A Doctor’s View About the New mRNA Vaccines

 

Neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne electrocuted a man’s face in the year 1862

150 years ago it was electricity, today it's mRNA but in both case you are the guinea pig.

A Doctor’s View About the New mRNA Vaccines

This is the best explanation, from a physician, as to why one should avoid the vaccine. The antibody dependent enhancement problem with Corona viruses are very real. In cats there is a disorder known as Feline Infectious Peritonitis. It’s caused by guess what, a Corona virus. We still don’t know why but one cat can get this Corona virus and be forever asymptomatic while the next cat will develop a fulminating fatal disease that is primarily caused by an over reaction of the immune system.

The reaction causes damage to the vasculature allowing it to leak serum into the body cavities. They tried a vaccine for this and IMHO it made things worse. I personally am certain of one instance where a cat, which I gave the vaccine, developed FIP shortly thereafter. Needless to say that vaccine is no longer available. All I can say is don’t be a Guinea Pig.

Guest Post by Thomas Silar

It’s important to know both what we know about the new vaccines and what we don’t know.

I’ve practiced for 35 years. I am always honest with my patients, even if conversations are difficult or confrontational. I will also be honest about saying “I don’t know.” This happens when a diagnosis is not readily apparent or when there are limits to the help I can give. With the passage of time, I’ve learned that what we don’t know about medicine outweighs what we do know.

I’ve always been a proponent of older, more established vaccines. However, they are imperfect and, like all medical treatments, can have side effects. Unfortunately, in the conversation about the new COVID-19 vaccines, the tenets of honesty and a willingness to admit ignorance are being compromised.

Operation Warp Speed was remarkable, but it leaves an uncomfortable question: Is it a good thing to rush a vaccine (or medicine) to the public without the usual safeguards? Operation Warp Speed might be a great business objective or military goal, but is it great for a medical treatment?

The pharmaceutical industry, government health authorities, and the media insist the new vaccines are safe and effective. While the initial results are promising, this is not the whole truth. Both honesty and acknowledging ignorance require answering a few questions.

What do we know about the new TYPE of vaccine being given?

Pfizer and Moderna were the first COVID-19 vaccines to be approved. Both use a new technology called mRNA vaccine, which has never been broadly given to a human population to prevent any disease.

Let that sink in for a moment.

All previous vaccines take a weakened virus or a piece of the virus and inject it into humans to induce an immune response sufficient to prevent a disease. Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines inject mRNA, which is a protein code that instructs the body to make a part of COVID-19’s spike protein that will then induce an immune response.

Our bodies daily use our own mRNA to carry instructions from DNA to make various proteins the body uses. While this new vaccine science sounds intriguing, it has never been tried in humans in this scope. It may be a breathtaking scientific advancement heralding a new path for all vaccines. It may also be less effective or have currently unknown side effects.

Is the mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 safe?

So far, the limited study of the vaccines approved for emergency use (one major study for each vaccine approved) has shown some short-term side effects. The vaccine is a two-shot series and side effects were prominent after the second shot. Side effects were more common if the recipient was younger than 65 years old.

Side effects 

Pain at the injection site has usually gone away in 4-5 days. The other side effects resolve, on average, in 2-3 days.

Early reports after giving the vaccine have also included allergic reactions ranging from mild to a few cases of anaphylaxis (serious allergic reaction). Allergy may be to mRNA itself or the lipid nanoparticles/PEG vehicle it is housed in. The long-term side effects are not currently known, as the main study length and follow up have only been four months.

Is the mRNA vaccine effective?

In the main study from Pfizer’s vaccine, 8/17,000 patients got symptomatic COVID-19 in the treatment group during the short follow up. In the placebo group, 162/17,000 patients got symptomatic COVID-19 during the study time. There was also a trend towards those getting the vaccine having a less severe disease and needing less hospitalization.

The Moderna study had 30,000 patients split into treatment and placebo arms. In the vaccine group, 11/15,000 patients came down with COVID-19. In the placebo group, 185/15,000 patients came down with COVID-19.

