I am heartened that the tide seems to be turning. The Great Barrington Declaration is attracting thousands of scientists’ signatures each day. And the World Health Association’s COVID spokesperson has done an about-face and come out in opposition to lockdowns, recognizing explicitly the suffering, the poverty, and the health implications of the policy most of the world has pursued these 6 months.
The global response to COVID claims science for its foundation, and my aim in this series is to show that what is being done does not represent a scientific consensus, and is deeply variant from past public health practices. I don’t understand who is behind this, but I suspect that it is not mere incompetence or bureaucratic inertia; this suspicion is based on
- Fraudulence of chloroquine trials
- Suppression of scientific dissent
- Evidence that SARS-CoV-2 originated in a lab, and suppression of this evidence in the scientific literature and in the press
- Secrecy in planning the political response to COVID
- Neglect of all the ancillary harms from lockdown in deciding on a response. (This warning published last March in the NYTimes by a senior epidemiologist from Yale probably could not be published in October.)
- Well-established, safe and effective treatments for COVID are being bypassed to hang the world’s future on the mirage of a vaccine, though vaccines are (1) far more expensive and (2) much harder to prove safe and effective [See #10 below]
- Public announcements and even the way the numbers are calculated are inciting widespread fear in the public. I think this fear is far more than is warranted, and I suspect that this is by design.
The method behind this madness remains elusive to me. But political journalists outside the established media are emphasizing the military connection. One investigative journalist whom I respect for her courage and her diligence is Whitney Webb. Here, she shows us that Operation Warp-speed is a military project much more than a public health project. It is plausible to me that COVID originated in a bioweapons research lab. And from the beginning, the US response was planned not by public health experts but by secret meetings of military leaders. 
I hope you will explore these connections and come to your own conclusions. My more modest goal in this series is to establish that “science” cannot be invoked to justify the lockdowns, the masking, the secrecy, the closure of schools and churches and cultural institutions. Least of all can “science” justify censorship, because the process by which science reaches for truth depends on open debate from a diversity of perspectives.
6. “New cases of COVID are expanding now in a dangerous Second Wave”
We’re concerned not for the virus but for the suffering and death that it causes. In March and April, we were frightened by the rising numbers of COVID deaths. But in May, CDC stopped reporting daily deaths and switched to reporting daily cases.
Traditionally, “cases” are defined as people who become seriously ill. That was the definition for a short while. Then it was “people who test positive for the virus”. On May 19, CDC started adding people who tested positive for antibodies to the virus as “cases”. We’re told that there is a troubling increase in COVID cases lately. If people really were getting sick, this would be disturbing. But if it is an increase in perfectly healthy people testing positive for antibodies, it is a wholly good thing. It’s called “herd immunity”.
No test is infallible, and invariably there are people who test positive who don’t really have the virus. These are false positives. As the prevalence of COVID has dropped with summer weather and more of the population already exposed (herd immunity), the rates are so low in many urban areas that false positive tests are swamping the true positives, and we really can’t say anything about trends. This recent article concludes that the quality of available data is no longer a reliable basis for policy data decisions.
The low death rates are, of course, a good thing. The problem is that the false positives are being reported without explanation as though they were meaningful data about prevalence of COVID.
COVID is no longer among the top 5 causes of death in America. Why is our government slanting the reports in ways that keep us scared? I don’t have an answer to this question. I know there is a great deal of money riding on vaccines, and that by any sane criterion, COVID vaccines are past their usefulness, even if we had reason to believe they were safe. But I don’t think this fully explains the fear campaign. I suggest that it’s my job and yours to keep asking questions.
7. “Dr Fauci and the CDC are guiding our response to COVID according to the same principles of epidemic management that have protected public health in the past.”
On the contrary, standard public health procedure is to quarantine the sick and protect the most vulnerable. Telling a whole country full of healthy people to stay at home is entirely new, unstudied, a sharp departure from previous practices.
Closing down manufacturers, offices, stores, churches, concert halls, theaters, even closing private homes to social and family guests—all this is a radical new experiment. There are no scientific studies to justify it, because it has never been done in the past.
Containment of the virus is feasible if it is begun very early, when the virus is geographically contained and the number of cases is small enough that every case can be accounted for. It’s then possible for severe isolation to halt the virus in its tracks. (This was the strategy pursued by China.) Once there are thousands of cases, it is feasible to slow the spread, but not to change the fact that eventually, everyone in the population will be exposed.
Dr Fauci was clearly aware of this, because when he made his March announcement, he was asking America to isolate only for a few weeks. His goal was explicitly to “flatten the curve”, meaning to make sure the disease didn’t spread so rapidly that hospital ICUs would be overwhelmed. At the beginning, he (quite reasonably) did not claim that the measures he prescribed to America would contain the virus, but only slow its spread.
It worked. Except in a few isolated regions, there was never a shortage of hospital beds. But six months later, we are still masking and social distancing, long past when the original justification for these measures has been forgotten.
8. “Asymptomatic carriers are an important vector of disease transmission, which must be isolated if we are to stop the spread of COVID”
The justification for separating healthy people from other healthy people is the idea that we never know who is really healthy. We know from past history that colds and flu become contagious a day or two before they have symptoms, though the viral load that they transmit is greatly increased once the virus has taken hold and they are coughing and sneezing.
Extending quarantine from the traditional application to people who are obviously sick to the general population is a huge innovation, imposing tens of trillions of dollars in lost productivity worldwide, as well as social and psychological hardship. Isolation kills. It could only have been justified by evidence that the virus could not be contained by the same methods that have been used for all previous epidemics. Where is the evidence that asymptomatic carriers are a critical link in the chain of transmission?
Dr Fauci got it right at first when he said, “In all the history of respiratory-born viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks. The driver of outbreaks is always a symptomatic person.” [Jan 28] Subsequently, there were anecdotal articles documenting particular cases in which asymptomatic transmission did occur [one, two, three]. How can we know if asymptomatic carriers are an important part of the dynamic spread of the disease? This paper is the only attempt I have found to study the question with a detailed mathematical model; but, in the end, it just calculates unknowns from unmeasurables, and reaches no conclusion. We are left with common sense, which says that patients with symptoms have much higher viral levels (that’s why they are sick). They are also coughing and aspirating more of the virus (that’s why the virus evolved to make us cough). When Maria van Kerkhove, speaking for the WHO, stated that asymptomatic transmission was not important, she was reined in by those who control the narrative, and she walked back the statement the next day.
9. “The lower death rates now compared to April are due to protective measures such as social distancing, mask-wearing, and limited travel.”
Why would we expect lower death rates? From measures intended to limit social contact and spread of the virus, we should expect lower infection rates. But that’s not happening; instead, we have higher case rates coupled with lower death rates. This can reasonably be explained by (1) changes in definition of what constitutes a “case” (see #6 above), (2) wider testing, (3) the virus evolving, as most viruses tend to do, toward higher infectivity and lower fatality, and (4) fall weather.
