In May 2020 silencing alternate viewpoints was a threat

In May 2020 when our alliance between government and academe was leery of Trump and his populism/power, Harvard International Review could publish this: 

"In a time when accurate, scientific information is vital to the well-being of populations around the world, silencing independent media and dissidents is counterproductive. Since the pandemic has hit, the International Press Institute has reported hundreds of violations of media freedom. Radical transparency in communication should be the norm; part of the success of countries like Taiwan and Canada stems from their clear communication about government efforts."

Canada? What a joke.

Later with Biden in power, transparency and independent media were a threat to his freedom strangling administration, and all alternate viewpoints had to be fired, deplatformed or tracked for being against "democracy."

https://hir.harvard.edu/covid-authoritarianism/?

Where we are today

The Covid studies showed in the early months of 2020 that those over 70, obese, or with other conditions were at risk, and younger people weren't. Not enough money in that, so after a vaccine originally limited to the vulnerable in early 2021, the rest of the country was railroaded into lockdowns and vaccines. Except the low-income workers. (Even though most poor people in USA are white, we're already getting the "systemic racism" of Covid lockdown studies). They got the privilege of being the cashiers and delivery people and the restaurant employees who got to feed and clothe the wealthier classes who stayed home and worked at their computers. Even the churches bowed to the pressure of being less essential than Kroger cashiers. Masks and lockdowns have since been proven ineffective in stopping the spread. Voting rules were set aside without the people's approval further creating divisions among citizens, friends and families. Vaccines have been only partially protective--a few months. Yet many of the mandates still are in effect; the vaccines still have emergency use approval supposedly because nothing else is available (which is forbidden to even mention). Biden slapped mandates on schools, corporations and government agencies with the help of Big Pharma and Big Tech after initially creating doubt in the vaccine because Warp Speed was a Trump policy, destroying careers and the economy as he moved on to the biggest drug of all--naked, raw power. FDR even with the Great Depression and WWII didn't have the power Biden does. To keep the power, the federal government then subcontracted censorship to "non-profit" misinformation agencies, so now we are swimming in lies and censorship caused by the very people who should be protecting us.

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?

Now that we know, what should be done

Sometimes we can't know what we don't know. What happened from March 2020 through today (when I saw people still wearing masks inside their cars with several dirty masks on the dash) would have been unimaginable in western, democratic, free countries as recently as December 2019, but did happen. 

• The vulnerable and most at risk for the disease weren't protected
• Those not at risk were forced to comply as though they were in danger of dying
• There were mass violations of civil liberties
• Unknown risks have been passed on to the next generation because pregnant and lactating women were included in the madness
• Young men in the prime of life have been forced through peer pressure, government edict, and threats of job loss to take heart risks with odds they would never consent to for a plane flight
• Laws involving elections were violated or made up on the spot
• Minor, unelected officials assumed great authority and power 
• Small businesses were ruined; massive businesses got wealthier
• People skipped treatment for cancer and heart because government was protecting hospitals and not patients
• Safe alternative treatment options were forbidden--even their names could not be spoken
• Anxiety and mental health issues soared from both lack of care and the sufferers being terrified and sickened by media
• Lockdowns separated the dying from their families, their last comfort, or contributed to their early death
• Even when it was learned that the jabs didn't prevent getting the disease and didn't stop transmission to others, ridiculous rules stayed in place, controlled by teachers' unions, businesses, the White House, and CDC
• "Trust the science" became a joke and punch line with our elected officials bowing to the power and money, not laws or common sense or honoring the people who elected them
• One unelected man, an aging bureaucrat controlling two presidents and billions in grants to pharmaceutical companies, claimed to be the face of "Science" and if we distrusted him, we were traitors 
• There should be town halls in every village, town, city, church, business, club and university to sort this out. Maybe financial reparations will never happen, but we deserve an explanation for the cowardliness of our so-called leaders who needed to step up and STOP THE INSANITY. 
• For the friends and family who died, for the grandparents who didn't see their grandchildren for 2 years, for the jobs lost, the friendships destroyed, the trust stomped on we need to make sure it never happens again.

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?

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

Lockdowns had little affect on mortality

A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf (jhu.edu)

“A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality” By Jonas Herby, Lars Jonung, and Steve H. Hanke

About the Series The Studies in Applied Economics series is under the general direction of Prof. Steve H. Hanke, Founder and Co-Director of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise (hanke@jhu.edu). The views expressed in each working paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the institutions that the authors are affiliated with.

Lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe had little or no impact in reducing deaths from COVID-19, according to a new analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies. Sheltering in place, about 2.9%

“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.

