“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”, Richard Feynman

George Rebane

Almost everything you’ve heard about Covid-19 (here also C19) from politicians, the media, and publicized scientists and clinicians is wrong.  Here at RR, early on I started looking at the pandemic with a gimlet eye.  I did this as a science professional and a longtime student of how politics and scientification have been illicitly cohabiting for decades, to the point that today it’s difficult to tell which is the john and which is whore.  The C19 pandemic has brought it all together, and now invites serious review of the disease, its hysterical public response policies, and the real prophylaxis and collateral damage that has resulted from the variously implemented policies.

For the better part of this year we have been subjected to pronouncements delivered from on high about C19's sacrosanct ‘science’, and the irrevocable wisdom of ‘following the science’.  All this as if science was a singular, unitary, and all-illuminating oracle speaking to us from Olympus in a clear and unambiguous voice.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and over the months more and more serious and credible people are beginning to find their voice and speak out against such specious beliefs.  For openers, I suggest that readers begin with ‘What the pandemic has taught us about science’ by Matt Ridley, MP in the House of Lords, that appears in the 9oct20 WSJ.

The levels of clinical, scientific, and political fraud launched at global populations is of historical proportions.  It may be argued that never before have so many billions of humans been so thoroughly bamboozled by their political leaders, abetted by a willing media citing grant-sucking scientists, go-along healthcare professionals, and profit-motivated pharma.  This has reached levels which have invited a German-based investigative committee headed by Dr Reiner Fuellmich to launch a multi-national class action suit, making the case that such cynically enforced policies have caused enough death and destruction worldwide to amount to a ‘crime against humanity’, a charge last litigated in Nuremberg in 1946. (H/T to reader)

Fuellmich gives an extensive presentation of cited data and information about the advent of C19, its history, and reactions to this corona virus.  In it he presents data and information (prepared for the lawsuit) about the characteristics and progress of the disease that I venture few of us know.  The video of the presentation takes a better part of an hour, but the educational takeaway is well worth it for those concerned about our governments’ reactions, and the continuing diktats of its truly insane response policies.

One of the strong points Fuellmich brings out is the testing scam based on the widely used PCR-based diagnostic test that produces essentially worthless results as it is applied here and abroad.  For a broader look at how our FDA views the C19 tests and testing landscape, you can visit their website here.

Finally, of the hundreds of clinicians, scientists, and public health professionals who have looked askance at the governments’ dealings with the C19 pandemic, three internationally prominent scientists in the field gathered last weekend in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to draft a declaration and give interviews (here) on the planet’s misguided responses to the virus.  Drs Martin Kuldorff, Sumetra Gupta, and Jay Bhattacharya, professors respectively at Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford Universities, came together to put their appeal to sanity out in the public with their ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ which I reproduce in its entirety below.

The professors, sporting very different political ideologies, agree strongly in their assessment of C19 (which in their conclusion corroborates Feullmich’s presentation above), and propose what they have labeled as a ‘Focused Protection Plan’ to be implemented in concert with terminating the highly destructive lockdowns that are selectively enforced across the globe.  This plan correctly relies on the inevitable rise of herd immunity in the younger and least affected share of the population while focusing preventive measures on the comorbid and elderly.

They point out that more children die of the annual flu, and have again done so than they do of C19.  The risk of death between kids and the elderly varies by more than three orders of magnitude (i.e. the risk of death for the elderly is already low – about 1/20 – and for kids it's thousands of times lower).  They point out from data that lockdowns don’t impact the response stats as best witnessed by the same population-wide results obtained by locked down Great Britain and remain open Sweden.  They prescribe letting people “practice informed freedom” rather than being forced to endure “myopic” one-size-fits-all enforced sabbaticals for entire populations of millions.

I know it’s hard to digest all this in the face of our lamestream’s strident and loud repetitions of the Left’s C19 talking points that have only the political purpose of launching the fundamental transformation of America this November.  Below you can read the declaration in its entirety and then, if you wish, go to its website to add your signature to the thousands who have already signed.

The Great Barrington Declaration

Great Barrington, Massachusetts - 4 October 2020

As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.

Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice. 

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza. 

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e.  the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity. 

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection. 

Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals. 

Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.

[11oct20 update]  The travesty of wrongheaded and drastically harmful response policies being imposed by both ignorant and power hungry politicians around the world is now even opposed by the UN’s World Health Organization.  The WHO has come out strongly against continuing lockdowns like the insane regimen the Democrats are imposing on Californians, and that lackey-minded local jurisdictions like Nevada County are following without uttering a peep.  Dr David Nabarro, WHO’s special envoy on Covid-19, has “pointed to the devastating economic side-effects of the lockdown as evidence for why world leaders should not enact further lockdowns.”  Nabarro added that “This is a terrible, ghastly, global catastrophe, actually, and so we really do appeal to all world leaders: Stop using lockdown as you primary control method.  Develop better systems for doing it.  Remember, lockdowns have just one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people and awful lot poorer.”  (more here)