Showing posts with label “herd immunity”. Show all posts
Showing posts with label “herd immunity”. Show all posts

Saturday, 1 May 2021

“What Will We Lose?”

 Source

April 30, 2021

moi

This article is by my brother Alex Bartlett and was first published at Off Guardian.

What have we lost? ____ What are we losing?
What will we lose?

This is the question is it not? Even though tens of thousands of experts, thousands of skeptics and all of the rest of us have been consumed over the last year debating, questioning, arguing and worst of all, just listening to endless stream of covid coverage it really comes down to this.

After sifting through all of the science-sourced “facts”, claims, death statistics, cases updates (so many, many cases) and the dire, ever grim projections from our modern-day high priests with their computer models it really just comes down to this question.

What will we lose?

For many reasons I am reluctant to write about this subject. I know nothing of epidemiology or virology or public health. I really have no business writing about loss due to covid 19, my profession is in high demand for the moment, my wife is gainfully employed and recently promoted and our living situation is quite good.

I will not dare pretend that I can speak about real hardship or suffering due to covid compared to what small business owners would be going through or what the working poor have had to endure but at the same time, only a complete fool would suggest that they have not lost anything in the past year.

With this in mind, at the same time, I cannot fully ever hope to comprehend all that I, no, all that we have lost and all of the ways this has happened. The sheer magnitude of these changes, almost all entirely some kind of loss for the vast majority of us is truly staggering. Perhaps for the 1st time in a very long time, perhaps ever, the other majority, the world’s poorest citizens will finally see the rest of us experience real empathy, a genuine understanding of some of the challenges and daily injustices they have been forced to accept as a normal way of living.

The worst aspect of my personal situation so far is that my elderly mother has been basically imprisoned in a care facility for over a year, unable to see any family save for myself and my brother who have been permitted to be designated “essential caregivers” so that she may have a few visitors.

So far with this measure, our Ontario Government has not been heartless enough just yet to completely isolate the elderly but all other friends and family are forbidden to visit. The last time she was allowed outside, almost 8 months ago, she was in the presence of a “minder” who kept us 6 feet apart, masked and who afforded us no privacy. I will lose my mom soon, she may die alone, forcibly confined with simple pleasures like walks in a park, the chaotic, non-judgemental love of grandchildren with their extra exuberance on holidays and birthdays all but eliminated.

My children are also no longer allowed in school even though kids are not and never were at risk and at the moment, over 75% of our schools in Ontario did not even have a single “case” when last in session. They are not only losing education but also social skills, study skills, valuable daily interactions and life lessons as well as exercise and fresh air and tragically, a large portion of that small, finite amount of time where they could just simply be kids.

I feel despair most days when I see my daughter, perched at the dining room table in front of a laptop ready to sign into virtual school, on her own and alone. Our wonderful, neighbourhood school sits shuttered while my daughter emulates the routine of an office worker at the age of 8. At the end of the day we can sometimes catch ourselves almost berating her like low level managerial assholes for not paying attention and fooling around during the day with the computer. For Christ sakes, what have we become as parents?

My 5 years old son cannot even last a 20 minute lesson online by himself. I initially felt frustrated that he could not persist in the same fashion the other young innocents can in these disembodied zoom classes but now I could be more accepting of this except that we both have to work during this “school time” and we need him to be occupied. Maybe this lack of digital “focus” speaks to how little screen time he had prior to this abomination of online “learning” or maybe it is simply because he is just 5 years old and he has no business being treated like this.

Am I surprised at how easily I just became a jaded, middle aged man who mostly complains to like minded friends and who wears himself and others out with the same impotent questions about “why and “how” could this happen? I did try emailing almost anyone in authority to question the safety and efficacy of the school mask mandate but this effort soon failed after so many “cut and paste”, formulaic responses from the bureaucratic minders along with their links on “community spread” and “how to safely wear a mask.”

It would have been nice to actually have been able to talk to school staff about my concerns in person but parents have not been permitted inside the school for over a year now. Will we ever be allowed back inside our schools or will there be new measures, new “threats” to keep us outside or have we simply just lost this ability to view and interact with this critically formative environment we immerse our children into?