It was hard to ascertain death avoidance in these small studies. However, the two initial studies are favorable and show a 95% efficacy. Now that more information about the studies is known, Peter Doshi, associate editor of the British Medical Journal, wrote an editorial that the true efficacy may be much lower because the study excluded people with COVID-19 symptoms but a negative test and other factors.

How long does immunity last?

This is unknown.  Injected mRNA goes away in days, but it is thought that the immune response will be long lasting. Whether patients will need boosters at some point is not known.

What about mutations in the COVID-19 virus? Will the vaccine still work?

Viruses always mutate and scientists following COVID-19 estimate it mutates, on average, twice a month. Most of these mutations are minor and will likely not change the vaccine effectiveness. These mutations also usually do not make the virus more deadly.

What is antibody dependent enhancement?

COVID-19 is in the family of Coronavirus that causes the common cold. The pharmaceutical industry has been trying without success for the last two decades to make a vaccine against the common cold. A safe vaccine against the common cold would make some company a lot of money!

One problem in the animal studies on coronavirus family vaccines was “antibody dependent enhancement.” When animals were inoculated, they developed a robust immune response, which is a good result.

However, when the animals were later exposed to the coronavirus against which they were vaccinated, their immune system went into overdrive, and they developed an overwhelming, fatal immune response called a “cytokine storm.” Fatal cytokine storms also happened to some COVID-19 patients when their infection was severe.

Human responses do not always correlate to animal responses. So far, there have been no signs that humans have a cytokine storm when exposed to COVID-19 after receiving the vaccine. Obviously, this would be catastrophic for any vaccine.

Should we be concerned about other long term side effects from mRNA vaccines?

A concern that deserves mention is the possibility that a cross-reaction and immunity to other parts of the spike protein could cause auto-immune disease or other problems.

A former Pfizer VP, Dr. Michael Yeadon, who has over 30 years of experience in immunology and drug research, filed a Stay of Action petition with the European Medicine Agency (like our FDA) to halt the trials of mRNA vaccines over concerns it might affect sterility in women.

Yeadon is worried that the mRNA vaccine was coded for a region of the spike protein that was similar to Syncytin-1, which is a protein that is essential for the development of the placenta. If a woman’s body makes antibodies to this protein, she could become sterile when vaccinated for COVID-19. This is a theory, not a proven fact, and no one has studied it. Yeadon’s insistence on more studies to make sure this will not happen seems reasonable.

What to make of all these concerns?

Medicine is always about a risk/benefit analysis, subject to the first maxim of “do no harm.” Usually, new medicines or new vaccines are used only after multiple studies show over long periods of time (for vaccines, at least five years) prove they’re safe and better than the older treatments.

While the new mRNA vaccines have good initial results and may be a breakthrough, they should be viewed as experimental and would best be used in high-risk patients (older patients or those with health conditions raising COVID-19 mortality) until we know more. Patients should receive extensive informed consent to understand the risks and benefits. Patients also need to know that if they have a serious complication, Congress already protected the pharmaceutical companies from litigation around emergency vaccines.

The mantra of “safe and effective” is not only incomplete, but it also ignores other pathways out of the pandemic. For healthy people, early outpatient treatments are being developed to treat COVID-19. These would be a safer option than taking an experimental vaccine. Young people (<60 years old) who have very low mortality from COVID-19 should approach getting the new vaccine as if they were consenting to be in an experimental trial of a new vaccine.

Our history shows there are good reasons why new medicines and vaccines are not rushed into widespread use until we have multiple studies and time to assess the safety and efficacy of the new treatments. If the death rate from COVID-19 were much higher, it might make the risks acceptable to try an experimental vaccine. Given that the COVID-19 death rate is a little higher than a bad flu, my opinion is that younger and healthier people need a more rigorous risk/benefit analysis before taking the mRNA vaccines.

