Fauci lies. He CREATED the pandemic

Above: main critic of Fauci, Senator Dr Rand Paul, talks to Stephen A. Smith

When I look back at my coverage of the Covid Pandemic, I'm pretty happy with what I wrote. It stands up well. 

On Anthony Fauci, for example, I see that I was early in seeing through the man. Who appeared this week at a Senate Committee to be grilled by Rand Paul, only to "Plead the Fifth" (aka, not answer), 111 times. 

I was early in coming to the judgement that Fauci was (and remains) complicit in creating the Covid pandemic, via the gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Which all credible observers and analysts are now pretty much unanimous was the source of the virus via the escape of an experimental virus. Which we might concede was an "accident" ... if we're being charitable.

And of course the reason Fauci denied the Lab-leak theory is that he was the main man responsible for it! It's just as much "the Fauci virus" as it was, per Trump, "the China virus". 

Fauci was at the very, very long-time head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Who, absolutely coincidentally I'm sure, had billions to give away to epidemiologists who supported his deceptions. His murderous duplicity.... 

Those were judgements I came to based on studies of what Fauci said and did during Covid, and the mountain of evidence, circumstantial as it was, for the Lab-leak vs Zoonotic origins.

There was a better way to deal with the pandemic than the Fauci way. What's more we knew it at the time. Even though Fauci crushed dissent and discussion of it. Shameful. (We know why, Tony. We know).

That alternative was published at the time as the Great Barrington Declaration. 

My first post of it was on 15 October, 2020 as "The Great Barrington Declaration". 

A principle architect of it, one of the three co-signatories, was then professor Jay Bhattacharya. He is now the Head of the National Institutes of Health, with oversight of the the very Institute that Dr Anthony Fauci headed for 38 years. 

I signed the Barrington Declaration in 2020. As did thousands of others, laypeople and professionals. We were all smeared as purveyors of "Disinformation", by Fauci and his acolytes. The media. But it's we that have turned out correct. Though we will hear nothing of that from the MSM, let alone an apology. Because the drill is: if the Left gets something wrong, it's "let's move on". Let's "not re-litigate what happened years ago".... But it remains important. The source of any major virus is always important to know. 

Fauci labelled professor Bhattacharya a "fringe epidemiologist" for having the temerity to suggest an alternative to the policies of lockdows, school closures, forced vaccinations, mandated masking and all the rest of it. 

Now that same "fringe epidemiologist" is the boss of the organisation that Fauci once headed. 

Oh the sublime Schadenfreude!

Dr Vinay Prasad gives more detail on the whole "Fauci thing". Prasad doesn't charm everyone, but he's knowledgeable and spot on: "Biden Covid Czar says it was Lab Leak". 

If you're interested in ancient history as it pertains to the pandemic, you can click on the Labels on the right: "Barrington Declaration", or "Coronavirus", or "Zero Covid Policy". 

Or in the Search Box on the right "Fauci". 

The Barrington Declaration is still relevant because if/when there is another pandemic, it's the road map of what we should do. For heaven's sake, NOT the Fauci roadmap. 

As Jay says: "there is nothing novel in the Declaration. It's what we've done with every pandemic in the past. It's the way we actually went about trying to prevent the spread of Covid that's the novel path." Talking here to The Goodfellows. 

I seem to be running a few laps glazing myself here. But, oh well, I'm nearly 80 and if I wanna I gonna. 

How Fauci Fooled America | Opinion

A repost of Jay Bhattarachaya’s 2021 piece in Newsweek

I guess Jay reposted this via Twitter because there’s a lot around right now about senior scientists belief that Covid may have come from a lab leak in Wuhan. And what they did at Fauci’s urging to hide it. Because he had deals going on with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And the virologists were getting money from Fauci for doing hiding the lab leak.  IOW major corruption. Now being outed. 

Suneel Dhand on all matters Covid and pandemic handling

Click above for video 

Dr Suneel Dhand, front-line physician who treated thousands of Covid patients, with observations on how the pandemic was handled by the authorities. 

“You can’t mandate a vaccine that is non-sterilising”. Polio vaccines are sterilising. Covid vaccines are not. 

