Concerns about Covid-19 (citing mainstream info sources)
Below is a document that attempts to summarize some of the key concerns about COVID-19 for an audience that buys into the mainstream narrative. My purpose is to compile something that I can share with family members, friends and work colleagues. In putting this together I've been focusing on the following objectives:
Only using mainstream sources
Keeping it brief and (hopefully) easily digestible
Not venturing into any areas that could lead to accusations that I'm a "conspiracy theorist" or "denier"
Feel free to share these points and references with those you seek to educate. ~Anonymous
Cases
The term “case” has been redefined in a way that automatically creates more “cases”.
• Covid-19: the problems with case counting (from the British Medical Journal):
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3374
Extracts:
One issue in trying to interpret numbers of detected cases is that there is no set definition of a case. At the moment it seems that a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive result is the only criterion required for a case to be recognized.
“In any other disease we would have a clearly defined specification that would usually involve signs, symptoms, and a test result,” says Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford and the editor of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. “We are moving into a biotech world where the norms of clinical reasoning are going out of the window. A PCR test does not equal covid-19; it should not, but in some definitions it does.”
Testing
It’s highly probable that the number of “cases” (see above) is being significantly overstated because of flaws in the way that testing is being conducted.
• Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be (from the New York Times*):
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
Extracts:
“In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus”
“Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left, Dr. Mina said.”
• Anthony Fauci Admits Covid PCR Test Positive Result at Over 35 Cycles Is Deceitful, Worse Than Useless (from YouTube show “This Week in Virology”):
https://youtu.be/a_Vy6fgaBPE?t=263
Extracts:
"It's very frustrating for the patients as well as for the physicians," he said, when "somebody comes in, and they repeat their PCR, and it's like [a] 37 cycle threshold, but you almost never can culture virus from a 37 threshold cycle."
"So, I think if somebody does come in with 37, 38, even 36, you got to say, you know, it's just dead nucleotides, period,"
• Faith in Quick Tests [PCR Tests] Leads to Epidemic That Wasn’t (from the New York Times*):
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html
Extracts:
“For months, nearly everyone involved thought the medical center had had a huge whooping cough outbreak, with extensive ramifications. Nearly 1,000 health care workers at the hospital in Lebanon, N.H., were given a preliminary test and furloughed from work until their results were in; 142 people, including Dr. Herndon, were told they appeared to have the disease; and thousands were given antibiotics and a vaccine for protection. Hospital beds were taken out of commission, including some in intensive care.”
“Then, about eight months later, health care workers were dumbfounded to receive an e-mail message from the hospital administration informing them that the whole thing was a false alarm.”
“Now, as they look back on the episode, epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists say the problem was that they placed too much faith in a quick and highly sensitive molecular test [PCR] that led them astray.”
• World Health Organization warning about PCR positivity threshold (from WHO website):
https://www.who.int/news/item/14-12-2020-who-information-notice-for-ivd-users
Lockdowns
Throughout most of history, locking down people who are not infected has not been deemed to be anappropriate way of reducing the impact of a pandemic.
• Guide to public health measures to reduce the impact of influenza pandemics in Europe – ‘The ECDC Menu’ (from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control website):
Extract:
“There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods in order to slow the spread. It is hard to imagine that measures like those within the category of social distancing would not have some positive impact by reducing transmission of a human respiratory infection . . . However, the evidence base supporting each individual measure is often weak.”
Masks
The CDC appears to be admitting on its own website that masks are not effective.
• Individual who has had close contact (within 6 feet for a total of 15 minutes or more):
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/public-health-recommendations.html
Extract:
“Exposure to:
o Person with COVID-19 who has symptoms (in the period from 2 days before symptom onset until they meet criteria for discontinuing home isolation; can be laboratory-confirmed or a clinically compatible illness)
o Person who has tested positive for COVID-19 (laboratory confirmed) but has not had any symptoms (in the 2 days before the date of specimen collection until they meet criteria for discontinuing home isolation).
Note: This is irrespective of whether the person with COVID-19 or the contact was wearing a mask or whether the contact was wearing respiratory personal protective equipment (PPE)”
Deaths
Death counts are based on flawed testing. In most cases the inclusion of COVID-19 as a cause of death on a death certificate is based on a prior positive PCR test result. By definition, given that it’s highly likely that the number of “cases” (see above) is being significantly overstated because of flaws in the way that testing is being conducted, it is highly likely that the number of COVID-19 deaths is also being overstated.