I have not had a haircut since November 2020. “Unsafe” they say while putting all hairdressers on welfare for the better part of a year and also while making “working from home” just that much more undignified. Dogs have actually been permitted more frequent access to professional grooming than adults have here in Ontario in the last year.

Perhaps this is why booze, marijuana and fast food have always been available during this pandemic. I guess they know that as long as we remain in a well-fed stupor with Netflix porting us from reality, there will be no real angst or frustration on the streets.

For a brief moment last week, when announcing our latest stay at home order due to our hypersensitive, 47 cycle PCR test cases (approximately 1 case for every 4,500 residents here in Ontario mind you), our bumbling high school educated Premier tried to impose a quasi-martial law edict. The police would have been able to stop you and question your intent if you ventured outside of you home. I found it laughable that you could legally comply by saying you were “off to buy booze, weed or fast food” and these would all be valid, essential destinations for such an excursion. Meeting a friend for a walk in the park though, this is not safe, nor recommended or even permitted!

Luckily, they pulled back from this stance, the lawyers probably said it was unlawful, the police probably said that they did not want to enforce this heavy handed stance and perhaps the weary, bleary eyed, stumbling public would have probably, finally, maybe have said “enough”.

At this point, I think only the naïve believe that our old lives are coming back. Perhaps that is why they are so willing, so adamant to get the jab. It is not really to save the lives of others or prevent the scourge of an infectious disease but because it mainly seems like most people just want to travel again or to have the chance to no longer have to hear or worry about covid constantly.

Once again, I realize I have no business writing about loss. My friends are still all employed, I really do not know anyone who runs a small shop or a restaurant. I have no idea what it would be like to watch your business disintegrate, the debts pile up and the financial vultures start circling around you. I do understand why these small business owners and employees would be so motivated for everyone to get vaccinated so that they can finally open up and claw their way out of this deep covid hole they have been plunged into with the other end of their government issued loan lifelines handed to the big banks as a financial noose around their necks that will continually tighten in the months and years to come.

For the moment the rest of us are all still shielded by this work from home employment model that has not had any significant layoffs due to a massive, unchecked national Government wage subsidy program that even pays a 70% wage subsidy to large, significantly profitable corporations that are still paying dividends to shareholders. This white-collar job market stability is still further enhanced here in Canada by the re-bounding stock market that keeps rising to ever record heights thanks to the government debt printing machines.

So, how much will they really take from us in the months and years to come?

Let’s forget about PCR testing cycles, what constitutes a “case” vs. a clinical case, vaccine trials, if masks work or if lockdowns really achieve anything. These are all unnecessarily divisive discussions that, in the absence of any real or honest mainstream journalism, will never be permitted to be resolved in the public forum.

What we should really care about is that our children have been forbidden to interact with each other, to pursue hobbies, musical lessons, school clubs or just simple play-time with their peers. They are sent to school, when deemed “safe” based on the computer models, bound and gagged as invalids for up to 8 hours a day. Lunchtimes and playtimes are truncated, discouraged and replaced with silent lunches in front of a screen and ”socially distanced” outdoor play during shortened recess periods.

What will school look like in the years to come? What kind of digital ID’s will our children be forced to carry with them at all times and which big Tech conglomerate will collect, curate, market and disseminate all of their medical, scholarly and personal data?

What will replace all of the small restaurants, pubs and shops that have gone under? Will all of these beautiful brick and mortar establishments be bought up on the cheap by a large private equity firm that will offer the least equitable employment terms to desperate applicants?

At the moment I am not supposed to leave my neighbourhood limits. When will I be able to travel internationally and what risks must I accept with new vaccines and boosters to qualify to come and go and what private information must I sacrifice upon request to comply?

I feel that most of the online world I encounter is awash in mis-information, how soon will it be before the small and beleaguered sources of genuine information that I can find online are completely demonetized, de-linked, banned or de-platformed from the internet? The access to content and commenting that we have lost in the last year alone would have been incomprehensible to almost all of us just a few years ago, now the most “liberal democrats” are braying for big tech and the regulators to do more, to take more stringent actions. Soon we may experience a very harsh and unforgiving internet, one that reports us for straying outside of the ever-narrowing community guidelines.