It was crazy not to focus on the elderly and those with comorbidities. We knew very early in how skewed to the elderly the virus was. (He’s echoing without mentioning, the Great Barrington Declaration).

“Germophobia would be the downfall of the human race”. We need exposure to bugs and nasties. That’s why I pick up food off the floor and eat it!

Silicon Valley Bunk

Why did Silicon Valley Bank go bust? Because its assets were eroded. Why that? Because it bought US Treasuries. Why that? Because “it’s gilt”, because the government encouraged them to do so — copper-bottomed blue-chip!  

But Gilts then plunged in value. Why that? Because inflation >> higher interest rates. Higher interest rates >> lower bond price. Because that’s the iron law, the first thing I learned in 1969 in Eco 101, bond prices and interest rates are inversely correlated. 

Why inflation up? Because US government firehosed cash into the economy 2020-22. Why that? Because lockdowns, coz Covid. People needed money to make up for lost business. 

Why lockdowns? GOOD question! At the time there were other options, mainly the a great Barrington Declaration. But it was snuffed out because government had its own agenda: lockdowns are the only way. They were not. We knew then, but were ignored and vilified. We still know now.

To blame this on anything other than government mishandling is Silicon Valley BUNK.

The W.H.O. going for the monster globalist grift

Click above for article. My comments on it below

David Dodwell goes all-in spruiking the WHO’s attempt to corner the global pandemic prevention market.

Without Googling, I'm struggling to think of anything positive that the WHO did during Covid. What I do remember, and this is just from memory, are plenty of negatives:

(1) The WHO were late in declaring a "pandemic", because of Chinese pressure.

(2) The WHO were late in admitting there was human-to-human transmission of Covid, because of Chinese pressure. 

(3) The WHO did not criticise China for its failure to give early warning of the virus, as they were obliged to do under protocols established (and agreed by China) post-SARS, because of Chinese pressure. 

(4) The WHO spoke glowingly (early 2020) of the Wuhan lockdowns — which was instrumental in convincing western governments to do the same, lockdowns which have in many cases been harmful. 

(5) The WHO failed to give early advice to close borders to travel from Wuhan/Hubei.

(6) The WHO whitewashed an official investigation to the origins of Covid, agreeing -- under Chinese pressure -- to say a lab leak was "extremely unlikely" (I don't think it is, and neither, I believe, does the majority of expert opinion). The WHO have since said they will abandon the second phase of the investigation into Covid-19 origins. Great. 

(7)The WHO had nothing to do with the development of vaccines. They confined their involvement to berating western governments for “lack of equity” in their distribution.

(8) Along the way, the WHO failed to support the Great Barrington Declaration of “Focussed Protection”, failing even to give a chance for it to be debated. Focussed protection is now agreed to be the better way to handle a pandemic as opposed to global lockdowns. 

(9) I also seem to remember, but I’m not so sure, that the WHO failed to tell us early enough that Covid is aerosol-borne and not spread by fomites (droplets). Handling of each type is dramatically different. 

(10) Masks: the WHO gave conflicting advice. Though, TBF, so did everyone. Then again, you’d expect the WHO to have it right, if anyone would, wouldn’t you? And they could have tried to resolve the issue with RCTs on effectiveness of mask usage IRL, outside the laboratory, but failed to do so.

Meantime the EU — that most close-knit of regional organisations — immediately as Covid struck, reverted to handling of lockdowns, of vaccines, of the whole panoply of Covid responses, medical and NPI, on a national level — not as a unified Europe. If the EU can’t do it, how do we expect the WHO, this failure of an international body, to do it globally? 

Yet the WHO — with David Dodwell dutifully cheering it on — wants us to give it *hundreds of billions* of dollars — perennially! — to pursue an international pandemic *Treaty*?? To develop a “global system” of pandemic handling that experience shows us will crumple at the first encounter with reality? 

Panglossian piffle.

Pull the other one, David!

Jay Bhattacharya was right on Infection Fatality Rates | (A bit nerdy)...

