Covid-19 is not a mortal threat to the majority of the population, and therefore, the correct response to the virus would have been to protect only those with a pre-existent condition, particularly old age, obesity, or heart or respiratory disease that makes them vulnerable to serious illness or death due to Covid-19. The rest of the population, which is to say the vast majority, should have been left free to go about their business. Further, it indicates that Sweden's courageous refusal to be bullied the the World Health Organization into shuttering its economy was the correct response and nearly every other Western country got it wrong.
| I posted the above comment at the Unz Review, at the end of a long thread responding to an article by Ron Unz in which he accuses the New York Times and The Atlantic of failing to provide coverage of investigative journalism relating to Covid-19. However, my comment failed to pass the Unz Review censor, indicating that Unz cannot tolerate even mainstream medical journal commentary relating to Covid-19 where it deviates from his conviction that the virus represents an existential risk to all and sundry. |
Quote: Because of the high false positive rate (of the RT PCR test) and the low prevalence (of the Covid-19 virus), almost every positive test, a so-called case, identified by Pillar 2 since May of this year has been a FALSE POSITIVE. |
The number of false positives is one thing, but the calling of positive tests, false or not, cases is another altogether. That Dr. Kendrick you linked to yesterday had it exactly right. The media has been trumpeting increases in positive test results as increases in cases as if a positive test result constituted a case in correct medical terminology, which it certainly does not. The media and the people in charge aren't simply making a terminological error. They are dirty, stinking rotten liars and charlatons.
ReplyDeleteJust yesterday, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner front page headline was "94 new cases in Alaska." This probably sent shivers down spines of the people who are duped...Just as intended.
"Sep 4, 2020 - Experts warn U.S. covid-19 deaths could more than double by year's ... by year's end [to 410,00], with an additional 1.9 million [worldwide] deaths, while a fall wave of ..."
The quote is from the Washington Post, but I could not access the full article due to Bezos-owned WP's new requirement I subscribe. Though there was an offer of a one month trial subscription I could cancel at any time, I had to decline. (Yet another example of how slowly but surely the advantages of the open internet are closing down and will become more and more expensive.)
A long time ago I posted a link to a YouTube clip of a Congress woman from Texas who claimed the second wave hitting Texas required the return of extra tractor trailer freezer cars to deal with the excess corpses. A complete and utter and despicable lie. (Imagine if it was an honest error and the Congress woman had the kind of honor we would supposedly expect from someone American voters had chosen to represent them in their federal government. Surely, then, we would have a most tearful and remorseful recantation and apology. Have we seen one from any of these beasts?)
The fakeness of the rising "second wave" story (cf the Lockdown Skeptics link that I referred to at the end of the post above), does weaken the idea that Covid19 was let loose by one power or another to destabilize a rival.
DeleteRather it seems the pandemic, plandemic, scamdemic, whatever, is being hyped by the Western powers as a means to shrink the economy. Which raises the question: why? Maybe it is simply the beginning of the end for the useless eaters, the mass man who no longer has a useful function either to operate important parts of the industrial machine, or to lay down his life in wars of mass mobilization.
Rather the masses are, to the globalist billionaires and their technocratic servants, mere useless baggage, consuming needlessly, overcrowding airports, and spoiling the world's best beaches.
What to do? Create a Covid depression. Unemployment rises, those whose labor is still required can work at home,saving the employer the cost of office space, and ultimately justifying lower wages as commuting costs and big city living costs are eliminated.
As for those who find in due course that their newly acquired unemployed status has become permanent, there will be a government provided basic minimum income. To the unambitious, this will seem like a benefit, better than working, while it will place them totally at the mercy of their globalist keepers.
Meantime, fertility rates will continue to be driven down with free condoms, free porn and ever rising single family home prices, and the promotion of national self-hatred by way of operations such as BLM.
The lies, damn lies, and health statistics link is excellent. If these sorts of guys aren't the credible ones, I really do belong in a strait-jacket in a padded cell.
DeleteI meant to add that the 410,000 number was determined by modelling.
ReplyDeleteFool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I wasn't fooled the first time, but how did we get to a mass shame level of "fool me each and every time"?
Michael P. Senger has been posting on Twitter since July an argument, backed by a good deal of evidence, that this is a scam by the Chinese government to destroy the economies of Western countries and India. I wish he would have written an actual article with his claims and not made them on tweets, but you can google "Michael P Senger COVID China" and get the tweets.
ReplyDeleteThe core of the case is tons of Chinese created social media bots on, well, social media and particularly politicians' feeds advocating lockdowns.