What about my freedom, my right to refuse a hastily developed medical technology, one that has not been thoroughly tested but is still supposed to, guaranteed to (almost) provoke the appropriate immune response to a virus that poses almost no harm to me whatsoever?

What about unintended consequences? What happens to me if I suddenly develop any number of rare or debilitating health conditions in the future? My chances of catching covid-19 or experiencing ill effects from it are quite low so why can’t I be allowed to take this risk without being judged for doing so?

What happened to our acquired knowledge as a society as to how to behave when sick? This has served us well for thousands of years. When our amazing immune systems were fighting a significant illness, it was almost always obvious that the sick individual should be cared for but isolated and kept from others.

Why have we lost this trust in ourselves and in our own judgement? We are still permitted to raise our children (for now) but we are unable to properly assess our own health and infectivity as it may pertain to others at work or at school? Exercising our own good judgement is a critical aspect of a well functioning, civil society. Removing this right, this freedom of choice will only lead to a punitive, dystopian type of society, one that eagerly turns on each other rather than to help one another.

The optimists, those that believe in the system, the same system that has half the planet living in poverty mind you but don’t worry about that, just a minor flaw, they believe this fabulous system of democracy and commerce will deliver us the health outcome we all deserve. It will protect us and our weakest and all we need to do is take a shot, or two or three, every year and don’t mind the costs or how or to whom the money was distributed, it was necessary, it will be worth it.

Once this happens, once we reach the now newly re-defined as solely vaccine derived “herd immunity” then life is back! School, travel, friends and family. You can have it all but you may need a mask for just a bit longer, maybe two masks actually.

The rest of us, a small vocal minority or perhaps, hopefully a larger, mostly silent and dumbfounded mass of citizens will finally start taking stock of what we have lost and what we are truly at risk of losing.

It is hard to do. I still want the others to be right. I want the vaccine to be safe and effective. I want the sacrifice to be worth it. I want to travel and do all the things I imagined I would do with friends and family and at work. I want my kids to have these same options that I had. I want to believe that my government and our health officials are working with our best interests in mind while unaffected by conflicts of interest.

But the data says otherwise. This data that has always been there. That data that shows us that Covid is neither dangerous or all that contagious to anyone under the age of 70. The historical data that tells us that Influenza A and B and all the other sub-types could not possibly just disappear worldwide in the last twelve months. The data, all the data, these recent 12 months of newly acquired covid raw numbers from all over the world that does not lie

So, the media does.

So do almost all Governments as well.

They have the full cooperation of all of the big tech companies for maximum efficacy. Information has never been more widely available but then immediately censored or “fact” checked. Prominent voices of reason, objectivity and truth are shadow banned or de-platformed. Even the miniscule, insignificant frustrated comments I make against my better judgement on our national news website are quickly and automatically deactivated within minutes of posting. I should know better than to waste the pixels, however temporary they might be.

What can be done? Not much on our own but then quite a lot if we all do something. Close to a half a million marched in London on April 24th. It was wonderful to see. How many more will march in May? I hope at least twice as many will next time and that they will persist, and persist and persist. I hope that as the weather warms, more and more people will see that it is possible to be outside and inside, to be together and to celebrate our lives, our professions and our passions together without shame or fear.

What else do we have to lose?

*

His previous article: Together But Falling Apart

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River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Saturday, 24 April 2021

The Gibraltar Massacre

 BY GILAD ATZMON

Massacre 2.jpg

By Gilad Atzmon


Gibraltar currently has the world’s worst Covid-19 death rate per capita (2791 per million at time of publication). The disaster started on December 12, when an unprecedented surge in cases was witnessed (see graph below). Until that point in time, like in other European countries, Covid cases had been in constant decline for a while. In Gibraltar, numbers of cases had been dropping for almost a month since November 13.  

Gibraltar 11 December.png

What people do not know is that just a few days before Gibraltar morphed into a Covid killing zone, 273 Spanish key healthcare workers involved with Gibraltar’s elderly and vulnerable populations were reportedly inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine.

