Fear of Covid is alive and well, except among politicians

Fear of Covid still lives. I have friends and relatives still getting the shot. Plus, many younger parents have developed a fear of useful, life-saving vaccines.

What stays with me is my bewilderment of how that pandemic and its results seem to have been forgotten by both political parties and all the institutions that were affected--particularly education and religion.

 
Donald Trump pushed too hard for a vaccine so he could be a hero, in my opinion, and he was at the starting gate of the closings and flinging money at us with CARES ( Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act), which corrupted and compromised every aspect of our culture. Fear of Covid put Biden in the White House (in my opinion) after he had previously castigated Trump's vaccine effort and promised he had a plan to stop the spread (he didn't; no one did). The people fell for that after being terrorized by the media which hated Trump with constant fake rates and numbers.

 
Then CARES + Biden turned out to extend the closing of our economy with a crippling mandate which hardly touched the rich and powerful Democrats and got Republicans fired or cancelled. Covid cases soared so that by the end of 2021 the rate was higher than under Trump even with the vaccine. Biden buddies destroyed the economic gains made under Trump in his first term, but I think Trump moved too quickly with a science he didn't understand, then his advisors were blacklisted under Biden.

 
Both presidents fell for Dr. Fauci and his gain of function lies allowed him celebrity status. Both presidents ignored years of research on the mental health effects of locking people up and fell for the masking and distancing lies. IMO, the old folks should have stayed home and the kids should have been in school.

We're still paying for this, particularly the children who lost about 2 years of learning. Something like it but different could happen again. Where are the lessons learned?

BTW, do you know that Peter Daszak (who got the grant money from Fauci for the gain of function research in Wuhan) has a new gig on global health and is seeking donations? https://naturehealthglobal.org/nhg-signs-5-year-contract.../

The Epstein files--what happened to the list of clients?

I'm not going to get in a froth about the Epstein files. When Trump stood up after being shot, he said fight, fight, fight. I don't know what that means to you, but I think he meant fight for the country. If Republicans allow the enemy to get them sidetracked, then they might as well quit now. He has his eye on preserving the United States, an idea or promise that over half the country can't even comprehend.

There are lots of strange things in politics. Some are still questioning all the theories about the deaths of JFK and RFK and MLKjr. I'm still questioning why both parties ignore the years 2020-24 and all we citizens suffered as victims of BOTH parties with the Covid epidemic. Trump gave us CARES ( Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or the CARES Act) a clearly inflationary "benefit" to save jobs and lives and he also pushed for the vaccine (untested and unproven still). He thought he was right to do so, to save the country. He also paraded Dr. Fauci before us on TV for many weeks to explain the ever changing research and rules. The Democrats who first maligned Trump for attempting to get a vaccine out quickly, then ignored their own lies, shut the country down and deified Fauci! Yet today, neither party will even speak like it was important (individuals yes, but not the party), nor will Pres. Trump, nor former Pres. Biden.

 
Democrats get the faints when discussing an "insurrection" that wasn't yet ignore what's going on in our blue cities and social media today with riots and deaths. Mysterious deaths occurred in Minnesota and Walz goes mute. The hypocrisy is so thick it is gagging intelligent people so they can't speak or don't know who to support.

 
I never thought I'd see anti-Semitism raging on our elite campuses either, and certainly not Jewish legislators and celebrities keeping quiet about it. I never thought I'd see Democrats running a professing Communist to manage our premier city.

 
I never thought in our sex saturated national culture people would tolerate the genital mutilation and body damaging medical experiments on children which would make Dr. Kinsey blush. We've sunk that low and I can find several such clinics right here in Columbus--so I should be alarmed about teenagers being lured to a life of excitement with celebrities? Compare that to what--sex trafficking with our open borders?

So yes, I should stop being surprised or asking for all the answers. There are no answers for evil, duplicity, envy, greed, hatred, obsessions, and mental illness.

Naomi Wolf was cancelled--interview with Tucker

Tucker's interview with Naomi Wolf will knock your socks off. She was one of the most famous liberal intellectuals in America. Then she questioned lockdowns and the covid vax because she'd made a career writing about medical issues and feminism, and knew women were reporting changes in their bodies. Newborns were dying. Facts. She was cancelled big time. Her income, her friends, her "community of liberals," and all her core beliefs. She turned to prayer and the Bible for answers. And she found a new community--and they are looking into Big Pharma's crimes.