Click above for the video

Recently Sam Harris — a guy many, including me, used to admire, but have found scales dropped from their eyes after his raging TDS and then panicked Covid hysteria — had a go at Jay Bhattacharya, siding with Anthony Fauci in calling Jay, a Stanford professor of epidemiology, a “fringe epidemiologist”, when they had a go at him over the Great Barrington Declaration. Clear? In short, Sam calls Jay a “fringe epidemiologist”.

Sam’s recent attack on Jay was to claim that he, Jay, had got the Covid Infection Fatality Rate wrong, on the too-low side. Thus, Sam said, Fauci was right to call Jay a “fringe epidemiologist” (as he had done in secret, now public, emails, immediately after the publication of the Barrington Declaration in order to smear it and stop any public discussion of Fauci’s severe lockdown policy — a policy he himself had recommended but later denied, when it was clear that it had done great damage. Fauci really is an out and out liar!).

Jay has said, from around early 2020, that he estimated the IFR at around 0.2%. This at a time when people thought it was an order of magnitude greater, or more, at around 3-4%.

In the video above, talking to the very sweet Winston Marshall (ex of Mumford & Sons) Jay says he thinks “it’s complicated, but the IFR is probably around 0.2%” in the United States.

I did a bit of crunching, and I reckon Jay is pretty much spot on. And, by the way, the latest Covid IFR at around 0.04% is running below the flu. For context….

This is the screenshot of my spreadsheet and here it is online.

IFR Calculations highlighted in yellow

I would say that looking at the various ways of coming to a number for the Infection Fatality Rate of between 0.09% and 0.19%. That’s why I say Jay’s estimated IFR of “around 0.2%b” is pretty much spot on. If anything a slight overestimate.

The CFR is based on Cases. That is the number that are tested positive and/or in hospital with Covid. The IFR is based on Infections, taking account of the fact that many more people will be infected with the virus, but not reporting it, because it’s not serious or it’s asymptomatic. This number is obviously harder to pin down, but various estimates have put it at “around ten times” the number of Cases. And recently the US CDC has estimated that the total number of people in the US who have or have had Covid is at least 200 million and likely as many as 300 million. That is, pretty much the whole population. In any case, I’ve only used this number as “Another way” of looking at the possible IFR, for which I get 0.13% to 0.19%. Close enough. 

On this one I call a TKO by Jay over Sam.  

“WHO seeks more money…” but why should we pay it?

 

I’m struggling to think of anything positive that the WHO did for us in this pandemic. 

I followed them from January 2020. What have they done?

• They were late declaring it a “pandemic”. 
• They were late calling for Wuhan to be isolated. 
• They were late telling us that the virus was transmitted human-to-human. 
• They were overly deferential to Beijing, which led the west to follow China’s mass lockdown policy, huger ruinous, when focussed protection, per the Barrington Declaration (and all previous pandemic experiences). 
• They failed in their “investigation” into the source of the virus, in January 2021. 
• They did nothing, except look on, about actually creating the mRNA viruses. 
• They are just a bunch of comfortable Geneva-based bureaucrats, hopping on a bandwagon that’s globalist government will fix all. 
• They don’t even work hard: I’ve been to their HQ. After 5:00 pm it’s empty.

Anything they’ve done? For this pandemic? Anything? That they deserve more money? 

ADDED: the National Library of Medicine lists WHO shortcomings, identified well before Covid.

“The world needs a better WHO”, The Economist

“Fauci Leaves a Broken Agency for His Successor” | Newsweek

Fauci’s office: you’re supposed to dial back on this stuff, after a while

In Newsweek, a left wing magazine! Criticism of “Saint Fauci” 

The things I have against Anthony Fauci are not his flip-flopping on things like masks, or vaccines, or schools or lockdowns (on all of which he’s held opposite views at various times). 

No, not those, bad as they are. It’s that he led the mob to silence people like Jay Bhattacharya, and the Great Barrington Declaration, that had important things to say about how to handle the pandemic, things that may have saved countless lives. Yet for the sake of a narrative that took hold early -- the lockdown narrative -- were sidelined. Fauci did that.

And for his involvement in hiding the gain-of-function research being done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology with moneys approved by Dr Fauci, as head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and its budget of $US47 billion he allocated. Fauci did that.