 

Gibraltar Bay radio reported on 7 December 2020, that “More than 9,200 Spanish nationals cross the Gibraltar border to work. Vaccination plans are still being drawn up, but around 273 workers working in care agencies looking after the elderly could become the first Spanish nationals to receive the Pfizer vaccine.“

The Spanish El Pais quotes Antonio Sánchez, a Spanish national and carer for two children with autism at a youth care centre who knew that he would be the amongst the first to receive the vaccine. “I am one of the first. The subcontractor company that I work for has told us that it’s very likely that they will begin vaccinating us next week [the week starting December 7].”

On 8 December elperiodico.com announced that  “the Spanish workers in the health and care sector in Gibraltar will be the first in the country to be vaccinated from Tuesday (8 December)  against coronavirus, under the Gibraltar Government vaccination program.”

Until now we have looked at Israel as the ultimate testing ground for the Pfizer experiment. As I have been reporting since the beginning of January, the outcome of the Israel/Pfizer experiment has been pretty devastating. Israel’s Covid deaths doubled in just 2 months of vaccinations. Cases of newborn Covid grew by 1600%, hospitalisations doubled and so on. 

In Britain we saw a similar surge in Covid deaths soon after the vaccination campaign was launched. In nearly every country that used the Pfizer vaccine around that time amongst other vaccines, the British mutant was blamed for the rise in cases and consequent deaths. Considering that air traffic almost ground to a halt by late December, it was already hard then to understand how the British mutant managed to spread so vastly. How, for instance, did it make Aliya to Israel to become the dominant Covid strain? How did it make it to Gibraltar, where it also became the dominant strain by late December? One possible and unfortunately obvious answer is that, unlike people, vaccines did travel in the air and all around the world.   

I do understand that the British and Israeli governments are reluctant to investigate the obvious correlation between vaccinations, cases, deaths and possibly the British mutant’s spread. An investigation into those questions may reveal that some facts related to the British mutant were known in advance.  For instance, we learned that the British mutant was identified in the UK as early as September. One may wonder, weren’t our British scientists alarmed by the possibility that the new variant may be related to vaccine trials that were taking place in the kingdom since the late summer?

Examining the most conservative Covid data available to us through the WHO and other international institutions, it is easy to study the close correlation between vaccination, cases, deaths and the spread of specific mutants (British, Brazilian, South African etc.):

In the graphs below you can easily notice that cases and deaths start to rise exponentially in shocking proximity to the launch of vaccine mass distribution campaigns.

3.vcd.jpg

 Yet, far more interesting is to try to understand the close relationship between vaccination and the so called ‘defeat of the virus.’ We should ask accordingly, how many people would be inoculated in a given society before we start to see a drop in Covid cases? I examined this question using the most conservative and widely circulated statistics:

Looking at Israel reveals that 30.6% of the population was rapidly vaccinated back in December before we saw a drop in cases. This intense action clearly resulted in Israel doubling its number of deaths and its health system nearly collapsing.

4. Israel drops 30%.06.png

The case of the United Arab Emirates is almost identical. The rapid vaccination campaign was followed by an immediate surge in cases and deaths, it then took 31% of the population being vaccinated to see the first drop in numbers. 

5. UAE cases drop 31%.png

In the UK, which was inefficient in its early mass vaccination campaign, the situation is much better. In Britain it took just 15% of the population being partly vaccinated (1 dose instead of 2) to see a clear sharp drop in cases. Despite that, the numbers of Covid death during mass vaccination surged by about 50%. We are talking about tens of thousands of people who perished.

6. UK Death drops 15%.png


I was therefore shocked to find already in early March that in Portugal it took just 3% of the population to be vaccinated mass vaccination to defeat Covid and see the numbers drop! 

This can be explained. If the presumably vaccine-induced mutant is twice as infectious than its ancestor and it is distributed initially through the medical system by means of shots rather than social contact, then making 3% of the population into super-spreaders may be enough to infect an entire society with a resistant mutant.

7.Portugal 3%.png

 In the cases I reviewed above, many people died and only an investigation of a criminal nature could indicate what level of consciousness, negligence or clumsiness were involved in the considerations and decisions behind mass vaccination in those relevant countries. What did our decision makers know in advance about the vaccine and possible mutants that it may induce? What have they realised along the campaign? What were the considerations and who exactly took the decisions?