A secular Jew and a secular Episcopalian talk about the Bible and what it says about the meaning of tragedy and failure.
 

The Tucker Carlson Podcast: Naomi Wolf on Apple Podcasts

Podcasts--true crime are the most popular

I'm not sure I knew what a podcast was until the summer of 2021, and now I have about 50 on my "library" list on my smartphone. It used to be I'd see them occasionally on YouTube and follow for awhile, but I really prefer the audio to the video.  It's easier to do other things. You can investigate a topic much more in 2 hours than in 30 seconds on the evening news. My list changes some as I learn more about the values and veracity of the host or if I don't like the quality of the host's voice or talking speed.  I first figured out that they were a popular form of entertainment and information when I watched the first season of   "Only murders in our building." Only Murders in the Building (TV Series 2021– ) - IMDb

"Follows three strangers (Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez) who share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one. When a grisly death occurs inside their exclusive Upper West Side apartment building, the trio suspects murder and employs their precise knowledge of true crime to investigate the truth. As they record a podcast of their own to document the case, the three unravel the complex secrets of the building which stretch back years. Perhaps even more explosive are the lies they tell one another. Soon, the endangered trio comes to realize a killer might be living amongst them as they race to decipher the mounting clues before it's too late."

Although it was very well acted the language was just too raw, so we stopped watching.  Now has finished up season three.

Pew Research says 24% of podcasts are true crime and about 10% are "politics and government." (Sort of the same thing, don't you think? 

"A new Pew Research Center study of 451 of the top-ranked podcasts in the United States shows this diversity of subjects: No single topic is the main focus of more than a quarter of these podcasts.

True crime is the most common topic, making up 24% of these top-ranked podcasts – perhaps reflecting the early popularity of Serial. The next most common topics are politics and government (10%); entertainment, pop culture and the arts (9%); and self-help and relationships (8%)." A Profile of the Top-Ranked Podcasts in the U.S. | Pew Research Center

Many of those on my list are former news reporters or programs I've known for years like Glenn Beck, Megyn Kelly, Hugh Hewitt, and Victor Davis Hanson.  I had either seen them on TV, listened to live programing on the radio, or read their columns. Probably ten are about religion, with some politics thrown in.  Another ten are politics, or politics with popular culture. Maybe ten are about health, or health related. I'd say five are "red-pilled"--they've left the Democrat party for a variety of reasons, usually Covid or Communism.  "Great books" is self-explanatory, as is "Boring books for Bedtime." Two are Canadian, Jordan B. Peterson, Dr. Gad Saad, others are American immigrants, like Patrick Bet David, born in Iran (business, entertainment, politics), or foreign, like Zuby, British citizen of Nigerian ancestry, Freddie Sayers, British with conversations on science, politics, free speech. Three are black and conservative, and they are also outspoken about their Christian faith. Jason Whitlock is sort of a two-fer x 2--black, conservative, Christian, and sports. A number of these have regular sidekicks or guest panels with whom they debate, disagree or affirm. Four of my favorites are medical shows. Often, they interview each other.  On the list I have a lesbian Jew journalist and a formerly gay man (very conservative Christian) who has a lot of Hollywood connections. 

I thought Covid had boosted the popularity, and according to Forbes.com in January 2023 it did. However,  "Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the art of the podcast became a full-blown renaissance. But in truth, podcasting predated the coronavirus, responding to the evolving wants and needs of young listeners who don’t just want to blast the radio in their cars. 

Around the globe, there are more than 400 million podcast listeners who tune in for all sorts of content. Because of that high listenership, there are over 2 million independent podcasts with tens of millions of episodes between them. That’s right: Over 2 million podcasts."

Dr. Aaron Kheriaty and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

I recently came across the podcast, "The illusion of Consensus" with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Rav Arora. Ep. 13 was an interview with Dr. Aaron Kheriaty whose outstanding career and service as a bio-ethicist at UC Irvine was torpedoed by the censorship of Big Tech and Big Pharma on behalf of the Biden Administration. He's written a book in his "free time," The New Abnormal." The unholy alliance of (1) public health, (2) digital technologies of surveillance and control, and (3) the police powers of the state, the Biomedical Security State. What surprised me was he took a look back to a 1989 conference where the enemy in a pandemic changed from the virus or pathogen to the whole human population who could be vectors. The conference was organized/planned by Dr. Fauci! He's written about that at Substack. He's one of the plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden. It will probably go to the Supreme Court.