 Due to its global nature, the "reset" is far more advanced than people realize and its consequences will be more profound in developing countries than in the West. The irresponsible printing of money and waste of capital will soon translate in severe food and commodities inflation in poorer and overpopulated countries destabilizing their governments and institutions. If 2020 was the turning point, 2021 will see a very sharp acceleration of the downward trend. By the end of the year, Covid will most probably be little more than a problem... among others!

 

Lockdowns Have Devastated The Global Poor

Authored by Ethan Yang via The American Institute for Economic Research,

In North America and Europe, it has become abundantly clear that Covid-19 and the lockdowns that followed have devastated society. In the United States, unemployment is through the roof and 2020 saw the largest economic contraction in modern history. Social and cultural depression continue to weigh down society as restaurants close, the arts are stunted, and everything that it means to be human is taken from us. 

We have plenty of data to paint a picture of the devastation in countries like the United States but there has been little analysis done in developing countries, more than likely due to lack of infrastructure. We know that many developing countries closed their economies in response to Covid-19 but we are unsure of how they fared. 

In particular, developing countries likely do not have the same support structures be it private or public as countries like the United States do. They cannot simply print trillions of dollars to finance quantitative easing policies to prop up the stock market or send stimulus checks to ailing citizens. They also likely lack the private safety nets created by nonprofits and the general flexibility of an advanced business sector. One can only imagine the damage economic depression would bring upon such communities. 

That was until a team of researchers published a study with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The study provides a glimpse into the extent of the damage caused by the economic contraction in Africa, Asia, and South America. It details how living standards have fallen due to decreased access to basic needs such as food, unemployment, and the likely long-term consequences that will arise. Much like how in the United States there has been a noted correlation between economic shocks and decreases in life expectancies, we can expect similar if not worse consequences in developing countries.

It is worth noting, to be fair to the intent of the authors, that they are not making a judgment that the economic damage they note is in part or fully due to lockdown policies. Either way, it should be abundantly clear to everyone that the economic damage that has been wrought on societies across the world is not simply a minor inconvenience. It is a serious problem that has led to long-term as well as short-term adverse consequences in affluent countries like the United States and likely worse consequences for those who live in developing countries.

The Study 

The methodology for the study made use of a series of household surveys conducted via phone calls in different developing countries. The authors explain,

“We assemble evidence from over 30,000 respondents in 16 original household surveys from nine countries in Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone), Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines), and Latin America (Colombia).”

They noted that,

“The data paint a consistent picture: The economic shock and attendant disruptions to livelihoods during the early stages of pandemic appear to be large across a range of populations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The scale of the disruption may even exceed the effects that economists have documented in other recent global crises, including the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the 2008 Great Recession, and the Ebola outbreak of 2014.”

AIER has frequently noted that large-scale lockdown policies have no precedent in the history of public health policy, which may explain why the economic contraction was so large compared to previous years. I would contend that consciously working to shut down businesses rather than attempting to support them, as would be the case in a normal recession, leads to highly unusual economic damage. 

After analyzing the household data the authors report,

“A full 50 to 80% of sample populations in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone report income losses during the COVID-19 period. If these effects persist, then they risk pushing tens of millions of already vulnerable households into poverty.”

Such income reductions have then led to subsequent food insecurity and even the reduction of net wealth as families are forced to sell off their belongings. On this the authors note,

“By April, many households were already unable to meet basic nutritional needs. For example, 48% of rural Kenyan households, 69% of landless agricultural households in Bangladesh, and 87% of rural households in Sierra Leone were forced to miss meals or reduce portion sizes to cope with the crisis. Comparing to preexisting baseline data verifies that these levels greatly exceed the food insecurity normally experienced at this time of year.”

It was clear before the pandemic that developing countries such as the ones in this study were already dealing with these issues. Now they have only been exacerbated, likely reversing years of hard work to combat poverty and hunger. 

Provided below are graphs from the study detailing the recorded increases in food insecurity in Kenya and Sierra Leone. It is important to note that like all studies there are limits to this data and its accuracy as household surveys can only provide so much information. 