10. “With enough resources, pharmaceutical scientists can develop a vaccine in a matter of months, and provide reasonable assurance that it is safe.”
This is the most dangerous of all the fictions and, not incidentally, the one most closely related to $6 billion in NIH investments and tens of billions in projected corporate profits.
The subject of vaccines is highly polarizing. On the one hand, the mainstream press, especially the scientific press, has been hammering with singular purpose the message that vaccines are safe and effective and necessary not just for individual protection but for public health. On the other hand, there is about one third of the American public who distrust what they hear about vaccines, enough so that they will refuse a vaccine (if not coerced). [Updated to half of Americans, according to recent Pew survey] So much has been written about vaccine safety that I would not presume to try to convince you one way or the other in a few paragraphs. I can tell you that my own attitude changed when I had a bad reaction four years ago to a pneumonia vaccine (PCV13), and learned that there is no corporate liability for vaccine injuries. An act of Congress in 1986 exempted vaccines from the standard testing for safety and efficacy that other medications must pass, and also indemnified vaccine companies from all liability for harm caused by either design or manufacture. In my opinion, this is a dangerous situation, as it removes all motivation for companies to make a safe product. Recent amendments to the 2005 PREP act take the extraordinary extra step, for COVID vaccines only, of absolving the companies for liability in advance for fraud and intentional infliction of harm.[I thought this was true when I wrote it in October.]
I’ll close this series by defending my claim above that, compared to treatments, vaccines are (1) far more expensive and (2) much harder to prove safe and effective.
- One reason that vaccines are more expensive for the public (and correspondingly more profitable for the industry) is that vaccines are for everyone, while treatments are only for less than 1% of the population that becomes sick enough to need them. There is a race to patent a vaccine, a race for billions of dollars in private profits that derive from spending public research funds, and the profit potential is distorting our public priorities. The best treatment we have is hydroxychloroquine, which is out of patent, has a 65-year safety record, and costs pennies per dose. FDA can only legally approve vaccines on a fast track basis if they find that no viable treatments are available. This is ample explanation for the campaign to discredit chloroquine and other effective treatments.
- Because a vaccine is given to 100 times as many people, it must be 100 times safer in order to impose the same health burden from side effects. COVID is only life-threatening for people who are old and/or disabled; so to establish the safety of a vaccine, clinical trials must include people who are old and/or disabled. The relevant question is: are people who receive the vaccine dying at a lower rate than people who received a placebo? But none of the trials are being designed to ask this question.
There is a reason why vaccines are tested over many years, and why “warp-speed” testing cannot tell us what we need to know. Though a vaccine is always designed with one particular pathogen in mind, the effects of vaccination—beneficial and detrimental—extend to the immune system generally. This is the complex subject of cross-immunity [ref, ref, ref, ref]. It is generally true that live virus vaccines tend to confer cross immunity toward non-target viruses, while vaccines made from protein fragments tend to impair immunity to non-target infections. Only one of the candidate vaccines is derived from live, attenuated virus. The new class of RNA vaccines [Moderna] is entirely untested, and we have no idea what the long-term effects would be, but initial results give us pause.
If you are open to an honest and competent criticism of vaccine science and politics, I recommend Robert F. Kennedy’s web site.
The Bottom Line
The story that we are being told about an ultra-lethal virus that “jumped to humans” and the scientific community converging on a response proportional to the threat—this story is unraveling, as more and more doctors and public health professionals are adding their voices to a global movement to restore sanity and integrity in the pandemic response.
Discover more from Josh Mitteldorf
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Why could chloroquine be a bad idea unless absolutely necessary? It’s a fluoroquinolone, a group of medications that carry a “black-box warning” in the United States.
I’d also comment that in this and the previous post you seem to conflate survival with “full recovery”. People survive severe concussion, car-accidents, and drugs that cause their blood to become over-prone to clotting for the rest of their lives.
The world is trying to do things differently, _and better_ than it has in the past. Gathering data, tracking exposure; all tools of that can give us real analysis of disease spread. You criticize this, AND you cite statements given in a time when this kind of information wasn’t available.
It’s likely there are opportunistic agencies that are using this pandemic to follow some of the agendas you’ve outlined, but that’s ever been the nature of humanity. This article and it’s predecessor do not hold up to scrutiny.
Actually, although chemically related cousins, Chloroquine and Quinolone are very different.
Quinolone was discovered as an IMPURITY in the chemical manufacture of Chloroquine.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jm501881c
“The first antimicrobial quinolone was discovered about 50 years ago as an impurity in the chemical manufacture of a batch of the antimalarial agent chloroquine (Figure 2).
It demonstrated anti Gram-negative antibacterial activity, but its potency and antimicrobial spectrum were not significant enough to be useful in therapy. Building on this lead, however, subsequently nalidixic acid was commercialized.”
Nice Job Josh
One addition to your blog might be>>>
You wrote>>>
9. “The lower death rates now compared to April are due to protective measures such as social distancing, mask-wearing, and limited travel.”
Why would we expect lower death rates? From measures intended to limit social contact and spread of the virus, we should expect lower infection rates. But that’s not happening; instead, we have higher case rates coupled with lower death rates. This can reasonably be explained by (1) changes in definition of what constitutes a “case” (see #6 above), (2) wider testing, (3) the virus evolving, as most viruses tend to do, toward higher infectivity and lower fatality, and (4) fall weather.