The Illusion of Consensus: Episode 13: Dr. Aaron Kheriaty On The Violation Of Bioethical Principles During The Covid Pandemic on Apple Podcasts

Dr. Fauci's Amnesia - by Aaron Kheriaty, MD (substack.com)

The New Abnormal: A Review (catholicexchange.com)

Bidenflation and Trump

The numbers for household median income since the pandemic illustrate how American families have lost ground: Income in the United States: 2022 (census.gov)  Table A-2

• 2019: $78,250
• 2020: $76,660 ($1,590 below 2019)
• 2021: $76,330 ($1,920 below 2019)
• 2022: $74,580 ($3,670 below 2019)

Although I have nothing good to say about Biden, I think he's the biggest criminal ever to live in the White House, Trump made mistakes too with the pandemic. I think he, along with everyone else, was totally unprepared, because how would he know? It's not encountered in business. However, he's a good judge of character--usually trusts his gut.

 
1) He should have let Fauci go as soon as he noticed his fascist tendencies, double speak and switcheroo speechifying.

 
2) He should have made sure his own advisors he put on that Covid advisory group were able to have their say.

 
3) Even if he was unfamiliar with the concept of peer-reviewed scientific research, I'm sure someone told him that those speaking for the CDC and Big Pharma could be balanced by outstanding researchers who were advocating for better treatment options and not just an experimental "vaccine" begun after the disease had already spread.

 
4) As a businessman familiar with the cut-throat capitalist model, Trump should have sniffed out the demonization, deplatforming, and cancel culture methods of the Democrat party and figured out they'd use it to their advantage in the election.

5) Trump was failed by his advisors and those he selected to be close to him or his vanity prevented him from listening. If ordinary non-scientific, non-political citizens figure out this was as much ideological as viral, then he should have also. If he wants our vote in 2024, he'll have to do a better job in that department.

Now in addition to the numbers above listed for household income one has to add to those losses, what it is costing every household to bring into our country 230,000 border jumpers each month from many nations with many languages and cultures--Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South America, Central America, Mexico, China, Russian, Ukraine and India. Those expenses are local--schools, emergency housing, benefits, more police, displacement of local low-income citizens, etc. If Trump can't convince the Republicans to get off their butts and do something, then he should step aside and let someone else do the job. Having been a Democrat for 40 years, I am still shocked at the lazy, good for nothing Republicans who can't agree on where to do lunch, let alone legislation, that we elect year after year.

Your thoughts? I'm running out.

Many begin to doubt what we were told about "science"

"Little tears are forming in the fabric of belief. Many who believed that taking their shots was the only right thing to do, are noticing inconsistencies in the official story. The failure to prevent disease. The rashes and the fatigue. The cognitive deficits. The heart damage and the cancers. The sudden deaths among the young and apparently healthy. The adverse events.

These things can nag at one’s consciousness.

Most who were compliant, however, still believe on balance that it was the right choice, even if it came with risks that we were not told about.

“Because I had my shots, when I did get Covid, I was barely sick for a day or two.”

“Because” has no place in that sentence. It assumes a causality for which there is no evidence."

Read more here: https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/its-not-too-late?

Heather Heying is an evolutionary biologist and I listen to her podcast with her husband Bret Weinstein. They are life long Democrats and university faculty, now on the outside for questioning the vaccine, the blatant evil treatment of scientists who disagreed with Fauci and CDC. They are openly opposed to the current transgender hysteria of Democrats.

The great disinformation hoax, how the government-created “war against disinformation” became the great moral crusade of its time

 A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century - Tablet Magazine  by Jacob Siegal.

The hoax is "disinformation."  In short, the smoke and mirrors attack against Donald Trump.  For the life of me I can't figure out what the bureaucracy in the federal government were so afraid of.  One minute he's Hitler, then Stalin, then Putin.  When they could find no evidence of anything, they just used the idea of "disinformation." In my opinion [and it seems the author's], the disinformation hoax and techniques were used against us again with the Covid lies and lockdowns. But originally, and maybe for author Siegal, it begins in late December 2016 with Obama and his Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act. The Alvin Bragg crime in New York is just the latest edition of the hoax.

"A false story algorithmically amplified by Twitter and disseminated by the media—it’s no coincidence that this perfectly describes the “bullshit” spread on Twitter about Russian influence operations: In 2017, it was [Clint] Watts who came up with the idea for the Hamilton 68 dashboard and helped spearhead the initiative." 