For reference, provided below are the stringency indexes (Our World in Data) for both countries with the United Kingdom as a comparison. The UK is known to have one of the strictest lockdowns and also one of the hardest hit for Covid-19. It seems reported food insecurity in both countries seems to mirror the timeline of the implementation of lockdowns. Of course, there could be a variety of factors at play such as the possible correlation of lockdown severity and the spread of Covid-19 and the individual circumstances unique to each country. 

The study also charts the levels of food insecurity in relation to historical harvest cycles in Nepal and Bangladesh. It notes that there is a clear and unprecedented increase in food insecurity even though the pandemic occurred after the rice harvest periods. It notes that historically food insecurity has always increased in the “lean season” which is the period preceding the rice harvest. However, the pandemic occurred after the harvest so the sharp increase in food insecurity cannot be attributed to the historic patterns of food scarcity. It is clearly a result of Covid-19 and the lockdowns that followed. Provided below are the graphs included in the study. The blue lines represent the most recent cycle which clearly follows historic trends until the March-April period of 2020 which is when most of the world entered strict lockdowns.

Provided above are the stringency indexes for both countries with the United Kingdom for context, again being a country that implemented highly strict lockdowns. The food insecurity spikes were reported during the March-April period in both Nepal and Bangladesh which directly follows the implementation of lockdowns. 

Across all the countries in the study, substantial decreases in standards of living arising from food insecurity, unemployment, income reduction, and a lack of access to markets have had devastating results. The authors warn that,

“The economic crisis precipitated by COVID-19 may become as much a public health and societal disaster as the pandemic itself. The link from severe economic crisis during childhood to subsequent deterioration in adult health, nutrition, education, and earnings capacity has been demonstrated in many contexts.”

As explained earlier and often repeated by AIER, there are serious consequences that come from economic shocks that affect everything from mental health to life expectancies here in America. One can only imagine how much more devastating such economic disruption has been in developing countries that lack the infrastructure and resources to support those in need. 

Key Takeaways

The global poor, especially those living in developing countries, have always suffered from a long list of disadvantages, whether it be lack of social capital, technology, infrastructure, or food insecurity. These problems are only exacerbated when their societies, which are already in poor shape, are abruptly shut down. 

Although the authors of the study do not make a definitive judgment on whether these economic shocks have become as severe as they are because of lockdowns, it is clear that shutting down economies, be it voluntary or involuntary, is a dangerous policy. It affects the global poor as well as the global elite and it seems that the poorer countries have seen a dangerous decline in living standards which will have lasting consequences that are a public crisis in and of themselves. 

Regardless of where one stands on lockdowns, it should now be abundantly clear that economic hardship is not a minor inconvenience and action must be taken to alleviate existing damage and to prevent the further exacerbation of existing calamity.

Biden's "100 Days" Of Masks Transforms Into Masks "Through The Next Year"

 Wasn't it predictable? Covid is forever, just as masks. I am amazed that most people cannot catch up with the meaning of "normal" like "every day" in "New Normal". 

 Joke apart, it says a lot about social psychology, the one our governments have learned to manipulate so efficiently. And we thought we were making no progress...

 

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Joe Biden’s 100 day mask mandate has now transformed into wearing masks ‘through the next year’, according to comments he made Thursday.

In an appearance at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, Biden told staff “You know that wearing this mask through the next year here can save lives, a significant number of lives.”

Mumbling through his own mask, Biden also blamed President Trump for the vaccine roll out being delayed.

“While scientists did their job in discovering vaccines in record time, my predecessor – I’ll be very blunt about it – did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions,” Biden said.

Dr. Fauci further confirmed this morning that:

“I think we’re going to be wearing masks for several, several months into the future.”

And other 'experts' suggest COVID restrictions will remain indefinitely as ‘vaccination passports’ become mandatory for travel. Rolling lockdowns are also here to stay. That’s the precedent we’ve allowed to be created.

Lab-Leak Hypothesis Still A Possibility... according to WHO

 If only we still had "news" in 2021!