That’s why I despise the man. Because he (very probably) was instrumental in starting the pandemic and then (not probably, but certainly) took part in suppressing debate on how to control it. 

Hong Kong : “Bleak Prospects”

Click to enlarge and clarify. Online here

David Dodwell is a regular and informed commenter, Hong Kong resident. And I’ve often disagreed with his views. But in the above, fellow HK resident me says, he’s got it pretty right. Hong Kong has been grievously hurt by the pandemic, “Hong Kong sits among the most devastated “, worse than our arch rival Singapore. 

An important point David doesn’t mention: that this “devastation”, our “bleak prospects” are largely self-inflicted. When it became clear that the mainland was going to keep on keeping on with its Zero Covid policy, we should have untethered ourselves from it. We could have opened up to the outside world while keeping the border closed with the mainland.

This is not hindsight. Many people, myself included, said so at the time, two years ago at least. We could have followed policies of “focused protection” instead of shutting everyone down and smashing the economy. That is the policy recommended by Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya  et.al. in the Barrington Declaration. (Decisively — shockingly and scandalously in my view — shut down by Collins and Fauci, with no reasons given).

Our economic woes — 3.5% drop in GNP, rising unemployment, devastated travel and industry  — are self inflicted. For no net benefit health wise.

Watching the results of the US mid-term elections

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and wife Casey
Click above to go to article and video of his acceptance speech

Watching the results of the US mid-term elections ….Which I note here just for the record. (21:30 EST)

As I was saying to Jing last night, I never used to pay any attention to mid-terms. I prolly didn’t even know what they were. But — I guess, since 2016 —  they’ve loomed larger; likely for everyone. 

It’s what makes US politics so endlessly fascinating. You’ve no sooner come off a presidential election that you’ve got the mid-terms! Contrast the engagement and excitement of every US election with the recent China Communist Party Congress and its hall-full of stuffed waxworks. Where the most exciting thing happened was a geriatric ex-leader being led off the stage, in mysterious circs.

The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis has been re-elected by a handy 20-point margin 60-40. That’s after winning four years ago by just a point. He got lots of support for his handling of Covid. He kept the economy open, beaches open, schools open, while protecting the elderly (a version of rhe Great Barrington approach). Result: better for kids and better for the economy, while the hospitalisations and deaths tracked closely with national averages. 

Significantly, Florida did about the same as California, which locked down severely under Democrat Gavin Newsome. The media at the time hammered DeSantis all-but calling him a mass murderer. They used false stats (or no stats), and flat out disinformation to a breathtakingly dishonest extent. Because they hated him so much and hated everyone not in lockstep with lockdown. The actual data, the real stats, showed otherwise and I’m pleased to say I noted that, here on this blog, at the time. Hurrah for lockdown skepticism.

DeSantis must be a candidate for presidency in 2024. He can’t afford to wait it out when Trump announces (likely next week). DeSantis’ gubernatorial term runs out in 2026, and if he doesn’t run in 2024, he’d have to wait two years after his gubernatorial term ends (2026), to the 2028 election.That doesn’t work. You can’t just cool your heels for two years in politics. Also if Trump is 2024 nominee without DeSantis, and wins, it’s for only one term so who would be the GOP candidate in 2028? DeSantis? But what would he have done in the meantime? as consequential as his handling of Covid? DeSantis must be GOP candidate for 2024. (I’m rather sure he knows all that!)

21:51 EST. Time to return to the voting count. I’m just reading tea-leaves here, but so far, DeSantis landslide aside, it seems more like a “Red tide” than a Red Wave. We’ll see.

ADDED: Florida has the population and GDP of my country Australia. DeSantis is the equivalent to our Prime Minister.

23.50 EST: ADDED: Daily Wire: 0 < red trickle < red tide < red wave < red tsunami. Now calling it “red trickle”

Scientists fouling their own nests (on the pandemic)

Letter in The Lancet, 18 February 2020

I’m talking Covid here. The reason so many people lost faith in “the science” is because scientists (some, not all, but quite a few) did things to damage themselves and our faith in them. They fouled their own nests. In Aussie speak they cruelled their own pitches. 