If you don't want to read it, here's the author explaining it. https://youtu.be/eOEoNswz_Lg

The real tragedy is the result: our society has been destroyed by this disinformation hoax all designed by the federal government and its cohorts in social and traditional media. You really can't trust any source or authority, and it has made friend and family foes.

Twitter, Big Government, Big Pharma and J-6

With all we've learned from the recent Twitter dumps about the 2016 and 2020 elections and Covid vaccine and the role of Big Pharma and the government have had in stomping on the First Amendment and the enormity and seriousness of how that destroys our nation, it's time for all the J-6 people to be freed, exonerated and paid reparations. A group of angry citizens infiltrated by the corrupt FBI, CIA, DoJ, and the role of Nancy Pelosi, the DC police and mayor puts the U.S. beyond the 3rd world or Soviet justice system.

 
And the citizens and the media already knew about the laptop and how the gov't spread the rumors with media's cooperation that it was Russian "disinformation." So now we find out Joe Biden's personal guards and lackeys found top secret documents in his clocked closet before the mid-terms and kept it quiet. To add the the alphabet soup departments, that escape involves yet another swamp creature, the NARA (national archives), which apparently in 6 years had never noticed they were missing, yet jumped all over the Mar-a-lago documents in a closet. I've often told you how left leaning librarians are, but they are nothing compared to archivists.

 
This smells worse than a street in Pelosi's district in San Francisco. And no matter how they try to flush it into the ocean, I think some of this is going to stick.

Immunity debt

" Immunity debt is not a new idea, though the specific coinage is fairly recent (and some experts bicker over the specifics of what the phrase does and does not mean). Its painful lesson has been learned by American honeymooners who drink the tap water in Cancún, Nigerian Americans who skip malaria prophylaxis while visiting their cousins outside Abuja, and unvaccinated seniors who were hospitalized from COVID-19 while their boosted peers suffered a mere head cold. At its heart, immunity debt is Immunology 101: Hosts whose immune systems haven’t been properly primed are more prone to infection and severe disease."

It seems there's a price to pay for all that unnecessary masking of children the last 2.5 years.

https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/immunity-debt-explainer-rsv-covid-masking.html

The GIFT in San Francisco

"On Wednesday, Mayor London Breed [San Francisco] announced the launch of the Guaranteed Income for Transgender People (GIFT) program, which will distribute $1,200 per month to 55 individuals over 18 months beginning in January 2023. GIFT is part of a series of basic income initiatives in the city, including the pilot program for artists affected disproportionately by the COVID-19 pandemic." (Them)

I wonder what the proof of need will be? We have a SCOTUS justice who can't define a woman, and girly-men who can't compete against men saying they are a woman (whatever that is). I looked at the application (8 pages), not that one could live on $1200 in SF. It's simply setting them up for robbery and more mental confirmation they are victims, instead of providing them with mental health care. Here are the categories: (check all that apply, since apparently they can be more than one)

Cis-gender woman
Woman
Transgender Woman
Woman of Trans experience
Woman with a history of gender transition
Trans feminine
Feminine-of-center
MTF (male-to-female)
Demigirl
T-girl
Transgirl
Sistergirl
Cis
Man of Trans experience
Man with a history of gender transition
Trans masculine
Masculine-of-center
FTM (female-to-male)
Demiboy
T-boy
Transguy
Brotherboy
Trans
Transgender
Transsexual
Non-binary
Genderqueer
Agender
Xenogender
Fem
Femme
Butch
Boi
Stud
Aggressive (AG)
Androgyne
Tomboy
Gender outlaw
Gender non-conforming
Gender variant
Gender fluid
Genderfuck
Bi-gender
Multi-gender
Pangender
Gender creative
Gender expansive
Third gender
Neutrois
Intergender
Maverique
Novigender
Two-spirit
Hijra Kathoey
Muxe
Khanith/Xanith
X-gender
MTX
FTX
Bakla
Mahu
Fa’afafine
Waria
Palao’ana
Ashtime
Mashoga
Mangaiko
Chibados
Tida wena
Bixa’ah
Alyha
Hwame
Lhamana
Nadleehi
Dilbaa
Winkte
Ninauposkitzipxpe
Machi-embra
Quariwarmi
Chuckchi
Whakawahine
Fakaleiti
Calaba

And it used to be such a lovely city.

