Tag: covid-19

52 Charts Show Mask Mandates Have No Effect on COVID Cases

There is hardly a more divisive issue in the country than mask mandates. Interestingly, the nation is split in half on the issue: half the states currently have mask mandates; the other half doesn’t.

This article is a statistical overview that is going to do something that experts and most of the mainstream media refuse to do: Assume you can look at the data and come to your own conclusions.

It is important to note that this study is not about mask compliance. It is about mask mandates. The following chart of mask compliance in the United States in 2020 comes via the New York Times. It bears out that mask mandates and compliance are two different concepts.

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Classified study found COVID-19 could have originated in Chinese lab

A classified study of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 conducted a year ago by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Department of Energy’s premier biodefense research institution, concluded the novel coronavirus at the heart of the current pandemic may have originated in a laboratory in China, Sinclair has learned.

Researchers at Livermore’s “Z Division,” the lab’s intelligence unit, issued the report May 27, 2020, classified “Top Secret.” Its existence is previously undisclosed. The Z Division report assessed that both the lab-origin theory and the zoonotic theory were plausible and warranted further investigation. Sinclair has not reviewed the report but confirmed its contents through interviews with multiple sources who read it or were briefed on its contents.

In an email to Sinclair, a Livermore spokesperson confirmed the existence of the report but declined to provide additional information. “Because the report you are referring to is classified,” wrote Lynda Seaver, director of public affairs, “it would be inappropriate for our lab to discuss this.”

Avril Haines, the new director of national intelligence, testified that the U.S. intelligence community is actively investigating both theories. “We just don’t know exactly where, when, and how the coronavirus was transmitted initially,” Haines told the House intelligence committee on April 15.

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Pro-Trump web forums are abuzz with directions to forge Covid vaccine cards

Specific directions showing how to forge Covid-19 vaccination cards have proliferated on conspiracy, pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums throughout the internet in recent weeks, as users have exploited a largely makeshift verification system.

The cards, distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have been handed out to the more than 140 million Americans who have already received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccination. The Biden administration has declared it wouldn’t create a federal vaccination database, citing privacy concerns, paving the way for the cards to become the country’s default national way to verify if someone has been vaccinated.

And while one state — New York — has embraced a vaccination verification app, there is scant evidence that others are close behind.

While much of the country is in the early stages of deciding how to ask employees, students and travelers to prove they’ve been vaccinated, most of those entities that have already established a plan rely on those cards. The Silicon Valley company Salesforce announced earlier this month that employees returning to work in person will need to show their cards, and United Airlines said it will require the same of its employees. 

Seven universities that already have plans in place to ask students to be vaccinated before attending this fall — American University, Bowdoin College, the University of Colorado Boulder, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Fort Lewis College, Rutgers University and Wesleyan University — all said the verification process would consist of asking students to upload their CDC cards, at least if they’re coming from out of state.

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At Least 9,245 Americans Tested Positive for COVID-19 After Vaccination; 132 Dead

The number of documented so-called breakthrough COVID-19 cases has climbed above 9,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As of April 16, 9,245 people tested positive for COVID-19 at least two weeks after getting their final COVID-19 vaccine, the health agency reported.

About 9 percent, or 835, required hospitalization, and 132 died.

Of the hospitalized patients, 241 were said to be asymptomatic or having an illness not related to COVID-19, and 20 of the deaths were reported as asymptomatic or not related to the disease, which is caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

The numbers are from 46 U.S. states and territories. It’s not clear which four states are not submitting the breakthrough case figures to the agency, which is known as the CDC.

The numbers are an undercount because the CDC’s surveillance system is passive and relies on voluntary reporting from state health departments. Additionally, not all breakthrough cases will be identified because of a lack of testing.

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The WHO Confirms that the Covid-19 PCR Test is Flawed: Estimates of “Positive Cases” are Meaningless. The Lockdown Has No Scientific Basis

The Real Time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (rRT-PCR) test was adopted by the WHO on January 23, 2020 as a means to detecting the  SARS-COV-2 virus, following the recommendations of  a Virology research group (based at Charité University Hospital, Berlin), supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (For Further details see the Drosten Study)

Exactly one year later on January 20th, 2021, the WHO retracts. They don’t say “We Made a Mistake”. The retraction is carefully formulated. 

While the WHO does not deny the validity of their misleading January 2020 guidelines, they nonetheless recommend “Re-testing” (which everybody knows is an impossibility).

The contentious issue pertains to the number of amplification threshold cycles (Ct). According to Pieter Borger, et al

The number of amplification cycles [should be] less than 35; preferably 25-30 cycles. In case of virus detection, >35 cycles only detects signals which do not correlate with infectious virus as determined by isolation in cell culture…(Critique of Drosten Study)

The World Health Organization (WHO) tacitly admits one year later that ALL PCR tests conducted at a 35 cycle amplification threshold (Ct) or higher are INVALID. But that is what they recommended in January 2020, in consultation with the virology team at Charité Hospital in Berlin.

If the test is conducted at a 35 Ct threshold or above (which was recommended by the WHO), segments of the SARS-CoV-2 virus cannot be detected, which means that ALL the so-called confirmed “positive cases” tabulated in the course of the last 14 months are invalid.

According to Pieter Borger, Bobby Rajesh Malhotra, Michael Yeadon, et al, the Ct > 35 has been the norm “in most laboratories in Europe & the US”.

The WHO’s Mea Culpa

Below is the WHO’s carefully formulated “Retraction”. The full text with link to the original document is in annex:

WHO guidance Diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 states that careful interpretation of weak positive results is needed (1). The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load. Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested using the same or different NAT technology. (emphasis added)

WHO reminds IVD users that disease prevalence alters the predictive value of test results; as disease prevalence decreases, the risk of false positive increases (2). This means that the probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as prevalence decreases, irrespective of the claimed specificity.

“Invalid Positives” is the Underlying Concept 

This is not an issue of  “Weak Positives” and “Risk of False Positive Increases”. What is at stake is a “Flawed Methodology” which leads to invalid estimates.

What this admission of the WHO confirms is that the estimate of covid positive from a PCR test (with an amplification threshold of 35 cycles or higher) is invalid. In which case, the WHO recommends retesting:  “a new specimen should be taken and retested…”.

The WHO calls for “Retesting”, which is tantamount to “We Screwed Up”.

That recommendation is pro-forma. It won’t happen. Millions of people Worldwide have already been tested, starting in early February 2020. Nonetheless, we must conclude that unless retested, those estimates (according to the WHO) are invalid.  

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CNN Analyst Says White House Should Tell Americans: “The Moment Of Freedom For You Is When You Get Vaccinated”

A CNN panel suggested the administration should persuade unvaccinated people to take the Covid-19 vaccine by offering them their freedom in return.

In a discussion on how the White House can convince “vaccine hesitant” individuals to dose up, CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen urged using the promise of freedom and a return to normality as incentives.

“If we can tell those individuals who otherwise would not get vaccinated, if we say to them, the moment of freedom for you is when you get vaccinated, when you reach the two-week mark, these are people who otherwise might not be vaccinated, so let’s give them that incentive,” Wen said Thursday.

Wen made similar remarks earlier this month when she suggested the CDC and the White House use the promise of freedom as a proverbial “carrot” on a stick for unvaccinated individuals.

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