I'm not sold on this, mainly because its clear the Western politicians and their wealthy backers want the lockdowns and don't need prompting from China. It seems there was a longstanding plan to switch from the globalization facade to a more openly dictatorial model of governance, and a pandemic was seized on at the last minute as the cover. They would have made an arrangement with the People's Republic of China to initiate the scam and provide the muscle. Senger himself pointed out that if this was completely "made in China" western intel agencies would have clued in the elites on what was happening, unless the elites were already corrupted.
My first thought on the Corona virus was that it would have important and, depending on one's point of view, beneficial demographic consequences for aging nations by wiping out most of currently large population of unproductive old people. I further suggested that the release of the virus could have been a joint US-China project, since both nations have aging populations.
DeleteAs it turned out, the virus proved to be less deadly than at first was widely believed, therefore, its release, if the result of deliberate action, could not have been intended to change the demographic profile of the world.
Therefore, if the virus was released as an agent of social change, its effect was likely intended to be achieved chiefly through its psychological impact. This is consistent with the evident hyping of the threat the virus poses. Moreover, we see now the hype going into high gear just as the epidemic, as measured in terms of deaths is virtually over. Thus, today at Bourque.org, the chief heading reads: "IS COVID OUT OF CONTROL?" that accompanied by a histogram showing an ominous "second wave" of "cases." However, if looking at the record of Covid deaths, one sees that the epidemic in Canada is virtually over, with the daily death toll down from a peak of over 200, to mostly single digits including a zero on some days.
The important question now, therefore, is how will the Western economies be reshaped while populations remain terrorized.
"The important question now, therefore, is how will the Western economies be reshaped while populations remain terrorized."
ReplyDeleteThat's indeed the important question.
A clue to the answer is in part in the question: if the western economies were to be reshaped in a manner and to an end the population would favor, terrorizing the public would not be required.
"As for those who find in due course that their newly acquired unemployed status has become permanent, there will be a government provided basic minimum income. To the unambitious, this will seem like a benefit, better than working, while it will place them totally at the mercy of their globalist keepers."
Yes, I suspect this is correct. The goal has always been this complete control of global populations by globalist keepers.
It might be under the new economic and political regime the material conditions will not be terrible, as they are not terrible in China. (I believe everything will be modeled according to what we already see in China.) They get better and better in China, too.
A sticking point on optimism, even of optimism about material conditions, has been this notion I learned in grade school, "Power corrupts...Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Perhaps this also is not true, just as so much of what I learned in grade school (beyond basic literacy and math skill) has proven unreliable. Yet I do observe corroborative evidence in my own readings of history. There are various informal checks and balances on power written into the social fabric of traditional societies, including feudalistic or aristocratic western ones, which, when frayed or weakened result in despotism and destruction. The modern Constitutional states were an attempt to formalize these. The U.S. Constitution contains quite a few explicit prohibitions of specific abuses observed during English history and English domination of the colonies, especially, I think, in Article III. But this was essentially a gambit or experiment on the part of eighteenth century framers-- to not only preserve traditional freedoms, but to progress and protect further in freedoms. Nearly every American understood the Constitution was a bold line in the sand crossing over which would result in dire consequences for American society. Unfortunately, the line was crossed repeatedly, and in our own time with increasing momentum. So the gambit or experiment failed. Nothing now but to endure despotism and whatever this despotism will determine.
BTW: Notice the significance of the information in this post as to the idea Korea's test, trace, and contain response to the virus was effective, and America's poorly coordinated test, trace, and contain compares so poorly...This becomes a condemnation of America and the Trump Administration. However, if the tests are yielding 90% false positives, among other deficiencies too numerous to list, Korea's test, trace, and contain strategy can't have been responsible for Korea's superior performance. Perhaps Korea's leaders aren't as divided and avaricious as America's?
Re: Korea's test and trace system, it is possible they have a better test. It is more than 50 years since I did anything with nucleic acids, but I understand from those more recently in the business that the RT_PCR test is a tricky thing that has to be skillfully optimized if it is to be at all reliable. In the world of research, the Koreans are, in my admittedly limited experience, among the smartest people around. Quite possibly, therefore, when their test indicates a positive, the probability is that a real positive has been identified.
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DeleteRe: The important question
You outdo me in pessimism -- justifiably, I think.
More than 100 years ago, the working people of Britain obtained their first Parliamentary representative, and by 1923 the Labour Party, the party of the working class, formed the government of Britain. But nothing of that kind could happen in a Western democracy today. Then, working men of intelligence had many avenues for educational advancement, and that education, whether achieved by way of grammar school and a scholarship to Oxford University or such organizations as the Workers' Education Association, was identical in content to that received by children of the ruling class. Thus the working class were represented by people, nearly all men, who though they may have been sons of coal miners or chamber maids, understood politics, philosophy and economics as well as the son of a duke or millionaire. But today, the "education system" has become a channel for ruling elite brainwashing, while social media reinforce the propaganda or merely distract to the point of imbecility. Hence, there is no longer any possibility of an informed, or therefore, effective, people's opposition to plutocratic authority. Instead, what people hear is mostly of a kind with the drivel spouted by Harry and Meghan.