What happened to academic freedom? Wokeism

"As an evolutionary biologist, I am quite used to attempts to censor research and suppress knowledge. But for most of my career, that kind of behavior came from the right. In the old days, most students and administrators were actually on our side; we were aligned against creationists. Now, the threat comes mainly from the left. . .We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism." Laura Maroja

If you are a Democrat, vote like your life depends on it, because it does. Your party has let the margins and marginals take over. CRT and gendermandering in schools, millions of illegals storming the border, raging inflation, Americans held in foreign jails, abandoning our allies and principals in a Biden Bug Out in Afghanistan, children locked out of their schools and losing 2 grade levels, shortage of medical personnel and hospitals closing because of early retirements due to power struggles and your anti-science swampy government, fentanyl grown in China flooding over the border, demands to kill the unborn up to the day of birth, incompetent people in the White House, gaslighting so bad we could light up and heat Europe for the winter, and a media with no morals and no boundaries protecting politicians. What have I overlooked? Your complicity in destroying the best economy and strongest border because you didn't like Trump's snarky attitude? For that you sold us down the river?

Weep for the ignorance and power imposed on us

"From April 2020 through at least the end of 2021, Americans died from non-Covid causes at an average annual rate 97,000 in excess of previous trends. Hypertension and heart disease deaths combined were elevated 32,000. Diabetes or obesity, drug-induced causes, and alcohol-induced causes were each elevated 12,000 to 15,000 above previous (upward) trends. Drug deaths especially followed an alarming trend, only to significantly exceed it during the pandemic to reach 108,000 for calendar year 2021. Homicide and motor-vehicle fatalities combined were elevated almost 10,000. Various other causes combined to add 18,000. While Covid deaths overwhelmingly afflict senior citizens, absolute numbers of non-Covid excess deaths are similar for each of the 18-44, 45-64, and over-65 age groups, with essentially no aggregate excess deaths of children. Mortality from all causes during the pandemic was elevated 26 percent for working-age adults (18-64), as compared to 18 percent for the elderly. Other data on drug addictions, non-fatal shootings, weight gain, and cancer screenings point to a historic, yet largely unacknowledged, health emergency."

https://www.nber.org/papers/w30104?

NON-COVID EXCESS DEATHS, 2020-21: COLLATERAL DAMAGE OF POLICY CHOICES? Casey B. Mulligan, Robert D. Arnott. Working Paper 30104, http://www.nber.org/papers/w30104, June 2022.

Fauci has reappeared

For a long time I didn't know anyone who had Covid. Then as more lockdowns, more masking, more vaccines and more boosters just about everyone I know has had it or now has it. Most recently, 2 women in my Bible study group--and we meet on Zoom! And almost all of them did everything they were told to do by the Biden administration and their state governments (our governor nagged us for 2 years). Have you had that experience? And now Fauci's back on the news again. Hasn't he had it at least twice? Must be time for the mid-terms?

Eighty three federal programs to help the low-income, poor, and single mothers

The abortion wars are building. The Pro-Aborts are threatening violence in the streets this summer, even though they will still be able to kill babies under state law. It's a power trip.

 
If you're tired of the old saw that pro-lifers don't care for children, only the fetuses, then you need to tell your accusers the truth. Welfare, under any name, has always been bipartisan, with Republicans often dumping more money on the programs than Democrats. EITC, for instance, was a Nixon plan, and until Obama, GW Bush was the biggest welfare spender. Many of the Covid supplemental programs were Trump's and continued by Biden. Republicans give more in their private lives, and when in government, they can't pass up a chance to be the do-gooder. The exception was Obamacare--which could not garner a single Republican vote because it was just BAD and horribly expensive.

 
Right now we have 83 means tested programs for the low income, poor, and single mothers. You really need to click on some of these and see what is involved. There are 27 programs just for single moms--everything from housing, to food, to medical care, to education. There were special supplements to these programs for Covid. Democrats didn't do this, Congress did, and it's been many years building. What HAS failed is Biden's sub-section of Build Back Better, called the American Families Plan. He's really flogging that dead horse--he makes it sound like we're pikers.

 
However, it will keep more people in poverty than just about anything they've dreamed up in DC. Uncle Sam is not a good step-father. Very few children of married parents ever live in poverty. The low income person will never be able to get ahead because it is too expensive to take a good job or a promotion. A $10/hour raise could cost them hundreds. They will pay a higher tax rate for a promotion than the wealthiest CEO in the country just by losing thousands in gov't benefits.

https://singlemotherguide.com/federal-welfare-programs/?