My note- Acutally I believe that the reason the death rate goes down in the fall is because the population is just finisihing up with a long summer and thus population vitamin d3 levels are much higher than in the winter and early spring when the virus was most deadly. (We make Vitamin D3 when the sun hits our skin- and Vitamin D3 is a hormone not a vitamin that controls 2700+ genes mostly involved with immune system regulation) .There is a mountain of evidence already that the severity of COvid-19 symptoms correlates exactly with vitamin d3 levels. Those with the lowest D3 levels are the ones who die. Not a single hospital admission for covid-19 patients (n=400+) had a vitamin d3 level over 40 ng/ml….All were under and the US reference range is 30 to 100 ng/ml…Shall I go on? A recent Spanish study divided newly hospitalized patients (for covid-19) into 2 groups 25 getting just hydroxychloroquine (HZ) and azithromycin (AZ), and 50 getting HZ and AZ and HIGH dose vitmain d3 every other day >>100,000 IUs+ and 50,000 IUs +
Results ? 13 of the 25 in the control group were admitted to the intesive care unit (ICU) …only one on the high dose d3 group went to the ICU. The control, group had 2 deaths, the D3 group had NO DEATHS…Bottom line? High dose d3 reduced ICU admissions by 97%!. and elimated covid-19 deaths.. So it looks like the reason we are having higher infection rates with lower to declining deaths is because the population vitamin d3 levels are much higher at the end of the summer than in winter and spring. I have written best selling health books that have sold 500,000+ copies…and I wrote a recent book about Covid-19 that was banned by Amazon after 2 weeks and 13 reviews – all 5 stars….and I am now giving it away free…as a pdf file it is titled
16 Fascinating Covid-19 & Spanish Flu Mysteries Solved! HOW TO EASILY PREVENT THE NEXT PANDEMIC
You can read first 2 sample chapters and request the free pdf at this link>>>
https://jefftbowles.com/16-fascinating-covid-19-spanish-flu-mysteries-how-to-easily-prevent-the-next-pandemic/
PS rfecently Donald Trump made a remarkable recovery in 3 days from Covid-19 ..they are giving al the credit to the anitbodies from Regerneron which probably helped, to Resdemisvir, and dexamethasone , and melatonin and zinc. What they are downplaying and ignoring is the treament that probably played the biggest role in his getting beter so fast and “feeling better than I have in 20 years” Trump was also getting 50,000 IUs per day of Vitamin D3 every other day-much like those in the recent Spanish study. I doubt the antibodies made Trump feel better than he has in 20 years..This is a comment made by many many people who take high dose vitamin D3 for the first time…
You can see this by searching around in the 1,000+ High dose Vitamin D3 case studies search engine…search terms like fell or energy or years…here is the link>>>
https://jefftbowles.com/vitamin-d3-cure-search-engine-can-d3-cure-your-disease-1000-case-studies/
Jeff- excellent points about Vitamin D! Trump may also have had pretty good vitamin D levels from all his golf. It certainly is unusual that with his weight and poor diet that he faired as well as he did with COVID. Yay, cheap, safe vitamin D. Shame on the media for not having this information as front page news.
Excellent, thank you. What is your opinion of flu vaccine? Should we have it – will it help to increase resistance to Coronavirus? Should we have it anyway? Thanks.
The best vaccine is to get infected and not have any symptoms like a large number of Covid-19 “cases” have done. Infection and recovery is way superior to vaccination for preventing a future infection. Usually lasts a life time for most viruses. How to not get symptoms? Take 50,000 IUs of D3 per day at the first sign of symptms..like Donald Trump did. Now he is likely immune for life and will never have to wear a mask HAHAHA..
Amen
I concur- lots of vitamin D but since there seem to be a lot of clotting issues, I would also add NAC (N-Acetyl-Cysteine) as it helps prevent clotting. And zinc helps with immunity and Quercetin helps drive the zinc into the cells. Vitamin C is also helpful. A very cheap and safe handful of supplements to take daily for life even to lessen the danger of any pathogen.
Seems to me that, since this disease will probably lurk for many years, a vaccine is still a good idea for vulnerable populations. …A disappointment for those racing for big profits, but still a market.
Read “Plague of Corruption” by Judy Mikovits, PhD. You are far more likely to die of the flu if you have had the flu vaccine.
I looked through the dates lockdowns were announced and found the following early adopters-
Italy-03/09
Iran-03/14
Spain-03/14
and by state in the US
California-03/17
Illinois-03/21
New York-03/22
These early adopters certainly don’t suggest lockdown was a Strangelovian right wing military conspiracy. In the US more reasonable to consider a media driven process with the support of politically driven scientific organizations and individuals.
It has been my personal experience that countries that are divided about 50/50 on fundamental societal issues are chaotic and politics become far too important a component of every day life. Democracy is not well suited to govern populations that are fundamentally split 50/50. In the case of the US one of these oppositional halves control the day to day operation of the Federal Government both military and non-military. The US Federal Government controls an enormous amount of money and money attracts certain kinds of people be they in military or civilian roles and with scientific or non scientific background. With trillions of dollars spent each year, and to be elected to have oversight over those dollars being a costly process, the risk for corruption of the process reaches 100%. It is a law of nature and in this case human nature.
In this case the status quo receives support from academic idealists who have fundamentally a statist outlook. They feel virtuous having supported a government lockdown policy if for no other reason then an immense demonstration of government control that provides the illusion of safety.
This is where I likely have a different view. Younger scientists have been so thoroughly propagandized during their education that critical thought is secondary to political dogma and this no different than has been previously in human political history. If looking for the prime movers of this plan then I believe the search needs to be international rather then limited to within the walls of the Pentagon.
The state of Victoria in Australia (about 8 million people) was hitting 800 cases a day then did a 3 month lockdown with requirements for masks and is now at 0 new cases. Lockdowns work if you can do them. I acknowledge they are harder when surrounded by states not doing them with whom porous borders are shared.
lockdowns, so far, have accomplished nothing except destroying the world economy. As soon as u lift them, it starts all over again. a ridiculous nonsolution to a virus less lethal than the flu. states that have not locked down (like sweden) have had the best results. fauci did a study in 2009 concluding that more people died from wearing masks duringthe 1918 pandemic than from the spanish flu. this is the” great reset” the globalistshave been planning for decades. they have already bankrupted us while their wealth has doubled.next is depopulation thru starvation, vaccination or disease. Which will also solve the global warming issue, mother earth will heal. the Davos crowd will jet around the world to sun and ski resorts. and we will be dead or destitute. living in some fema camp. Thanks alot barak,hillary,joe,kamala, they couldnt pull it off without you.
Again, thank you, Josh, for your coverage of the topics. Your one of the smartest guys I know, interested and openminded and not given to hyperbole.
I have heard this a few times recently, that as you suggested, “ Containment of the virus is feasible if it is begun very early,” but the inherent flaw in this idea is that in the early days of our determining a novel virus is spreading, we as yet do not know how dangerous it is, nor who it impacts in particular. This, added to the difficulty of actually and successfully sealing shut a border, region or community renders this idea not, imo.
You might be interested in Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s comments on the prospective vaccine posted this morning:
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/author/drmalcolmkendrick/
Apparently if President Trump says something in regards to the virus then his opponents are driven to assert the opposite. Hydroxychloroquine / Zinc touted by President Trump within minutes voice are raised to say it is killing people. The absurd world we are living in now is killing thousands of people needlessly. It is truly a terrifying time to be alive. Regardless of how you feel about the President surely peoples lives trump opposing him…apparently not.
exactly. the brainashing and mind control that has gone on regarding Trump is beyond my comprehension. Half the country would rather millions die of covid than admit that he as right and the hcq protocol is an effective treatment. The entire world is has been hypnotised into believing a fairytail. To even entertain the idea that a vaccine is the anser is insane. how mahy years has it taken to come up with an hiv vaccine? one flu vaccine or more every year and still 50,000 mostly elderly people die every year. but that hasnt stopped theorld from spending billions and pinning our hopes on them. how stupid are we?
So many excellent points to consider. I will focus on one I can resonate with due to personal experience.