I have to admit I hadn't considered the effect of poorly performing or poorly prepared personnel administering a standardized RT-PCR on the number of false positives of that test.
Delete[COVID-19 PANDEMIC] S. KOREA’S COVID-19 TESTING METHOD CERTIFIED AS INTERNATIONAL STANDARD
5,349 views•Apr 9, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6n2xRztIPM
S.K.'s RT-PCR has been accepted as the international standard (Draft International Standard) by the International Standard Organization (ISO).
I have a lot of questions about what's going on with this.
First, so many professional medical researchers, including, if reports are correct, the Nobel-prizing winning creator of the RT-PCR, thought it was appropriately used as a diagnostic tool for detecting corona virus. It is a research tool!
The lies, damned lies, and health statistics article, Dr. Michael Yeadon, listed a number of problems with the technique of RT-PCR as a diagnostic device and led me to believe the potential number of false positives were inherent to defects of RT-PCR as a diagnostic tool.
He did make exactly the point you make in stating,"... astonished [RT-PCR is used diagnostically] because it is a very exacting technique, prone to invisible errors and it’s quite a tall order to get reliable information out of it." But adds, "especially because of the prodigious amounts of amplification involved in attempting to pick up a strand of viral genetic code" and "The test cannot distinguish between a living virus and a short strand of RNA from a virus which broke into pieces weeks or months ago."
Dr. Yeadon considered the Covid-19 corona virus a low prevalence virus. Did you see that? It is low prevalence and the false positive rate of the RT-PCR together making him conclude nearly all the positives since May are false positives. (I think his point is by May the virus became low prevalence. I haven't had a chance to read Prof Carl Heneghan’s accounts to see if it is more clear on this.)
I want to read the ISO-approved DIS for this RT-PCR, especially on the matter of false positives.
I want to find out if the U.S. tests kits manufactured in the U.S. conform to the DIS. Do the ones from China?
I want to find out how many of the test kits used in the US were manufactured in South Korea, and if the number declined, increased, or remained the same during the six months of the lock down so far. If the US began using inferior kits more and more, that could be another factor in the increasing "case" numbers versus declining deaths.
It's great the South Koreans have advanced so rapidly in so many areas (including the manufacture of automobiles)! They undoubtedly deserve immense credit. I can't help wincing, though. The U.S., on the other hand, deserves a decline and loss in its role as world leader as it slips in such key areas as research. I am simply not convinced the slip in key areas is due to Americans being particularly lazy. That is not my experience. Nor are they particularly stupid. Ignorant? Yes, and to some extent they can be said at least to have allowed this be done to them, and then their children. Their betrayal by their elites also played a very significant role here.
inappropriately used as a diagnostic tool for detecting corona virus. It is a research tool!
ReplyDeleteThis ill-informed New York Times article* acknowledges that the RT PCR test can generate at least ten times as many false positives as true positives yet advocates more testing. LOL. And the replication cycle threshold that they blather on about is merely one of a number of factors that affect the reliability, or rather unreliability, of this test.
DeleteThis article by an analytical lab manager notes some of the other problems. These are the things that genius morons like Ron Unz know zip all about and cause them to write drivel, just like the writers at the NY Times.
The real measure of the stage of the epidemic is the death rate. The death rate in the US, Canada, Britain, Sweden, and most other places has now dropped to a small fraction of the peak rate. Covid19 is no longer generating significant excess deaths. What that means in plain language is that the pandemic is over. Yes, Covid19 is still around and may continue to come around year after year, but a combination of antibody and T-Cell immunity means that in most places herd immunity has been reached.
* I hadn't realized until reading this that the NY Times, the public information gold standard it would seem for for people like Ron Unz, is a totally crap publication written by ignoramuses to lazy to find reliable sources and inform themselves accurately about what they write.
The New York Times was actually a pretty good newspaper in the 1980s. became a crappy newspaper that sometimes published good articles in the 1990s and 00s, and after about 2010 became totally useless. They heavily promoted the Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction" scam and later admitted to it. I'm surprised there are still people who take the newspaper seriously. Of course this is true of all newspapers and the real reason for declining newspaper revenue.
DeleteYes, the NY Times went from publishing Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers 1971-- that is real information on American war crimes in Vietnam, to Judith Miller's war-justifying lies about Saddam's aluminum tubes in 2002.
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