Masks, mandates and media

"All religions have their representatives. There are cardinals, bishops, imams and rabbi’s etc. They are perhaps the leading voices, but they aren’t the only representatives. There are envoys, missionaries, TV evangelists, religious correspondents and so on.

The State is no different. We have politicians and governmental advisers, as the leading voices, but there are also NGO spokespersons, union officials, the academic & scientific orthodoxy, lords and ladies, multinational CEO’s, central bankers, business leaders and more. Of these, the most powerful, in terms of their ability to shape public opinion are the mainstream media (MSM.)"

This article is from June 2020, when mask mandates, without a shred of science, were just being imposed. And with each mandate we've experienced more loss of freedom and the masks certainly haven't kept us safe. Even those with the 3 shots are getting Covid.

Face Masks Have Put Us In A State – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org)

Excess deaths from Covid lockdowns

The media want us to focus on the deaths from the current virus--about 80% of them in people who were overweight or obese. But the excess mortality was greater among those in the 15 to 54 age range, not the elderly. And the cause wasn't the virus, but the lockdown. These victims weren't the laptop, snowflake types like journalists, scientists, and politicians, but the lower income and minority households. In actual numbers those grieving families are white people, but the media will make it a racism story (rate) rather than a lockdown story which they encouraged because fear brought them profit.

"The deadly impact of lockdowns will grow in future years, due to the lasting economic and educational consequences. The United States will experience more than 1 million excess deaths in the United States during the next two decades as a result of the massive “unemployment shock” last year, according to a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins and Duke, who analyzed the effects of past recessions on mortality. Other researchers, noting how educational levels affect income and life expectancy, have projected that the “learning loss” from school closures will ultimately cost this generation of students more years of life than have been lost by all the victims of the coronavirus."
https://www.city-journal.org/death-and-lockdowns  

There was far more support for lockdowns among Democrat governors and mayors than Republicans. And much of it was about politics, not public health. Anything to ruin the economy and President Trump; anything to ramp up the charges of racism; anything to grab the brass ring of green. Hate from the Left has killed Americans and will destroy several generations.
And still no evidence that lockdowns have saved any lives.

Every time I see CDC director Walensky's emotional news clip about Covid I am reminded of Biden's lies during the campaign about how he had a plan. (Deja vu. Obama had a secret plan in 2008 to get us out of a war, and kept us there 8 more years.) I remember how Biden and Pelosi criticized Trump for closing air traffic from China as racist and xenophobic. He and other Democrats ridiculed the idea of fast tracking a vaccine without years of red tape. He had no plan, and for the most part he is doing nothing except instilling more fear and asking for more of what we've been doing for a year.

 
His lies worked, and Democrats voted for a cognitively impaired head of a family crime ring with close to 50 years in government. While all his advisors worked behind the scenes to take advantage of this crisis, they busted the border wide open while busting the budget with more trillion dollar green deal give aways, and stealing our rights guaranteed us as Americans. No one advising Biden was doing anything about Covid because all scientists and researchers were already going full steam ahead.

 
Trump was a victim of his enemies in the media, Big Tech, and RINOs, but Biden is a victim of old age and feebleness--something none of us can control. We still don't know who's in charge, but I'm pretty sure it isn't Harris who hasn't had enough time to clear out her enemies in the party. (She only got a paltry 1% in the primaries--a good indication of the faith they have in her). A cabal of Obama cronies and their straw bosses is my guess. They believe they didn't think big enough with the 2008 financial crisis with just billions, so they've moved on to trillions. They've been controlling our education system for such a time as this, and Americans probably don't know the difference.

 
Only China of all the countries in the world has made out with the crisis it engineered.

The failed lockdown policy

Our governors imposed draconian measures to control the Corona virus. The people meekly obeyed as though they didn't have a Constitution to protect them. Our rates of restricted movement and mask wearing are just as good as other developed countries. Yet still over 500,000 have died, and our "leaders" just call for more of the same, with more damaging health and mental welfare outcomes. Even the new "president" claims he has no ideas for how to stem the spread (which disappeared after the election) and has moved the target for backyard get togethers to July 4. Minorities and the elderly, whom Democrats claimed to care about, are suffering the most. Lockdowns have never been recommended before, even for those pandemics with higher death rates, like the Asian Flu in 1957 which I survived.

Where is the American spirit of 1776? Haters of America claim our country was built on slavery in 1619. Don't prove them right by being slaves to power hungry politicians.