“Probable” cases
In several cases the inclusion of the term “COVID-19” on a death certificate is NOT based on a positive PCR test result. Instead a determination is made that COVID-19 was a “probable” contributory factor.
The COVID Tracking Project (a project of The Atlantic magazine) sheds light on how “probable” COVID cases are determined:
https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/what-is-a-probable-case-of-covid-19
Extract:
“The definition of a probable case is a bit more complicated (note – this is an understatement, it’s very complicated). In the absence of a confirmatory lab test, public-health experts can piece together other evidence of infection to try to identify cases that are very likely to be COVID-19 and exclude cases that only might be COVID-19.”
In other words, there is no certainty that a “probable” COVID-19 case/death is actually a COVID-19 case/death. This is not a trivial issue as some entities report death totals that include “probable” cases and some don’t. For example, on 1.21.2021 Worldometer (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) reported 41,620 total deaths in New York State whereas New York State Department of Health (https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/) reported 33,415. “Probable” deaths account for the 8,205 difference.
Comorbidities
New York State tracks data for the “Top 10” comorbidities associated with COVID-19 deaths. Comorbidity data is derived from Part II of the standard death certificate that requires the person filling out the death certificate to record “significant conditions contributing to death but not resulting in the underlying cause given in Part I”. On 1.21.2021 NYS reported that 91.3% of COVID-19 deaths involved one or more comorbidities. If this is based only on the “top 10” then presumably it’s possible that other comorbidities that fall outside of the top 10 could mean that this number is even higher?
Vaccines
Let’s start with some basic definitions from the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
Immunity: Protection from an infectious disease. If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected.
Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease. Vaccines are usually administered through needle injections, but can also be administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose
The information provided to recipients of the vaccines that have been granted emergency use authorization makes it clear that they do not actually prevent COVID-19. The information states that there isn’t a vaccine that prevents COVID-19 and that the vaccine may not protect everyone (from the FDA’s website):
• FACT SHEET FOR RECIPIENTS AND CAREGIVERS - EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION (EUA) OF THE PFIZER-BIONTECH CO VID-19 VACCINE TO PREVENT CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19):
https://www.fda.gov/media/144414/download
Extracts:
“The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is an unapproved vaccine and may prevent you from getting COVID19. There is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19”.
“The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine may not protect everyone.”
https://www.fda.gov/media/144638/download
• FACT SHEET FOR RECIPIENTS AND CAREGIVERS EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION (EUA) OF THE MODERNA COVID-19 VACCINE TO PREVENT CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19) IN INDIVIDUALS 18 YEARS OF AGE AND OLDER:
Extracts:
“The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine is an unapproved vaccine and may prevent you from getting COVID-19. There is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19.”
“The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine may not protect everyone.”
It’s possible to conclude that these “vaccines” do not in fact provide immunity - which begs the question whether they actually meet the definition as provided by the CDC.
It has been very clear that the people who are most vulnerable to dying from COVID-19 are the elderly and those with specific co-morbidities. These people are clearly the ones who have suffered the worst, sometimes fatal, symptoms. However, the vaccine trials were set up so that they could be declared successful even if the vaccine were shown to reduce only mild symptoms. Whether or not the vaccine will prevent severe symptoms remains unproven.
• These Coronavirus Trials Don’t Answer the One Question We Need to Know (from the New York Times):
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/opinion/covid-vaccine-coronavirus.html
Extracts:
“If you were to approve a coronavirus vaccine, would you approve one that you only knew protected people only from the most mild form of Covid-19, or one that would prevent its serious complications?”
“The answer is obvious. You would want to protect against the worst cases.”
“But that’s not how the companies testing three of the leading coronavirus vaccine candidates, Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, whose U.S. trial is on hold, are approaching the problem.”
“According to the protocols for their studies, which they released late last week, a vaccine could meet the companies’ benchmark for success if it lowered the risk of mild Covid-19, but was never shown to reduce moderate or severe forms of the disease, or the risk of hospitalization, admissions to the intensive care unit or death.”
“To say a vaccine works should mean that most people no longer run the risk of getting seriously sick. That’s not what these trials will determine.”
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