Regarding this statement from your article: “I can tell you that my own attitude changed when I had a bad reaction four years ago to a pneumonia vaccine (PCV13), and learned that there is no corporate liability for vaccine injuries. An act of Congress in 1986 exempted vaccines ..”
Until a person has a negative reaction to a vaccine, it may be difficult to understand another person’s reluctance to get vaccines.
I had a negative reaction to an unneeded vaccine, and it also changed my view.
Vaccines and boosters are not water.
Also, regarding knee jerk administration of Boosters: Why not titer the blood to see if residual antibodies still survive?
A titer test is an antibody blood test that can tell you if a previous vaccine is still protecting you.
Also it has long been known that flu vaccines do not work as well in the elderly. Nor do boosters.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/why-flu-vaccines-dont-work-as-well-in-the-elderly
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28111-8
“Evidence shows that booster vaccinations are less effective in elderly people”
Veterinarians have long recognized the hazards of vaccinating old dogs and have recommended titers in lieu of knee-jerk boosters or unneeded vaccinations.
https://thebark.com/content/titer-testing
The most recent American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) Canine Vaccination Guidelines say that reported side effects from vaccines vary from injection-site reactions, lethargy, lack of appetite and fever to more serious adverse events, including allergic reactions, autoimmune problems and, rarely, sarcoma or other tumors.
The decision about when to vaccinate requires a risk-benefit analysis.
Most experts agree that vaccines are critical to the overall health and wellness of our dogs (and cats), but many also agree that giving a vaccine when it is not needed exposes animals to unnecessary hazards.
vaccines are huge money makers for big pharma. they are comming up with vaccines for illnesses that dont even exist. 100% success rate with those, no liability! what a racket!!
Having a fully functioning immune system is better than any vaccine or treatment. Over many centuries humans have gradually moved out of the sun and our vitamin D blood levels have gotten very low. The purpose of the hormone we call vitamin D is to slow down body systems to survive winter. Humans now have this slow-down-everything signal 365 days a year their entire lives. The signal may stop when your level gets to 60 ng/ml (150 nmol/L) but most humans have less than 30. We had rickets before the 1918 Spanish Flu. There are many studies showing those dying of covid are the ones with the lowest D levels. One intervention study gave vitamin D to patients and only 1 out of 50 given vitamin D needed ICU while 13/26 needed ICU who didn’t get vitamin D. This video shows genetic evidence that a blood level of 40 ng/ml is not enough to have a fully functional immune system. Why Does Vitamin D Exist? https://youtu.be/vjq5t1GWb_Y
Did you see that trial in Turkey? Phase 2 trial on a supplement mix with nicotinamide riboside and N-acetyl cysteine, shows 29 percent reduction in recovery time… and they hadn’t even selected for older patients (that would be expected to respond more to NR). Phase 3 is in progress:
https://www.aboutnad.com/perspectives/new-phase-2-clinical-in-covid-19-patients-finds-hydroxychloroquine-hcq-plus-nutritional-protocol-including-nicotinamide-riboside-significantly-improved-recovery-time-vs-hcq-alone
There seems to be a problem with your blog. Your latest post “Ten Elements of the False COVID Narrative (last 5)” doesn’t show up on any of my browsers and devices.
The truth is, as always, in the middle. The real problem with COVID is not the number of infections nor the number of deaths but the number of hospitalizations
Here in Germany the second wave is already here. Yesterday were 5000 infections only 20 deaths but hospilalization are beginning to rise quite sharp. Although now only 5 % of ICU beds are occupied with COVID patients the German autorities have imposed additional restrictions, because if the hospitalizations rise proportionaly with infections, then in December the capacity of the hospitals will be overwhelmed
In Germany the cases are conted very carefully (one must have 2 positive tests if asymptomatic) and 2 negative tests to be attested as cured.
Other problem with COVID is that there are many (more than 10%) that were infected with COVID that have different ailments long after recovering,
Bravo, Josh! I hope this helps turn the mad tide, but word on the street says not. I have been scolded twice in 24 hours while walking outside by self-certain mask and distance vigilantes. The local daily rag included an incredible fright-mongering “obey” propaganda article headlining massive infection increases without saying a word about actual deaths. It was loaded with exactly the false messaging you have detailed, including a chilling picture of a large mass-grave that has been dug. Notably, the faux-liberal Democrats are the worst proponents of this dark charade.
Josh, on #9, you asked how masked and social distancing could possibly reduce percentage of deaths rather than just reduce # of infections. It’s potentially because when the virus is passed along, there is less of an initial viral load. This would be because masks and distancing, while they certainly cannot stop all aerosols, clearly would decrease the amount. See this Nature roundup study on masks:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
I do agree that case reporting (especially reporting antibodies as a “case”, undifferentiated) has been really weird.
The positive studies for HCQ are also compelling and it does seem like HCQ perhaps became a political football in the US specifically.
I’m struggling to understand the larger picture you seem to be talking about: military involvement, COVID as an excuse for privacy violation etc.. COVID is a global phenomenon, with many approaches to treatment, many different ways of counting the infected and deaths, and we still end up with a severe and novel threat in every country, and approaches that are more similar than different (even Sweden *advised* social distancing, just didn’t mandate it).
So can you articulate any of your – even inchoate – theories as to how COVID and the response thereto is a coordinated thing, with some specific purpose?
There is a culture of tolerating/embracing preventable death in the US (gun laws, lack of health care, indifference to climate change, even drone strikes on others) that seems weird to most of the western world. Josh your writings on COVID, somewhat ironically while placed on a blog dedicated to preventing aging, seem to fit this mold. These areas of policy where preventable death is tolerated are all occurring in social situations where a little social coordination yields a higher overall utility than solutions crafted on the individual level, but this coordination is being derided as conspiracy and illiberal (in the sense of not supporting personal liberties). The issue is that game theoretic models are unequivocal in showing that a groups capacity to co-operate is optimal for flourishing. I am not convinced by any of the arguments you have presented because they seem to react too stridently based on flimsy data points to the conventional social co-ordination approach. They seem wilfully ignorant of the weight of evidence in support of the conventional approach which has succeeded in many areas of the world where it has been able to be implemented. I do not think the loss of liberty is under as much threat as you do from the social co-ordination approach but think there is more of a “culture shock” occurring particularly in the US where optimal social coordination solutions do not fit the dominant culture that values individually crafted solutions/self reliance. People who work in the big cities in the US (NY/LA) and have been more pro-active/compliant with lockdown measures are less likely to have this shock because they are more used to social coordination as part of their lives.
There is also a culture among some of embracing the illusion of being able to have control over every aspect of their lives to prevent death.
Let’s look at medical errors:
https://duluthreader.com/articles/2019/12/05/114069-medicalsurgical-error-and-prescription-drug
…researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The authors calculated that medical errors accounted for > 250,000 deaths every year in the US, which made iatrogenic (= physician, drug or vaccine-caused) deaths the third leading cause of death in the US, surpassed only by #1 heart disease (647,457) and #2 cancer (599,108) (2018 CDC data).