Yet, the situation isn’t totally bleak as it also reasonable to assume that the unvaccinated who survived the British mutant probably bought themselves the best possible natural resilience to Covid-19 and its future mutants, something that we can’t say, unfortunately, about the vaccinated: Pfizer’s CEO admitted yesterday that the vaccinated are “likely” to be inoculated again within the next 6-12 month. Their immune systems are now dependent on Pharma’s constant supply of mRNA substances. 

 But the story of carnage in Gibraltar may provide us with a final validation of the above musings.

 33, 000 Brits live in Gibraltar. The official vaccination of the Colony didn’t start until the January 10, yet the reported Pfizer vaccinations of just 273 key health workers (less than 1% of the population) from 7 December,  if true, was enough to start a huge surge of Covid cases followed by an unprecedented spike in deaths.  Like in Israel, the UK, the UAE and many other countries, Covid vaccination was followed by a sharp rise in Covid cases.  Shockingly, the numbers of Covid cases in Gibraltar  started to drop on January 7, three days before Gibraltar started to vaccinate its entire British population.

Gibraltar 7 jan.png

 

 One may challenge my reading of the Gibraltar situation and wonder, ‘if the vaccines induce mutants, as you say, why didn’t the number of cases rise once vast vaccination was launched?’ A possible answer is that by January 7, 3 days before the launch of the mass vaccination campaign, Gibraltar already enjoyed strong herd immunity. Enough members of the British territory were exposed to the mutant, those who survived were immune. If I am correct here, then less than 1% of the population being vaccinated was enough to infect the entire colony with the British mutant and to buy it total herd Immunity.

I often ask myself why me, a jazz saxophonist, has to deliver analysis validated by mainstream conservative statistics and data.  Isn’t it the role of academics, health experts, the media, virologists, epidemiologists, the opposition party and the ‘Left’?

Gibraltar, like Israel, was a unique testing ground and the outcome is devastating but conclusive. But the most tormenting news is that we, the people, are betrayed in broad daylight by a united league that has drifted very far away from the Athenian ethos of science, pluralism and ethics. For me, this is certainly the scariest lesson from this so-called pandemic.


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Saturday, 10 October 2020

A State Within (NY) State

 BY GILAD ATZMON

By Gilad Atzmon

state within state.jpg

Amid a new surge of COVID-19 in New York City’s Orthodox Jewish communities, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo decided to temporarily close public and private schools in several areas with large Orthodox populations.

Watch CBS’ News report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSrzYBvm_JQ

Unsurprisingly some Jews are upset.  Less surprising is the fact that a few Jewish leaders have pulled the ‘antisemitic card’ just to make themselves look spectacularly ridiculous, as the numbers aren’t exactly on their side.

https://players.brightcove.net/fb622364-04f8-4077-b758-425bd55533a8



The facts are unfortunately undeniable: top government officials, including Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, are alarmed by the sharp rise in C19 Cases in zip codes with large Orthodox Jewish communities in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens and in a couple of nearby counties.

The areas that are subject to the new measures represent 7% of the city’s population but have been responsible for about 20% of the new cases in the past four weeks. Orthodox Jewish communities are clearly statistically overrepresented and, at least within the context of the mainstream C19 paradigm, pose a danger to their neighbours as well as themselves.

Those who follow Israeli news aren’t surprised by the surge in C19 cases in NY. In the Jewish State Haredi Jews who are 12% of the population are responsible for 40% of the C19 cases. In Israel as in NY, Haredi Jews are overrepresented in the C19 statistics. It has been revealed in the last weeks that about every 3rd orthodox Jew in Israel is C19 positive. In the Jewish State, the Haredi population  is regarded as the prime cause for Israel becoming the reddest country in the world. Accordingly, Orthodox neighbourhoods and ghettos are subject to close policing measures and are regarded as red zones.

The story points at a clear clash of civilisations between Orthodox communities and their neighbours. It seems that some Orthodox communities do not buy into the Covid 19 hysteria. Not only have they implemented a herd immunity philosophy, they have been very effective in putting this dissenting paradigm into play. Earlier this week, some young Yeshiva students admitted on Israeli TV News 12 that their Yeshivas were operating as hubs for C19 infections. “We were locked in the Yeshiva all 600 of us, everyone was infected, we all survived,” one Yeshiva boy told the camera.  Another Yeshiva student admitted that the philosophy was to spread the disease amongst youngsters while protecting their elders. When an older Orthodox member of the community was challenged by the Israeli reporter about the Orthodox community’s dismissal of the government’s Covid 19 regulations his answer was clear.  We live in a “state within state!” he said. What he meant was plain and simple: we follow our own laws and serve our own community interests in accordance with our belief system.