The above letter was the first example I came across. I felt cheated by it. 

In early 2020 friends had asked me what I thought of a "new theory" (promoted by US congressman Tom Cotton) that the virus may have escaped from a lab in Wuhan. 

I knew about the above letter, in The Lancet, the gold-star scientific medical journal. Therefore the response to my friends was: “no, it’s not true; it’s just a conspiracy theory”, and quoted the above letter. 

As the letter says “Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.” And who would want that? Especially so early in the pandemic, when we didn’t know how deadly it was. So I was a hard “no, it’s not true. It’s a conspiracy theory." 

Imagine how I felt when it was revealed that the majority of the 27 scientists who had signed the letter had severe conflicts of interest. The majority had worked directly with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Many now admit that the virus could indeed have been from a lab leak, from the WIV. But not before their reputations and that of science was trashed. With the help of lead signatory of the letter, Peter Daszak, who is even now getting more funding for Gain of Function research -- in the WIV !

The letter was an egregious lie. A lie that 27 signatories supported. Of whom we now know 19 had a conflict of interest, tied in some way to the WIV. All of the signatories, including even the “conflicted”, have by now admitted that the virus may have originated from a lab leak. (Imagine how much more we may have learned about the origins of the virus, had these people, these “scientists", had not muddied the waters as they did.)

That was the first but not the last or even the worst of what scientists did during the pandemic. 

There’s the case we now know of Anthony Fauci’s own role in suppressing the lab leak theory. In emails released under FOI he pressured the virologist Kristian Anderson, to reverse his belief that the virus seemed to him to be man-made. And then — mirabilis!— Anderson received research money from Fauci’s Fund.

A while later, Fauci, under pressure from his then boss Francis Collins, scuppered the Great Barrington Declaration, the one by three eminent health experts and epidemiologists from Stanford, Harvard and Oxford. The GBD pushed for “focused protection”, a strategy that is now recognised as likely the most effective with the least cost to broader society. But which Fauci under orders from Collins, demonised. He called, infamously, the eminent doctors “fringe epidemiologists”.

And then we find that Pfizer did not test if the vaccine would stop transmission (and we now know it doesn’t) but all government officials and likes of Fauci & Co, told us unequivocally that it did. Another lie, which they knew was a lie when they told it. 

This is not to buy into crazy conspiracies, to be a “climate sceptic” or a flat earther.

 But it is to say that the  scientific community disgraced itself over Covid. Again, not all did. But lots did. Including some of our most senior. Anthony Fauci, much as he may be an eminence in his fields, ought be ashamed of himself. He did bad. Real bad. I find it hard to wish him a comfortable retirement.

Alexandros Marinos, number cruncher, has more here. 

“Rethinking Covid”. Aka Lockdowns v focused protection

 

Click above for vid

I’ve long followed Jay Bhattacharya, and also Gigi Foster.  Notable professors both, at notable universities. 

They put the case well for what should have been the approach to the pandemic at the outset, namely what was then and before the accepted approach to pandemics, protect the vulnerable. 

Gigi talks of QALY — Quality of Adjusted Life Years — a measure used to allocate scarce resources to society-level health care. I also wrote about it very early on, but the concept, important as it was and remains, was ignored. Lockdowns it was, and costs be damned. These costs, psychological and monetary, are starting to come due. Look at the UK, for the damage Covid-accrued debt is doing to future generations who will have to repay it.

It’s a great discussion. I just wish John had drilled down a bit more on why Francis Collins and Tony Fauci were determined to crush the Barrington declaration, instead of having it debated. I know one answer might be “it’s an emergency. We can’t go debating issues in an emergency!”. But if it turns out the policy followed was wrong and harmful, as it likely will, the debate would have been worth it. Instead, these world-class scientists, famous epidemiologists, feminine Stanford, Oxford and Harvard, were silenced, dismissed as “fringe epidemiologists”. A scandal right there. 

Anyway, listed and judge. In my view, following it all closely as a layperson, they had it right.

This is an important free speech case

In the US the government is not allowed to infringe on the rights of anyone to say anything. But what about when it asks a third party, a private entity, like a Facebook or Twitter, to do the suppression of free speech on their behalf? 