Look back at your isolation this past year

Three years from now, some of you will look back & admit that you spent an entire year of your life wearing a mask, cooped up in your house & avoiding all the people you love.  A year in your life that you’ll never get back.

Every single day is a risk.

Car accident, flu, etc.

Our days were numbered from the moment we took our first breath. Life isn’t a race where we win against the inevitable! That has not changed since the beginning of time!

BUT, we should not be forced to live in fear.

We went from being a free nation to being told we:

couldn’t go to school

couldn’t go to church

couldn’t go to our grandma's house

couldn’t pay respects to a loved one through a funeral

couldn’t leave our homes

...and when we were allowed to do these things, we were told:

how long we could be there

how far apart we have to be

which direction to walk

what to wear

what we can buy/not buy

where we could shop/not shop

whether we could sing/worship/take communion

what time we had to be home

Yes, our health matters.

But you know what else matters?

Family.

Friends.

Church.

School.

Sporting events.

Family vacations.

Neighborhood BBQs.

Life.

Fitness.

Hugs.

visiting the hospitalized

Etc.. etc...

One day, you’ll hug your grandma, mom, dad, or brother for the last time.

One day, your best friend will cry on your shoulder for the last time.

One day, your child will play their last ball game.

One day, they’ll have their last day of school.

One day, you’ll spend your last day laughing with a loved one.

One day, you’ll dance your last dance.

Don’t waste the days you have by living in fear.

Your time here on earth matters.

Live your life while you have the chance.

God is gonna call you home when it’s your time.

Virus or no virus.

https://globalcitizensunited.substack.com/p/life-is-risk?s=r

First Corona virus death in U.S. February 29, 2020

Cases of a new virus from Wuhan, China, were being reported all over the world, and the few in the U.S. involved foreign travel. These were cases, not fatalities. 

On January 29, 2020 the President's Coronavirus Task Force it was established.

On January 30 the President closed tourism coming from China.

 On February 26, 2020, U.S. vice president Mike Pence was named to chair the task force, and Deborah Birx was named the response coordinator.

Then a man died in a Washington state on February 29.  President Trump had already closed travel from China at the end of January.  Ohio by March 3 had yet not had ANY confirmed cases, let alone deaths, when Governor DeWine began cancelling events. At this time, DeBlasio, Pelosi and Cuoma were still inviting tourists to come to their states/cities. 

On March 4, when many states had yet not had one case, the HHS announced the intent to purchase approximately 500 million N95 respirators and Secretary Azar announced that HHS was transferring $35 million to the CDC to help state and local jurisdictions that have been impacted most by the coronavirus.

 On March 6 the President signed an $8.3 billion bill providing $7.76 billion to federal, state, and local agencies for combating the coronavirus, and authorizing an additional $500 million in waivers for Medicare telehealth restrictions.

On March 11, the WHO announced it was a global pandemic, and the President in a speech to the nation said,  “We are cutting massive amounts of red tape to make antiviral therapies available in record time.  These treatments will significantly reduce the impact and reach of the virus. . . and he also said:

“The vast majority of Americans: The risk is very, very low.  Young and healthy people can expect to recover fully and quickly if they should get the virus.  The highest risk is for elderly population with underlying health conditions.  The elderly population must be very, very careful.”  Today, December 21, that is still the case.  Even with thousands of deaths, the fatality rate from this virus is about .3% with the elderly at higher risk, and young people suffering higher than usual deaths from non-Covid reasons. 

On March 13, the president also declared an emergency for COVID-19 under Section 201 and 301 of the National Emergencies Act. The National Emergencies Act (NEA) generally authorizes the president nearly unlimited discretion to declare a national emergency. President Trump Declares State of Emergency for COVID-19 (ncsl.org)

On April 29, Operation Warp Speed announced—a public private partnership initiated by the U.S. government to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

My question for Democrats; if the President had extended the national lockdown to mandatory after the two weeks at Governors’ discretion, how would you or the national media have accepted the order from the president you’d been trying to impeach, whom you called a Nazi, whom you called illegitimate because he won the Electoral College and not the popular vote?  Also which has been more effective in your opinion, Operation Warp Speed or the lockdowns?

The science of doing something, anything

"Biden and other leaders claim to be following “the science,” but that obviously doesn’t include the research showing the high costs and low benefits of lockdowns and school closures. Closing schools was a dubious move in the spring, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that it would likely do little to stem the pandemic (and noted that school closings in other countries had failed to make a discernible impact). Today it makes even less sense in light of the accumulated evidence."