If you are married with 3 kids earning $57,414 (social worker, school teacher, pastor, retail manager, etc) instead of you paying taxes on it, the gov't will give you $6,728 (EITC).

If you've got a student loan Covid has paused your loan payments and set your interest rate to 0% starting March 13, 2020. This payment pause, also known as the administrative forbearance, will end Aug. 31, 2022. I'm guessing that will be renewed and renewed until we are stuck with complete loan forgiveness. I'd like to be proven wrong, but look who's in the WH.

A 3-person household which got $200 in SNAP, gets $458 as a covid supplement to bring it up to the $658 maximum benefit. No, SNAP doesn't mean you can eat on that amount, the S stands for supplement so you can afford healthier meals, not more chips and pop.

Women eligible for WIC get over $700, plus extra for fruits and vegetables. There is a formula shortage because the WIC program uses/buys 50% of the formula in the U.S. and the gov't really messed up on the supply chain.

Section 502 Direct Loan Program for rural low-income Americans to get decent housing. Special supplements for Covid with payment moratorium.

And on and on. You'll be amazed how generous you are. Because the government has no money except YOUR money.

Misinformation about Trump is everywhere, subtle or blatant. All information has a bias.

 The first title on our book club list for 2022-2023 is "The Code Breaker; Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race," by Walter Isaacson, 2021.   https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Code-Breaker/Walter-Isaacson/9781982115852   Doudna is the co-founder of CRISPR — a technology that can edit or alter DNA and genetic traits.   It's our September selection  because it is a fat book about a complex topic and we'll need more time to read it. The author is a history professor, former CEO of the Aspen Institute (large Covid government grant; recently launched a disinformation program to fight "malicious actors"), advisory partner of Perella Weinberg Partners, chair of CNN and editor of Time.  In other words, a left of center academic. On page 1 of the introduction Issacson sets the stage as March 13, 2020 by saying the "government was fumbling its response to COVID." By this I assume he means the FDA, HHS, CDC and NIH with competing interests and miles of red tape.  Yet it was the  day after Jennifer Doudna had driven her son Andy a high school senior to Fresno on March 12 for a robot-building competition. This woman who was a gene-editing technology superstar at Berkeley was uneasy, given what we already knew about Covid, but not so alarmed she kept him home. Probably the smartest scientist alive.  But the government was fumbling? Is that true, or distain for President Trump's efforts--the man who closed travel with China on January 30, several weeks before the first death was recorded in Washington state (that date has been changed several times to other states). Let's review while we remember the scorn and insults from Democrats, even Biden and Harris denigrating the idea of such a vaccine BEFORE they took office and promoted it relentlessly.

"Former President Donald Trump formally announced Operation Warp Speed (OWS) on May 15, 2020. OWS was constituted as a projected $18 billion business-government-military partnership, charged to “produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January 2021, as part of a broader strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.” No date was set for fulfilling the 300 million doses target, other than the understanding that it would be “accelerated” relative to conventional standards.

The most innovative feature of OWS was government purchases of large quantities of vaccine types undergoing clinical trials, irrespective of the outcome (such as $2 billion and $483 million in early purchases from Pfizer and Moderna, respectively).

OWS called for clinical trials, manufacturing, and logistics to be conducted on a parallel rather than a sequential basis. The pursuit of multiple vaccine types built redundancy into the program to insure as many approved vaccine types as possible. (Currently, 251 vaccines are in the process of development).

Some ten months later, the results of OWS are as follows:

On Dec. 11, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for emergency use authorization (EUA) a vaccine produced by Pfizer for “the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in individuals 16 years of age and older.” Approval of Moderna’s vaccine followed seven days later. The first Americans were vaccinated on Dec. 15, 2020, only four days after FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine. 

Consistent with OWS’s stated goal, some 50 million initial doses of approved COVID-19 vaccine were available on Jan. 31, 2021." The Hill, March 20, 2021

By anyone's measure of how the government gets around to cutting red tape and shipping money off to universities and corporations, that was beyond warp speed.  I know no one who could have accomplished this, yet Issacson dismisses his importance on the first page.  I'm sure Doudna was absolutely the right person in the right place at the right time, but without the $18 billion and a president who bullied, I doubt there would have been a vaccine in seven months. Universities live for government money. 