That’s about to be litigated in the US, over the shutting down of the Great Barrington Declaration, back in 2020. Over Covid policy. 

This is terribly important. The first of its kind. And the video above covers the main issues. 

Please do watch, as it revolves around core principles of the American body politic. What makes America tick. The right to free speech. And who and how it might be infringed. 

A Warning From Shanghai - by Jay Bhattacharya

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/a-warning-from-shanghai


Sent from my iPad

A Tale of Two Cities (Asian version) | Singapore and Hong Kong

If you look at the above, two Asian cities often compared, is it possible to say that Hong Kong has done better than Singapore? In controlling the Coronavirus? Surely not. But some do. They say, if you promote a Singapore style relaxation you’re putting “Business before Health”. Yet there’s the data above. 

Hong Kong had:

More cases per million than Singapore (8,674 vs 3,360)

More deaths per million than Singapore (37.68 vs 2.12)

More cumulative deaths than Singapore (8,349 vs 1,284)

How on earth can people argue that Singapore is not performing better than us here in Hong Kong?? And how on earth are we continuing with our failing Zero Covid Policy, when Singapore is doing so much better with a much more relaxed policy? We are similar city states, with similar populations sizes and demographics. With Singapore cases/deaths data so much better than ours. 

Worth some thought.

ADDED: Singapore vax rate for elderly: 92%. Hong Kong vax rate for elderly: 28%. There’s your answer for the difference, right there. Protect the elderly. Follow Barrrington.

ADDED (2): Singapore won’t reapply lockdowns

Focusing on Covid stats that matter | Barrington declaration Redux

Well said Finn! I’ve been saying for a rooooly long time that obsession with case numbers is silly. And all the more so now with Omicron where the tested numbers are way below actual infection rates. By how much we don’t know but maybe up to ten times. With a less severe infection we need to focus on things like hospitalisation and ICU bed occupancy. As neighbour of ours Finn Nielsen says in today’s SCMP letters. 

Also today: an article by Phil Chan and Nicola de Jager, “Turning a deaf ear” suggesting we adopt a “focused protection” strategy per the March 2020 Barrington Declaration which was hammered at the time because it was didn’t fit the then narrative of widespread undifferentiated lockdowns and NPIs until vaccines. (And even then, for us here in Hong Kong). So interesting that’s it’s now being talked about again, and in the South China Morning Post:

Koronavirus Kabuki

Some have argued that a global metropolis should “live with the virus”, yet that is divorced from the reality of a densely populated city with high mobility and a serious ageing issue. Hong Kong cannot afford to “lie flat” or the runaway virus will surely spiral out of control, ruining people’s lives and grinding the city to a halt. [So says Liu Guangyuan in today’s SCMP]

Liu Guangyuan is Beijing’s man in Hong Kong, so of course, when he says “jump” our apparatchiks ask "how high”?

He says the above, and all the rest of the Hong Kong government also say: that it’s a “fight”, a “battle” and that “it’s clear that taking avoidance measures like masking and social distancing reduces the virus”. That if we don’t the “runaway virus will spiral out of control”.

Example:

As daily Covid-19 infections continue to decline, one may think the city’s ongoing fifth wave will simply fade away. But if previous battles are any reference, victory may only follow from the vigorous enforcement of social-distancing and health-control regulations

But is it true? Not by the experience in other countries. My excel chart of Stringency Index (from Oxford Uni, via OWIF, and cases/million):

You can just eyeball this to note that there’s no obvious -- jumps out at you -- correlation between how much you lockdown and how many cases you have. If you’re not happy with eyeballing, then I’ve done the Correlation coefficients, for a dozen or so countries, which show, on average, no statistically significant relation between lockdown stringency and case rates. It’s not just me (though it was first me, back in 2020), but all Johns Hopkins University and recently The Lancet all of which conclude the same: there’s no statistically beneficial effect of NPIs such as lockdowns, masking, etc.

Yet people don’t like the science, so they ignore the science. Or quibble with methodologies. And tell us we have to be “brave”, we have to “keep fighting”, we’re “in a battle”, and so on. Whereas it was always the case that that wasn’t so, and is even more the case now with super-contagious Omicron.