 The WHO mission changed nothing. No new data was provided by China. The more the country obfuscate, the more circumstantial evidence it gives that the Wuhan Lab WAS the source of the outbreak.

In Major U-Turn, WHO Says Wuhan Lab-Leak Hypothesis Still A Possibility (Zero hedge)

Two days after the WHO team of investigators was marched through the Wuhan Institute of Virology, its members declared that any 'conspiracies' about the origins of COVID-19 were simply untrue - confidently exclaiming that it was "extremely unlikely" the pandemic came from a lab leak.

Once the team returned to Geneva, however, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus did a "screeching U-turn to the lab leak theory" - admitting on Thursday that all theories behind the origin of COVID-19 warranted further investigation.

"Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded. I want to clarify that all hypotheses remain open and require further study," Dr. Tedros said Thursday, in a moment of self-awareness over the optics of their 'open-and-shut' investigation.

One of the scientists on the trip was Peter Daszak - whose giant conflict of interest wasn't a problem for the WHO. Daszak worked directly with WIV researcher Shi Zhengli ('Batwoman'), who created chimeric coronaviruses via 'gain-of-function' research to make them more transmissible to humans.

Peter Daszak

Daszak is the president of the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance, which funneled nearly $600,000 from a U.S. taxpayer-funded grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology between 2014 and 2019 as part of a research project studying coronaviruses from Chinese bats, according to The Wall Street Journal.

And now, he's doing damage control as the lab leak hypothesis continues to gain momentum. Here he is suggesting that 'US intel' was 'increasingly disengaged under Trump & frankly wrong on many aspects.'

Of note, Daszak drafted a February, 2020 statement in The Lancet on behalf of 27 prominent public health scientists which condemned "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin."

He's also opined on how easy it was to manipulate bat-based coronaviruses in labs during a podcast interview just weeks before the first known cases of COVID-19 were reported in Wuhan. Proponents of such experiments, also known as gain of function research, say they're a useful tool in creating treatments for future outbreaks, but some virologists say the technique is too risky, because it poses the risk of introducing new viruses into the human population.

 

Curiously (or not) absent from Daszak's investigative process is the fact that deadly viruses have a history of escaping from Chinese laboratories, including, notably, the first SARS virus escaped twice from the Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing in 2004.

 

And now, if only to avoid an optics nightmare, the WHO has gone against Daszak's confident proclamations that the lab-leak hypothesis is impossible, and is instead leaving the door open - perhaps in order to officially shut it down the road when things have cooled down.

 And here's what really happened:

China "Refuses" To Hand Over Raw Data On Early COVID Cases To WHO Team (Zero hedge)

It came as no surprise that China disingenuously seized on this month's World Health Organization (WHO) trip to try and claim the COVID-19 pandemic actually started abroad, while at the same time a number of global headlines essentially echoed "nothing to see here" - particularly on widespread suspicions the virus originated in a Wuhan military lab.

But now fresh Wall Street Journal reporting strongly suggests this first ever and much-hyped WHO trip to 'get to the bottom' of the virus' origins likely didn't even scratch the surface in terms of a real investigation (did anyone really expect it to?... also coming a full year+ after the fact). In particular the team of scientists and researchers was reportedly blocked by Chinese authorities from accessing crucial data on 174 of the country's earliest cases.

Citing WHO investigators supposedly caught in the middle of what they described as "heated exchanges" over the lack of transparency, Chinese authorities "refused" to provide the team with the necessary "raw, personalized data on early Covid-19 cases that could help them determine how and when the coronavirus first began to spread in China..."

 

 

Full Orwell in the UK

It looks more and more like the UK will be going full Orwell...

Interesting to see how long the people will accept such a government!

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Anyone traveling to Britain from a country on the government’s ‘red list’ must quarantine in a hotel (which they will have to pay for), and have THREE COVID tests, under draconian new laws being implemented by the government.

The unprecedented and sweeping new rules were announced by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who said that he makes ‘no apologies’ for such severe measures.