I confess that like the Orthodox Jews I am a strong believer in the effectiveness of herd immunity. I believe that a virus that has a 99.998% survival rate is probably safer than any future vaccine. Yet, there is a serious problem with the Orthodox implementation of herd immunity. Herd immunity can only work when practiced in a controlled and regulated manner within a collective that is responsible and responsive. It,  for instance, demands careful measures to protect  vulnerable elements within the community (care homes, the elderly,  people with health complications etc.).

It is possible that part of what made NY into a killing Zone in the spring and what has made Israel into the reddest Covid 19 country in the world is the fact that while the most members of society try to avoid infection and  attempt to “flatten the curve,”  another persistent segment in society is doing the opposite. It actually works to push towards an exponential surge of the virus.   This collision between avoidance and committed spreaders is a recipe for a disaster.

Israel is facing such a disaster currently, NY political officials may grasp by now that their reluctance to act in time and restrain the orthodox communities may helped make NYC into a killing zone in the early stages of the pandemic.

One may wish to believe that Cuomo and de Blasio weren’t aware of Jewish orthodox  ‘scientific’ experiment but this strains credulity considering the fact that the Orthodox’ herd immunity tactics have  not exactly been kept secret. On July 9, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency  revealed that “ NY ultra-Orthodox are acting like they have herd immunity. The Jewish outlet wrote that “ inside the (orthodox) communities, the overwhelming perception is that most people have had the virus and may now be immune.” One Williamsburg health administrator told the Jewish outlet, “that’s the feeling, that they’ve had it, everybody they know has had it, and the people they know who haven’t had it have some kind of immunity that we just don’t understand yet.”

Back in July, local NY health care providers and administrators say surveys and tests suggest that as many as 70 percent of the community has had COVID-19 and recovered, and that new cases have slowed or stopped entirely in their neighbourhoods, despite a near total return to normal behaviour, including large gatherings. 

I pointed out in my last article that the Orthodox covid-19  herd immunity model  provides us with a compelling case study of the virus and the way it is spread. Unfortunately it also presents us with a window into the dismissal of otherness that is deeply embedded in that specific tribal culture.

It would hardly be a problem if orthodox communities were experimenting with herd immunity behind ghetto walls in total segregation and then hopefully beat the disease, yet,  consciously  infesting their own society with the virus while letting members of their the community using the Subway in NY, or public transport in Jerusalem is actually reckless behaviour with some grave consequences.

The Israeli PM allowed it to happen probably because of political reasons. His survival  is dependent upon orthodox political support. Netanyahu refrained from addressing the issue for far too long and the consequences are clear. There are voices in Israel that already point at Netanyahu’s Covid failure as a colossal crime that demands a criminal probe. The same applies to Cuomo and de Blasio, their reluctance to act and restrain the recklessness of the Jewish orthodox communities in time is probably one of the reasons that NYC became a killing zone. 