More……..
Drugs that have caused deaths or illnesses are rarely listed by physicians on death certificates or in rankings of causes of death or illnesses.
Other ways people can die:
In the USA about 35,000 plus deaths from car accidents.
About 3,000 plus from drownings in the USA. That number would likely be far higher but most people living in a large city with high populations do not have a backyard pools or live within walking distance of a community pool or body of water.
About 50,000 in USA die each year from pneumonia.
About 35,000 in USA die each year from the flu.
About 48,000 RECORDED suicides in the USA annually
Regarding reported gun deaths: last recorded CDC gun death data was in 2017 in The USA.
That number was about 39,000 including suicides.
Living Life is definitely Risky.
I agree.
The annual deaths in the US are around 2.8 million (many in horrible circumstances) but usually these are not beamed into peoples homes by the media 24/7. Even the usual phrase-“prevent death“- is poorly formed. Actually death can only be delayed by some amount of time until it can’t. The old joke that life is a fatal sexually transmitted disease has truth. Amazing that some fervently subscribe to the idea that the government can prevent death.
The bad part is that the media (and others) has found this so profitable that incredibly difficult to get the genie back into the bottle.
Interesting article that includes discussion of unreasonably high PCR cycles producing meaningless positives for Covid.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMp2025631
Interesting that the Great Barrington Declaration cannot be found through a Google Search. It is still available via Bing.
People are reporting this, but when I checked “Great Barrington Declaration” (with quotation marks) just now, it was the second from the top in results.
You are correct, it is now searchable. But it wasn’t yesterday. That’s good news.
Interesting that the Great Barrington Declaration cannot be found via Google. It can still be found via Bing.
An excellent article about the spreading of COVID
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/
Josh, I really appreciate these last two postings. I, too, have wondered about how this COVID-19 business has been handled on the part of the so-called “experts” and “elites”. In addition to what you have said, the following three options have been completely ignored by the medical establishment.
1) Obesity and just being generally out of shape is the second biggest risk factor for adverse COVID-19 outcomes. Why then is there no public campaign for people to do physical fitness and loose the weight?
2) There has been no effort or even discussion on the part of the medical establishment to develop Todd Rider’s DRACO, which has the potential to work against a great many viral agents. Again why not?
3) The single biggest risk factor for adverse COVID-19 outcomes is being old, more specifically immune senescence. I am certain that all of you reading this are aware of Greg Faye’s TRIIM work in regenerating the Thymus gland using three compounds. Again complete silence from the medical establishment with regards to this. Why?
I’m still at the point where I think it is simply bureaucratic incompetence and inertia. Anyone who has worked in large organizations is aware of the nature of bureaucracy to make smart people stupid. However, it is starting to dawn on me that there may be more to this story than simple incompetence and inertia.
If there is actual intent in this, it is probably greed, meaning all of the money that can be made from the vaccine. Having had major physiological and psychological issues in childhood, and a brain fog in young adulthood; which in retrospect clearly came from medical Mercury, I share your skepticism of excessive vaccinations. The use of Mercury in medicine and dentistry is a crime against humanity.
If we really want to engage in conspiracy thinking, here is one hiding in plain sight.
The Great Barrington Declaration was sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), a libertarian think tank which receives a substantial part of its funding from its own investments, with holdings valued at US$284 million in a wide range of fossil fuel companies incl. Chevron and ExxonMobil, tobacco giant Philip Morris International, Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. and many other companies.[7][8] It has a balance sheet of US$37 million and in 2018 received a US$68,100 donation from the Koch Foundation. AIER describes itself as lobbying for a world “organized according to the principles of pure freedom – in which the role of government is sharply confined to the provision of public goods and individuals can flourish within a truly free market”[24] and as producing “independent, scientific, economic research to educate individuals, thereby advancing their personal interests and those of the nation”. Its network of local “Bastiat Society” chapters partners with the Atlas Network, Ayn Rand Institute, Cato Institute, the Charles Koch Institute, and other Koch-funded think tanks. AIER statements and publications consistently portray the risks of climate change as minor and manageable, a form of climate change denial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration
It’s been awhile since I put much stock in Wiki, outside of botanical entries. They’ve consistently sided with the billionaires who’ve been pushing for the lockdown reaction to this cold virus, subsequent vaccine, etc. (i.e. Bill Gates).
Are they certain that AIER has been funding the work of these three scientists? And brought them to MA for this? “Sponsored” can mean a number of things.
“Sponsored” means they paid for it. Here’s more info:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/great-barrington-declaration/
Besides, since when have libertarians been the “bad” guys? Unless its changed in recent years that I don’t know about, libertarians have always been about liberty and allowing people the freedom to work it out on their own, making their own choices in life. They’re the only people I know of that don’t want to boss you around and make you do stuff you don’t want to do. How in hell does this make libertarians the “bad” guys?
these people and groups are LINO’S. sinister groups with ulterior motives posing as liberty loving libertarians. you know, like antifa. classic fascists!!
i am no fan of the faux libertarian Koch bros. but after reading the Barrington declaration. Sign me up. the fact that fauci calls it nonsense is further proof that, that is the way to go.
Thank you, James – these are not organizations I would want to be associated with.
James, Thomas – are you really thinking of yourselves as “science-based” when pointing to sources that use word “denier”, a term of religious origin, indicating zelaous faith in whatever the mainstream academic circles deem the correct dogma for the time?
So, either you’re a “believer” in the dogma of catastrophic manmade global warming caused by CO2, or you are a “denier” and you should burn on stake with everyone who questions the Holy God of Science, right?
Settle down. “Denier” is simply a shorthand description for people who don’t accept the obvious reality of anthropogenic global warming. No need to get dramatic about it.
Unfortunately, the word is used nowadays to shut down (or, like this case, shushing the opposing theory) all scientific discourse, be it climate, nutrition, medicine, etc, etc, etc. it’s a sophomore tool, an all too frequent trope.
I don’t think there is an opposing theory in Fox/Trump style of argumentation. There is just an over emphasis on plausible deniability and the assertion of conspiracy and persecution. There is a responsibility in science not only to be critical and examine alternative notions but to give due consideration to the weight of evidence. This also applies with COVID analysis.
There is no “alternative theory” plausibly explaining observed global warming. That’s the problem.
I’ve never heard the term “denier” used in any other context. And it’s frankly the most polite term I believe you could use to describe such people, though I’m open to suggestions.
There isn’t a single testable prediction from AGW that hasn’t been falsified. Be it Mann’s hockey stick or submersion of much of NYC or loss of the Maldives or collapse of global agriculture or increase in hurricanes or increase in tornados activity-all false by the use by date promoted.
Are you knowledgeable about paleo climate or the spectroscopy of carbon dioxide or the numerical modeling of chaotic natural systems?