School closures and SARS-CoV-2. Evidence from Sweden’s partial school closure | medRxiv

Is the Coronavirus Lockdown Costing More Lives than It's Saving? | American Council on Science and Health (acsh.org)

After analyzing 23 countries and 25 U.S. states with widely varying policies, Andrew Atkeson of UCLA and fellow economists found that the mortality trend was similar everywhere once the disease took hold: the number of daily deaths rose rapidly for 20 to 30 days, and then fell rapidly.

The effects of the lockdown on health, by 3 California doctors

I met Robin and Karen on our trip to Scotland in 2017 and we’ve stayed in touch via e-mail and Facebook.  He’s a conservative, and an immigrant via Germany, Holland, and Canada.  He lived in a Nazi camp as a young child. Although not originally a Trump supporter, he definitely knows he’s not a Nazi or racist, because he has lived that.  Sometimes on e-mail I see things with no attribution and that distresses me (retired librarian).  This piece hasn’t been published on-line because it’s a “private” letter that has been made public by the authors. Three doctors in practice in California. Robin sent me (Norma) the following:

-----------------------------------------

Full disclosure;  co-author Dr Hopkins is a urologist.  I am his patient and he is an exceptional physician.  This letter bears serious consideration. 

This letter was published last night (Dec. 14) by 3 well known ER doctors from John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek, CA.

 

Dr Farnitano and Contra Costa County supervisors, 

We are writing to you with deep concern regarding more lockdown measures for our county. We feel the science is clear that more lockdowns lead to much more non covid morbidity and mortality as supported by the CDC.

We are confused as to why this is happening as we are often overcapacity in our hospitals and ICUs every winter and we have never done this previously. We also run our ICUs normally at a high rate of occupancy as this is most cost effective. 

Here are the issues in a nutshell: 

1. Excessive PCR testing is leading to numerous false positive results.  The specificity of PCR testing is really unknown but I have seen many authorities claim it is no higher than the low 90% range because of the attempt to be 100% sensitive using cycle threshold standards of 40. (sensitivity is inversely related to specificity)

2. For the sake of illustration, I will assume a 97-98% specificity which is likely far too high. Back in March when the county could only perform 300-400 tests per day, a 98% specificity would only lead to 6-8 false positive tests. Now we have reached up to 8000 tests per day. With a 98% specificity, that would lead to 160 false positive cases a day in our county. With a population of 1.1 million that would put us at 14.5 positive cases per 100,000 population and we would find ourselves in the worst possible tier based solely on false positive tests!!! This is absolutely a fact of epidemiology/science.

3. Again we have normal ICU and hospital winter surges that happen every winter and we never had any county lockdowns.  Our county figures on your website show essentially a stable ICU occupancy from July 1st to today. In addition on your website, we only have a minimal surge in hospitalized patients as compared to last year.

4. When you test like this for everyone that comes into your hospital, 'hospital covid patient" numbers will rise simply because you are capturing more asymptomatic disease in patients who otherwise are visiting the hospital for other reasons.

5. Public policy is being based on these erroneous numbers and assumptions.

6. Public policy with shutdowns (various closures) leads to excessive non covid related deaths. Please see attached CDC article which shows clearly that these excessive deaths are most pronounced in the 25-44 year old age range with numerous weeks during this year that 40-50% excessive deaths are seen in this age group. When you measure in terms of life-years lost as compared to life-years lost with actual covid deaths, it is not even close. We are harming more people in our community who do not have nor are at risk of having significant covid disease with senseless closures of businesses and schools. This is data supported.

7. The CDC and pediatric societies across America have voiced their support of opening all schools. School age children are not significant vectors of the disease. 

With this information above, can you answer the following questions: 

1. how do you account for these high numbers of false positives with the county tiering system? Do you throw these numbers out so that only true positives are counted?

2. Why did you not intervene with any type of community closure in the past winters when our hospitals were at overcapacity? What is different now?

3. What data do you have that supports closures of businesses like gyms and outdoor dining while keeping other businesses open like walmart? What data do you have that supports that we stay indoors as opposed to outdoors? (all the science that we have reviewed supports a predominantly 99% indoor vehicle of transmission).

4. Why have you gone against the medical experts in not recommending the opening of our schools?

5. What about our county's ICU figures caused you to trigger a closure? As you can see on Contra Costa County website, ICU occupancy has been stable between 75 and 80% since July 1st despite changing covid admissions. Please be specific here. When we run normally at 75% occupancy, why is 85% so terrible? We handle these surges every winter. It is expected. 

We look forward to your reply. 

Sincerely, 

Pete Mazolewski, MD, FACS, USAR

Brian Hopkins, MD,

Mike deBoisblanc, MD, FACS, USAR