A few more charts of Cases per million, since Omicron, with Stringency Indices, added by me. at the time there was either an increased or decreased stringency. Look closely and you see: no obvious correlation:

The correlation is positive, when it should be negative

For both UK and Italy, there is no statistically significant
correlation between the Stringency and the Case numbers

Same story with France and the US. The waves happened, no 
matter the Stringency of NPIs

So, what’s my point? That all this stuff that’s going on in Hong Kong and the few remaining other places keeping various mandates and lockdowns in place, are all, no a one of them, “following the science”. We ought to protect the vulnerable and the elderly and let everyone else get on with like. That’s been the best strategy since the beginning -- a version of the Barrington Declaration, and it remains the best policy. Many nations are defaulting too it. Just not us. So my point is we’re taking part in Health Theatre, that’s no use in dealing with Omicron or future variants. Maybe it makes some bureaucrats feel better, for they’re seen to be “doing something”. But that thing they’re doing -- that they also make the rest us us do -- is pretty much useless. If overcoming the pandemic is the point. 

“Why not let Omicron just take its course” | My Letter

 

This is not the “let it rip” strategy. It’s the "focussed protection" strategy. Focus all our huge current efforts on those most in danger: the elderly and vulnerable. The same strategy as suggested in the March 2020 Barrington Declaration, which Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of the US National Institute of Health determined to kill rather than debate. To censor out of the public mind. And now, two years later, it proves both prescient and correct. Ignored by our Hong Kong government, is all.  Which continues to pursue the one strategy that’s guaranteed not to work, the "Zero Covid” strategy.

ADDED: the online version is Hong Kong must accept its Omicron wave will be Lambda-shaped. No mention in the print version of my “Lambda” kind-of joke. (not v good, I admit).

One comment: Very well put Peter Forsythe. Learn from other countries. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Vaccine mandates: Academic study questions their value

A brand-new study by academics at Universities of Oxford,  Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Washington, Toronto, et.al. questions the value of vaccine mandates. Are these folks “anti-vaxxers”?*

The paper: The Unintended Consequences of COVID-19 Vaccine Policy: Why Mandates, Passports, and Segregated Lockdowns May Cause more Harm than Good

The Abstract: 

While COVID-19 vaccines have had a profound impact on decreasing global morbidity and mortality burdens, we argue that current population-wide mandatory vaccine policies are scientifically questionable, ethically problematic, and misguided. Such policies may lead to detrimental long-term impacts on uptake of future public health measures, including COVID-19 vaccines themselves as well as routine immunizations. Restricting people’s access to work, education, public transport, and social life based on COVID-19 vaccination status impinges on human rights, promotes stigma and social polarization, and adversely affects health and wellbeing. Mandating vaccination is one of the most powerful interventions in public health and should be used sparingly and carefully to uphold ethical norms and trust in scientific institutions. We argue that current COVID-19 vaccine policies should be reevaluated in light of negative consequences that may outweigh benefits. Leveraging empowering strategies based on trust and public consultation represent a more sustainable approach for protecting those at highest risk of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality and the health and wellbeing of the public. [my emphasis]

*Of course they are not “anti-vaxxers”. I gave this label of “The Road to Hell” because no-one suggests that proponents of mandates expect these outcomes. No, these are the unintended consequences. Hence “The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions". 

ADDED: Johns Hopkins paper on effects of Lockdowns

More and more people are coming around the the “focussed protection” strategy of the Great Barrington Declaration. 

“Has the Great Barrington Declaration been vindicated?" | UnHerd

Snip:

Has the Left finally woken up to the devastating costs of implementing lockdowns? In its first edition of 2022, the Observer carried a surprisingly balanced interview with Professor Mark Woolhouse, a member of Sage whose new book — The Year the World Went Mad — argues that long lockdowns promoted more harm than good and failed to protect the vulnerable. Its favourable reception appears to herald a new direction in the critique of Covid measures and policies on the Left; for the first time, the question of what really represented the collective good in the Covid debate has been put on the table by a mainstream left-liberal publication. More… [Web Archive]