If so please explain the basis of your certainty.
The Great Barrington Declaration is plain nonsense funded in part by the Kochs. It includes signatures from “Dr. Coconuts, PHD in Coconutology” and “Miss Wonderwoman, PHD in being bulletproof”.
Now, the grifters behind the Great Barrington Declaration claim only .1% of the signatures are “fake”, originating from “online trolls”. Which means they allowed anyone with an internet connection to sign.
For another perspective, I suggest looking at “Science Based Medicine’s” take on what these people are proposing
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/great-barrington-declaration/
@Thomas,
You and the idiotic article you link too think that smearing other people’s motives and pretending to be experts and part of the consensus is evidence that you are correct.
But to counter two of your outright lies
1. Many different groups have funded the Great Barrington Declaration from both sides of poltics)
2. Due to some assholes they now check signatures.. So 99.99% are real and it’s over half a million in 3 weeks. Most people are not assholes it seems
You’ve misrepresented Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove’s comments. While she did say that asymptomatic spread was not nearly as important as symptomatic spread, what she did say is that contact tracing and quarantine imposed on healthy individuals in contact with symptomatic individuals should be conducted.
In the absence of contact tracing and quarantining, a national policy for social distancing and limitations on social interaction that reduce physical contact is entirely merited and reasonable.
I thought it was extremely amusing that the search for super habitable planets include a temperature criteria of 5 degrees C warmer than Earth.
Here is a blurb about this criteria-
“Surface temperature of planets: The surface temperature of planets would strongly influence the formation of moisture, clouds, and humidity, all of which help determine the presence of a key life indicator: water. Planets with a mean surface temperature of about 5°C greater than Earth would be more suitable, as the slightly higher overall temperatures along with the additional moisture would be better for life. Life’s preference for warmth and moisture is evident on Earth too, as we see greater biodiversity in tropical rain forests as compared to colder, drier areas.“
Dr. Mitteldorf,
What is your best guess as to the real reasons behind these totally inane (actually insane) movements that you detail? I immediately saw them for what they were, not only with the misinformation, but also the absolute refusal to discuss time frames, when risk would be appropriate, what would a vaccine really change in people’s minds (50% effective at best and with a coronavirus history of general ineffecacy), etc. When you don’t get an answer you know you are dealing with emotion, hysteria, and general dishonesty. It’s just not a good faith argument and it has never been.
If it’s not bureaucratic creep or expert love, or money hungry and power hungry Gill Bates types with their connections to pharma/vaccine, what is your best guess? The stupidity and public reaction to this begs the question, truly. It has been an unbelievably heavy handed approach, to boot.
Results from a October 29th study are promising.
“Hydroxychloroquine, nitazoxanide and ivermectin seem to be similarly effective for overall clinical outcomes in COVID-19 when used before seven days of symptoms, and overwhelmingly superior compared to untreated COVID-19 population, even for those outcomes not influenced by placebo effect, at least when combined with azithromycin, and vitamin C, D and zinc in the majority of the cases. Between these drugs, nitazoxanide demonstrated the strongest broad spectrum antiviral activity, plausibility to act as an anti-COVID agent, and safety profile, at least at the time of the choice of the drug for the AndroCoV Trial.”
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-98106/v1
I think the most telling study just came out in early September
Randomzied Controlled…they put newly asdmitted covid-19 patietns into 2 groups at the hospital..50 experimetnal 26 contols They gave everyone hydroxychloroquine and zinc. Then the gave the group of 50 an inital dose of around 100,000 IUs of vitamin d3 then 50,000 every other day…The result?
13 of the controls (50%) ended up in the ICU 2 of them died ..
The Vitamin D3 group of 50?? only 1 ended up in the ICU (2%) and none died. Conclusion? high dose d3 redfuced ICU admissions by 96%…Ta Da……
Check out my new podcast I did for the National Health federation it is just out.
youtube link>>> https://youtu.be/unScJt-Aliw
Alas, was it the D3, or was it D3 when combined with hydroxychloroquine and zinc? You can’t really say with such a study.
That’s a good point. But there are a number of other studies out there that just look at d3 levels alone. For example one eregency room doctor measured all thne incoming covid-19 patient’s D3 levels..and found not a single one admitted with a d3 blood level of more than 40 ng/ml… And no deaths in patients with a d3 blood level of 30 ng /ml or higher..I had seen a lot of studies like this where disease severity and death are all negatively correleated with d3 levels before this study popped up.So I had the prior background knowledge of Covid-19 and D3 so that is why I focused only on the D3 in this study…
Here are links to 13 studies. https://twitter.com/DrSubhasree/status/1305410804770992129
I would add that I have started being more diligent with D3, so am not disputing its value. Good to remember that for the previous millions of years before the advent of office spaces, we lived with a lot more sunlight. It’s no surprise that this compound is vital to health.
I’ll give a look see to your study , thnx.
This line of thinking is not ageing particularly well. It comes across quite conspiratorial and over-wrought which is disappointing from a blogging voice that I’ve come to respect over the years. This line seems particularly ill-suited as a “false Covid narative”:
6. “New cases of COVID are expanding now in a dangerous Second Wave”
11 million cases and counting in the US Josh. … or are the people currently maxing out the intensive care wards across the nation just faking it?
Let’s take a close look at the ‘science’ which the ‘covid pandemic’ depends upon. There are two studies that are the foundation of this entire narrative. Here they are:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/6/20-0516_article?fbclid=IwAR0HYPDhZoUX1NDOZrad1Y7VKZiBRGoJysdQ4sE_DBMDoAmd_P6gqfFx2w4
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6988269/?fbclid=IwAR1lW3dTNDKx56gqBw-6Axp00XDH7MgclAHH7HWBjvW02S7iQA3pWrwLasc
Here are some key quotes from the first study:
“We designed 37 pairs of nested PCRs spanning the genome on the basis of the coronavirus reference sequence (GenBank accession no. NC045512). We extracted nucleic acid from isolates and amplified by using the 37 individual nested PCRs. We used positive PCR amplicons individually for subsequent Sanger sequencing and also pooled them for library preparation by using a ligation sequencing kit (Oxford Nanopore Technologies, https://nanoporetech.comExternal Link), subsequently for Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencing. We generated consensus nanopore sequences by using Minimap version 2.17 (https://github.comExternal Link) and Samtools version 1.9 (http://www.htslib.orgExternal Link). We generated consensus sequences by Sanger sequencing from both directions by using Sequencher version 5.4.6 (https://www.genecodes.comExternal Link), and further confirmed them by using consensus sequences generated from nanopore sequencing.