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Tuesday, 28 April 2020

Corona Crisis: a Viral Episode or a Half-Life Nightmare*

 BY GILAD ATZMON



radioctive CV19.jpg

By Gilad Atzmon

Herd Immunity Ratio
As an intellectual exercise let’s think of an imaginary state, “State A.” Our fictional State A is devastated that 100 of its citizens are infected with Covid-19. For this exercise, we accept that these 100 citizens are representative of State A‘s demography, classes, ethnicities and so on. Apparently, State A’s nightmare is just the beginning because out of its 100 Covid-19 carriers, not one survives the next three weeks.
Let’s now imagine another case, we will call “State B.” State B is similar to state A in terms of its size, population, geography, climate, culture, ethnicity, nutrition, etc. In State B 100 citizens also tested positive for Covid-19. Following the experience of State A, State B braces itself for the possibility that all its infected citizens may perish but then for reasons that are not yet clear to us, no one in state B dies. And if this is not different enough, hardly any of the 100 develop any symptoms.
The crude difference between State A and B may tell us something about the herd immunity in States A and B. It is easy to detect that the ratio created by the number of fatalities (F) divided by the number of those infected (I) is an indication of the level of immunity or ‘herd immunity’ in a given region or a state.
State A: F/I = 100/100=1
State B: F/I = 0/100=0
State A’s immunity ratio equals 1. This means that anyone who contracts the virus in State A will likely die. In state B, on the other hand, one is likely to survive the virus. In fact, they may, without knowing it, have already survived.
But let us now consider some more realistic cases. In “State C,” again, a state similar to A and B, out of 100 who tested Covid-19 positive, 10 people died within the next few weeks.
State C: F/I=10/100=0.1
The herd immunity ratio in State C is 0.1. In terms of herd immunity, State C is far better off than State A as a virally infected subject may benefit from a 0.9 chance to survive. But State C’s situation is not as good as in State B where no one is expected to die as the F/I ratio in State B is O. We can see that the smaller the F/I ratio is, the greater is the herd immunity in a given state or a region.
But let us look at another realistic case. In “State D” out of 100 patients only 1 died within a few weeks.
State D: F/I=1/100=0.01.
This means that in State D the herd immunity is close to perfect. Someone who contracts the Covid-19 virus has only a remote chance that he will lose his life. In other words, the survival rate is 0.99
State C and D are not completely imaginary cases. The F/I ratio in State C is a good representation of the numbers we saw in Northern Italy, NYC, Spain, UK and other vulnerable regions that have suffered heavily in the last few weeks. The ratio in State D is very similar to South Korea and Israel. Though many people are identified with Covid-19 in these two states alone, very few have died.
Such a methodical search for herd immunity ratio may help to identify the survival rate in different states, regions and cities. It may help us to determine policy; to decide who, what and how to lockdown or maybe not to lockdown at all. It can also help to locate the origin and the spreaders of the disease as we have a good reason to believe that the regions with the most immunity to a given viral infection have likely experienced the disease in the past and have developed some form of resistance.
In reality, this model is problematic for many reasons and can hardly be applied. As things stand (in reality), we are comparing data that was collected under different circumstances and using various procedures designed with completely different strategies and philosophies. Both Israel and South Korea, for instance, conducted testing on mass scale and hence, identified many more carriers. More crucially both Israel and S. Korea made a huge effort to identify super spreaders and applied strict isolation measures to those spreaders and those who were infected by them. Britain, USA and Italy on the other hand conducted limited testing and have generally tested those who developed symptoms or were suspected of being infected.




Dr. Erickson COVID-19 Briefing – “millions of cases, small amount of death, millions of cases, small amount of death..”
But there is a far greater problem with the above herd immunity ratio model. It assumes that we know what we are dealing with i.e., an infectious viral situation, while the evidence may point otherwise.

The Radioactive Clock
It has become clear that the health crisis we are facing isn’t consistent with anything we are familiar with. Those who predicted a colossally genocidal plague weren’t necessarily stupid or duplicitous. They assumed that they knew the root cause of the current crisis. They applied recognized models and algorithms associated with viral pandemics. They ended up eating their words, not because their models were wrong but because they applied their models to the wrong event. While no one can deny the alarming exponential growth of the disease, it is the unusual ‘premature’ curve-flattening point and then the rapid decline of infections which no one explained. In fact, some still prefer to deny it.
Many of us remember that our so-called ‘experts’ initially tended to accuse China of ‘hiding the real figures’ as no one could believe that the virus, all of a sudden, pretty much ran out of steam. Some also claimed that Iran was faking its figures to make its regime look better. Then came South Korea and the scientific community started to admit that despite its initial rapid exponential growth, for an unexplained reason, the ‘virus’ seems to run out of energy in an unpredictable fashion: the curve straightens out almost abruptly and starts to drop soon after, almost literally disappearing to the point where even a country as enormous as China passes days without diagnosing a single new Covid-19 carrier.