The index item, "Trump Administration" gets one reference, p. 411. Bill Clinton got  three. even Joe Biden got a mention. President Donald Trump, a huge cheerleader for the vaccine AND TREATMENTS, didn't get a single line in the index (and I assume in the book).  Now two years out and a year and a half of Joe Biden, we still have Emergency Use Authorization for the vaccine, don't we?

Gene editing raises huge ethical questions.  I hope Issacson is the one to present the problem without relying too much on government control and "science." As we've learned the last 2 years, science is putty in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians. It's a game of winners and losers.   As of page one, I'm not impressed, but it's a very deep and detailed story. I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

Alcohol deaths during the Covid lockdowns

"The number and rate of alcohol-related deaths increased approximately 25% between 2019 and 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rates increased prior to the pandemic, but less rapidly (2.2% mean annual percent change between 1999 and 2017). The rate increase for alcohol-related deaths in 2020 outpaced the increase in all-cause mortality, which was 16.6%.

Previous reports suggest the number of opioid overdose deaths increased 38% in 2020, with a 55% increase in deaths involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. There were similar increases in the number of deaths in which alcohol contributed to overdoses of opioids (40.8%) and, specifically, synthetic opioids (59.2%).

Deaths involving alcohol reflect hidden tolls of the pandemic. Increased drinking to cope with pandemic-related stressors, shifting alcohol policies, and disrupted treatment access are all possible contributing factors. Whether alcohol-related deaths will decline as the pandemic wanes, and whether policy changes could help reduce such deaths, warrants consideration.

Study limitations include inaccurate death certificates, such as underreporting of alcohol involvement,6 and unclear causal relationships among listed causes of deaths. Provisional data are subject to change when more death certificates are processed."

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790491

https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/topics/addiction/alcohol-related-disorders/covid-19-pandemic-disproportionate-affect-on-women-led-to-increased-alcohol-use/

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/women-alcohol-and-covid-19-2021040622219

Interview with Scott Atlas about the BA2 variant

"Since Russia invaded Ukraine, news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic magically disappeared among mainstream media outlets.

But in the last few days, fears surrounding the new BA.2 variant are coming back to certain cable news channels.

Statistics says the BA.2 variant is now responsible for more than 70% of COVID-19 cases in the United States, but Dr. Scott Atlas asserts the variant is nothing to be concerned about.

Study after study has come out proving Dr. Atlas’ to be correct about his outlook of the COVID-19 pandemic since it began in early 2020, but certain health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci have yet to give up, and are once again in the beginning stages of calling for more mask mandates.

Dr. Scott Atlas has always supported protecting the elderly and at-risk individuals, as everyone else has very little risk to the coronavirus, and that assessment is even more true with the BA.2 variant, which is weaker than the original." https://www.kusi.com/dr-scott-atlas-explains-why-the-ba-2-variant-is-nothing-to-be-worried-about/

Includes the video of the interview.

Dennis Prager had Covid

Why would Washington Post care if Dennis Prager had Covid? WaPo published a long article on him when he announced he had Covid. It's not like people who have had the shot haven't gotten Covid, or died of Covid, nor that younger men haven't gotten myocarditis and pericarditis just from the shot. [see VAERS; it's an alarming number compared to other vaccines] He was sick a few days, and was back on the radio at work in 3 days despite being in the dangerous age group (and I might say, overweight, another of the co-morbidities).

 
Of course, that's a rhetorical question (needs no answer because it's obvious). It's a leftist newspaper, with staff who hated Trump (who got the vaccines on the market), and fights anything like Ivermectin and HCQ (recommended by Trump) that Big Pharma can't make a buck from because they are safe and easily available. Nor does it report anything negative about border jumpers who come in without a vaccine.

I've always been puzzled that a private business like a newspaper dependent on advertising (capitalism) would support Democrats, although that's also easy. They spend huge amounts lobbying for tax and business benefits. Essentially, Jeff Bezos, the owner of WaPo, is like a shadow government official. That way government can't control business, which is the way Conservatives would run government. Huge corporations like Amazon and Microsoft or Pfizer like higher taxes because they hurt the smaller business which might be competition in the future. It's like early abortions being less messy and easier than late term. Nip it in the bud, so to speak. Also, they can just move business off-shore. They can be smug and self-righteous about climate change or building codes or their daughters sharing bathrooms with boys because they'll never face the problem.