…we examined the capacity of SARS-CoV-2 to infect and replicate in several common primate and human cell lines, including human adenocarcinoma cells (A549), human liver cells (HUH7.0), and human embryonic kidney cells (HEK-293T), in addition to Vero E6 and Vero CCL81 cells.” (those vero cells are monkey kidney cells)
Each cell line was inoculated at high multiplicity of infection and examined 24h post-infection. No CPE was observed in any of the cell lines except in Vero cells, which grew to greater than 10 to the 7th power at 24 h post-infection. In contrast, HUH 7.0 and 293T showed only modest viral replication, and A549 cells were incompatible with SARS CoV-2 infection.”
And now an interpretation of that study by Dr. Tom Cowan:
“First, in the section titled “Whole Genome Sequencing,” we find that rather than having isolated the virus and sequencing the genome from end to end, that the CDC “designed 37 pairs of nested PCRs spanning the genome on the basis of the coronavirus reference sequence (GenBank accession no. NC045512).”
To me, this computer-generation step constitutes scientific fraud. Here is an equivalency: A group of researchers claim to have found a unicorn because they found a piece of a hoof, a hair from a tail, and a snippet of a horn. They then add that information into a computer and program it to re-create the unicorn, and they then claim this computer re-creation is the real unicorn. Of course, they had never actually seen a unicorn so could not possibly have examined its genetic makeup to compare their samples with the actual unicorn’s hair, hooves and horn.
The researchers claim they decided which is the real genome of SARS-CoV-2 by “consensus,” sort of like a vote. Again, different computer programs will come up with different versions of the imaginary “unicorn,” so they come together as a group and decide which is the real imaginary unicorn.”
“The shocking thing about the above quote is that using their own methods, the virologists found that solutions containing SARS-CoV-2 — even in high amounts — were NOT, I repeat NOT, infective to any of the three human tissue cultures they tested.
These virologists, published by the CDC, performed a clear proof, on their terms, showing that the SARS-CoV- 2 virus is harmless to human beings.”
Now some quotes from an analysis of the second study by an international team of medical professionals with extensive expertise in the subject matter:
“Peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results.”
This paper will show numerous serious flaws in the Corman-Drosten paper, the significance of which has led to worldwide misdiagnosis of infections attributed to SARS-CoV-2 and associated with the disease COVID-19. There are ten fatal problems with the Corman-Drosten paper which we will outline and explain in greater detail in the following sections.
The first and major issue is that the novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (in the publication named 2019-nCoV and in February 2020 named SARS-CoV-2 by an international consortium of virus experts) is based on in silico (theoretical) sequences, supplied by a laboratory in China [1], because at the time neither control material of infectious (“live”) or inactivated SARS-CoV-2 nor isolated genomic RNA of the virus was available to the authors. To date no validation has been performed by the authorship based on isolated SARS-CoV-2 viruses or full length RNA thereof. According to Corman et al.:
“We aimed to develop and deploy robust diagnostic methodology for use in public health laboratory settings without having virus material available.” [1]
The focus here should be placed upon the two stated aims: a) development and b) deployment of a diagnostic test for use in public health laboratory settings. These aims are not achievable without having any actual virus material available (e.g. for determining the infectious viral load). In any case, only a protocol with maximal accuracy can be the mandatory and primary goal in any scenario-outcome of this magnitude. Critical viral load determination is mandatory information, and it is in Christian Drosten’s group responsibility to perform these experiments and provide the crucial data.
Nevertheless these in silico sequences were used to develop a RT-PCR test methodology to identify the aforesaid virus. This model was based on the assumption that the novel virus is very similar to SARS-CoV from 2003 as both are beta-coronaviruses.
The PCR test was therefore designed using the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV as a control material for the Sarbeco component; we know this from our personal email-communication with [2] one of the co-authors of the Corman-Drosten paper. This method to model SARS-CoV-2 was described in the Corman-Drosten paper as follows:
“the establishment and validation of a diagnostic workflow for 2019-nCoV screening and specific confirmation, designed in absence of available virus isolates or original patient specimens. Design and validation were enabled by the close genetic relatedness to the 2003 SARS-CoV, and aided by the use of synthetic nucleic acid technology.”
The Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) is an important biomolecular technology to rapidly detect rare RNA fragments, which are known in advance. In the first step, RNA molecules present in the sample are reverse transcribed to yield cDNA. The cDNA is then amplified in the polymerase chain reaction using a specific primer pair and a thermostable DNA polymerase enzyme. The technology is highly sensitive and its detection limit is theoretically 1 molecule of cDNA. The specificity of the PCR is highly influenced by biomolecular design errors.
Reliable and accurate PCR-test protocols are normally designed using between 100 nM and 200 nM per primer [7]. In the Corman-Drosten paper, we observe unusually high and varying primer concentrations for several primers (table 1). For the RdRp_SARSr-F and RdRp_SARSr-R primer pairs, 600 nM and 800 nM are described, respectively. Similarly, for the N_Sarbeco_F and N_Sarbeco_R primer set, they advise 600 nM and 800 nM, respectively [1].
It should be clear that these concentrations are far too high to be optimal for specific amplifications of target genes. There exists no specified reason to use these extremely high concentrations of primers in this protocol. Rather, these concentrations lead to increased unspecific binding and PCR product amplification.
The design variations will inevitably lead to results that are not even SARS CoV-2 related.
The WHO-protocol (Figure 1), which directly derives from the Corman-Drosten paper, concludes that in order to confirm the presence of SARS-CoV-2, two control genes (the E-and the RdRp-genes) must be identified in the assay. It should be noted, that the RdPd-gene has one uncertain position (“wobbly”) in the forward-primer (R=G/A), two uncertain positions in the reverse-primer (R=G/A; S=G/C) and it has three uncertain positions in the RdRp-probe (W=A/T; R=G/A; M=A/C). So, two different forward primers, four different reverse primers, and eight distinct probes can be synthesized for the RdPd-gene. Together, there are 64 possible combinations of primers and probes!
As it stands, the N gene assay is regrettably neither proposed in the WHO-recommendation (Figure 1) as a mandatory and crucial third confirmatory step, nor is it emphasized in the Corman-Drosten paper as important optional reassurance “for a routine workflow” (Table 2).
Consequently, in nearly all test procedures worldwide, merely 2 primer matches were used instead of all three. This oversight renders the entire test-protocol useless with regards to delivering accurate test-results of real significance in an ongoing pandemic.
As it stands, the N gene assay is regrettably neither proposed in the WHO-recommendation (Figure 1) as a mandatory and crucial third confirmatory step, nor is it emphasized in the Corman-Drosten paper as important optional reassurance “for a routine workflow” (Table 2).
Consequently, in nearly all test procedures worldwide, merely 2 primer matches were used instead of all three. This oversight renders the entire test-protocol useless with regards to delivering accurate test-results…”
“RT-PCR is not recommended for primary diagnostics of infection. This is why the RT-PCR Test used in clinical routine for detection of COVID-19 is not indicated for COVID-19 diagnosis on a regulatory basis.