When Italy experienced its Corona carnage, every health ‘expert’ predicted that when the ‘virus’ slipped out of the rich Lombardy region and made it to the poor south, we would see real genocide. That didn’t happen.
Rarely we see scientists sticking their necks out telling the truth. This interview with Swedish Prof. Johan Giesecke is a must watch!
We have also started to notice that lockdowns have not necessarily saved the situation and that adopting relatively light ‘lockdown’ measures doesn’t translate into a total disaster as Sweden has managed to prove. The ‘virus,’ appears to stop spreading according to its own terms rather than the terms we impose upon it.



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Thinking about the anomalies to do with the virus in analytical mathematical terms, as opposed to seeing the virus in biological or medical terms, has made me believe that a paradigm shift may be inevitable. We seem to have been applying the wrong kind of science to a phenomenon that is not really clear to us. This may explain what led a British ‘scientist’ to reach a ludicrous and farfetched estimate that Britain could be heading towards an astronomic death figure of 510.000. Following the same flawed algorithm, Anthony Fauci advised the American president that America could see two million dead. Both scientists were wrong by a factor of 25-40 times. Such a mistake in scientific prediction should be unforgivable considering the damage it inflicted on the world’s economy and its future. One might say that the good news is that our governments are finally listening to scientists, the tragedy, however, is that they are listening to the most idiotic scientists around.
Looking at the tsunami of raw data regarding worldwide spread of Covid 19 reveals a lot, perhaps more than we are willing to admit at this stage. The numbers, the shape of the Corona growth curve and the manner in which it flattens and declines suggests to me that something different may be at play. It seems as if the disease is shaped by an autonomous internal clock that determines its time frame and that it is not impeded by any form of organic resistance such as antibodies or herd immunity. The curve’s rise toward that flattening instant is indeed characterized by consistent and exponential growth. But then, in a seemingly arbitrary manner, the disaster stops its increase and the numbers of those infected by Covid-19 starts to drop.
Looking for such a pattern that produces an exponential growth that comes to a sudden end calls to attention the concepts of radioactivity in general and of the half-life in particular.
Each radioactive isotope has its own decay pattern. The rate at which a radioactive isotope decays is measured in ‘half-life.’ The term half-life is defined as the time it takes for one-half of the atoms of a radioactive material to disintegrate. Radioactive decay is the disintegration of an unstable atom with an accompanying emission of radiation. The change from an unstable atom to a completely stable atom may require several disintegration steps and radiation will be given off at each step.
Half-life is a measurement of time (set by the radioactive isotope) that involves a repeated release of radiation. Each time radiation is released the radioactive isotope is splitting in half, this repeats until it either reaches stability or maybe becomes ineffective. If you bear the half-life dynamic in mind you can see how one person can ‘infect’ or shall I say, radiate an entire stadium a few times over during a two hour football match. All it takes is a radioisotope with a half-life cycle of a few seconds.
Once the atom reaches a stable configuration, no more radiation is given off. For this reason, radioactive sources become weaker with time, as more and more unstable atoms become stable atoms, less radiation is produced and eventually the material will become non-radioactive. I wonder whether this could provide an explanation for the abrupt curve flattening that is associated with Covid-19
What may be possible is that Covid 19 is not the root cause of the current disease, it may instead be a by-product of a radioactive interaction. I am not in any position to substantiate this theory. Instead, I offer an alternative way of thinking about the problem that may shed light on the situation. If Covid-19 is a by-product of radiation, then the sudden decrease in radioactivity due to the nature of half-life reactions can explain why the virus loses its growth energy when it seems as if it has become unstoppable.
If this theory has any merit, then we are misdiagnosing the Corona crisis, misapplying the science and implementing the wrong strategies. It may also indicate that herd immunity won’t work, as we are not dealing with a viral infection but instead becoming ourselves, a source of radiation.
This theory may help explain why Israel and South Korea (State D) were so successful in combating the crisis. It wasn’t the lockdown that saved these countries. It was their aggressive search for and quarantine of super spreaders and those who were potentially radiated by them. Consciously or not, rather than stopping the virus they isolated the catalysts that were leading to the creation of the virus.
Our world is in a grave crisis and could benefit from thinkers who are slightly more creative, sophisticated and responsible than the characters who currently occupy the World Health Organisation, the CDC and London’s Imperial College. But more than anything else, I reiterate once again: we need to escalate our response to the Corona crisis into a criminal investigation so we can figure out every possible error or malevolent act that led humanity into the current grim situation .

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
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