“Clinicians need to recognize the enhanced accuracy and speed of the molecular diagnostic techniques for the diagnosis of infections, but also to understand their limitations. Laboratory results should always be interpreted in the context of the clinical presentation of the patient…”
(consider the ‘asymptomatic carrier’ hype here: “RT-PCR is not recommended for primary diagnostics of infection…results should always be interpreted in the context of the clinical presentation of the patient…” In other words, no clinical presentations + misuse of even a VALID PCR test cannot be interpreted as a definitive positive diagnosis!)
“Kim et al. demonstrate a highly variable 3’ expression of subgenomic RNA in Sars-CoV-2 [23]. These RNAs are actively monitored as signatures for asymptomatic and non-infectious patients [10]. It is highly questionable to screen a population of asymptomatic people with qPCR primers that have 6 base pairs primer-dimer on the 3 prime end of a primer (Figure 3).
Apparently the WHO recommends these primers. We tested all the wobble derivatives from the Corman-Drosten paper with Thermofisher’s primer dimer web tool [11]. The RdRp forward primer has 6bp 3prime homology with Sarbeco E Reverse. At high primer concentrations this is enough to create inaccuracies.
These are severe design errors, since the test cannot discriminate between the whole virus and viral fragments. The test cannot be used as a diagnostic for SARS-viruses.”
“Testing the primer pairs specified in the Corman-Drosten paper, we observed a difference of 10° C with respect to the annealing temperature Tm for primer pair1 (RdRp_SARSr_F and RdRp_SARSr_R). This is a very serious error and makes the protocol useless as a specific diagnostic tool.”
“Additional testing demonstrated that only the primer pair designed to amplify the N-gene (N_Sarbeco_F and N_Sarbeco_R) reached the adequate standard to operate in a diagnostic test, since it has a sufficient GC-content and the Tm difference between the primers (N_Sarbeco_F and N_Sarbeco_R) is 1.85° C (below the crucial maximum of 2° C difference). Importantly, this is the gene which was neither tested in the virus samples (Table 2) nor emphasized as a confirmatory test. In addition to highly variable melting temperatures and degenerate sequences in these primers, there is another factor impacting specificity of the procedure: the dNTPs (0.4uM) are 2x higher than recommended for a highly specific amplification. There is additional magnesium sulphate added to the reaction as well. This procedure combined with a low annealing temperature can create non-specific amplifications. When additional magnesium is required for qPCR, specificity of the assay should be further scrutinized.
The design errors described here are so severe that it is highly unlikely that specific amplification of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material will occur using the protocol of the Corman-Drosten paper.
SUMMARY CATALOGUE OF ERRORS FOUND IN THE PAPER
The Corman-Drosten paper contains the following specific errors:
1. There exists no specified reason to use these extremely high concentrations of primers in this protocol. The described concentrations lead to increased nonspecific bindings and PCR product amplifications, making the test unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
2. Six unspecified wobbly positions will introduce an enormous variability in the real world laboratory implementations of this test; the confusing nonspecific description in the Corman-Drosten paper is not suitable as a Standard Operational Protocol making the test unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
3. The test cannot discriminate between the whole virus and viral fragments. Therefore, the test cannot be used as a diagnostic for intact (infectious) viruses, making the test unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus and make inferences about the presence of an infection.
4. A difference of 10° C with respect to the annealing temperature Tm for primer pair1 (RdRp_SARSr_F and RdRp_SARSr_R) also makes the test unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
5. A severe error is the omission of a Ct value at which a sample is considered positive and negative. This Ct value is also not found in follow-up submissions making the test unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
6. The PCR products have not been validated at the molecular level. This fact makes the protocol useless as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
7. The PCR test contains neither a unique positive control to evaluate its specificity for SARS-CoV-2 nor a negative control to exclude the presence of other coronaviruses, making the test unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
8. The test design in the Corman-Drosten paper is so vague and flawed that one can go in dozens of different directions; nothing is standardized and there is no SOP. This highly questions the scientific validity of the test and makes it unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
9. Most likely, the Corman-Drosten paper was not peer-reviewed making the test unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
10. We find severe conflicts of interest for at least four authors, in addition to the fact that two of the authors of the Corman-Drosten paper (Christian Drosten and Chantal Reusken) are members of the editorial board of Eurosurveillance. A conflict of interest was added on July 29 2020 (Olfert Landt is CEO of TIB-Molbiol; Marco Kaiser is senior researcher at GenExpress and serves as scientific advisor for TIB-Molbiol), that was not declared in the original version (and still is missing in the PubMed version); TIB-Molbiol is the company which was “the first” to produce PCR kits (Light Mix) based on the protocol published in the Corman-Drosten manuscript, and according to their own words, they distributed these PCR-test kits before the publication was even submitted [20]; further, Victor Corman & Christian Drosten failed to mention their second affiliation: the commercial test laboratory “Labor Berlin”. Both are responsible for the virus diagnostics there [21] and the company operates in the realm of real time PCR-testing.” https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/?fbclid=IwAR2MM6P1bMsIYak5kbjfVxSKq_zjq9uS06vY8Kuett4LucIWCDkZtcitjHk
It boils down to this…the ‘covid pandemic’ narrative being hyped around the globe depends on an utterly fraudulent PCR test protocol that would not be able to accurately detect a positive covid virus infection EVEN IF the gene sequence had been conclusively established. But in fact, they are using a completely invalid test to ‘detect’ a virus that HAS NOT been conclusively gene sequenced, and regardless of that the virus identified has been shown to be non infectious in humans!
And now they are proceeding to mount a massive police state propaganda campaign, no doubt backed up by increasingly draconian mandatory vaccination statutes around the world, in order to foist their ‘covid vaccines’ on 7 billion people around the world, predicated on this fraudulent ‘science’. And what do those mRNA vaccines all explicitly rely on? The gene sequence of the ‘covid virus’, which THEY DO NOT HAVE.
Recent Research Paper from John P.A. Ioannidis et al., suggesting that the Lockdowns had “…no significant benefits…”. A damning indictment of the ‘Lockdown mentality’ perhaps?
Assessing Mandatory Stay‐at‐Home and Business Closure Effects on the Spread of COVID‐19
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13484
I just re-read this blog and noticed something I had not thought about before.
“by any sane criterion, COVID vaccines are past their usefulness”. Could you clarify that?
I thought at the time that the pandemic was drawing to a close as the winter season ended. I was wrong about that.
I was correct, however, that the vaccines were vastly less effective than the treatments that were already available. Now, of course, there are even more effective treatments. Side effects from the treatments are minimal, and confined to those few who are sick. Side effects of the vaccines, in contrast, are serious, including heart damage, nerve damage, and death. And the vaccine side effects are spread over a much larger population trying to prevent the disease, not just the much smaller number who get sick from it.
-JJM
This is a test of the re-Captcha Ben installed to fight the spam building up on Josh’s site