From Monday anyone entering the country will have to pass three PCR tests in order to be allowed any freedom inside the country after they have completed a ten day quarantine at a government selected hotel, at a cost of almost two thousand pounds.

Security guards will be stationed throughout the hotels, with police on standby if those inside try to leave before their release date.

Hancock said that anyone caught breaking their quarantine could be fined ten thousand pounds, while anyone caught lying about coming from a COVID ‘hotspot’ could be jailed for up to a decade.

Even those not coming from one of the 33 ‘red list’ countries, and arriving from elsewhere, will have to test negative before being allowed to travel, then quarantine at their home address for ten days and allow authorities to ‘check that they are obeying the rules’.

COVID tests, which cost more than £100 each, will be required on day two and day eight of isolation, and must be booked through a new government portal in advance of travel, according to the new law.

If the tests are positive, a further ten day quarantine will be mandated.

Failure to comply with the testing will incur fines of £1,000 the first time, and £2,000 the second time. 

Hancock noted “This includes a £1,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take a mandatory test, a £2,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take the second mandatory test, as well as automatically extending their quarantine period to 14 days, and a £5,000 fixed penalty notice – rising to £10,000 – for arrivals who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel.”

Anyone hoping to escape the crackdown via booking travel through a budget or less thorough carrier will likely be disappointed as Hancock announced that “Passenger carriers will have a duty in law to make sure that passengers have signed up for these new arrangements before they travel, and will be fined if they don’t.”

However, an aviation source told reporters yesterday

“We’re completely in the dark. We don’t know yet whether the Government will want us to deny boarding,” to people who haven’t presented test results or booked into a quarantine hotel.

Airports in the UK have also expressed concern about how the rules will be enforced, with a Heathrow spokesman noting “ministers need to work with industry to establish how this policy will actually be implemented at the border.”

Border staff have also said they have not been told anything, with one immigration officer noting “This is all likely to be honesty-based though. Short of us physically getting off the arrivals desks and phoning the hotels to check that those individuals have booked into them, we have no way of confirming.”

Hancock gave no indication of how long the new laws would remain in place, however members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have suggested that lockdowns could last for “several years”.

Conservative MPs who oppose the current nation-wide restrictions slammed Hancock in the House of Commons, warning that the country faces a ‘forever lockdown’.

MP Mark Harper asked “When is this policy going to end, if ever? Because if the virus continues to mutate, surely the risk is going to be there forever and so when can it be removed?”

SAGE has also suggested that in addition to the forced quarantines, those entering Britain, including citizens could be tracked using the GPS on mobile phones.

WHO Concludes That Coronavirus "Came From Animal," Not Wuhan Lab

 As reported by Zero Hedge this morning, WHO visited the Wuhan P4 lab, confirmed that no windows was open, had a couple of meetings with local scientists and, well, bats, you guessed it. They are not quite sure yet, but it's not the lab, that, they are sure! Why did they even bother? 

Oh yes, now that this is clear, you definitively cannot link the lab with Covid on Facebook. We are waiting for Google and Twitter to adjust their algorithm...

Not 1984 yet, but we are getting closer by the day!

WHO Concludes That Coronavirus "Came From Animal," Not Wuhan Lab

Just two days after WaPo said it was "plausible" and "must be investigated", and less than week after finally getting access to Wuhan's high security virus lab (for the first time in over a year), WHO investigators have reported preliminary findings that the COVID virus came from animals, confirming China's heavily promoted narrative and dismissing the likelihood of any leak from the lab in close proximity (a lab that is coincidentally designed to examine the world's most dangerous pathogens and is led by virologist Shi Zhengli, known as China's "Batwoman," for her extensive work on bat-borne coronaviruses).

In what we estimate is the fastest investigation and findings report of any global organization ever, AP reports that WHO food safety and animal diseases expert Peter Ben Embarek made the assessment in a summation Tuesday of a WHO team’s investigation into the possible origins of the coronavirus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first cases were discovered in December 2019.

“Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more studies and more specific, targeted research,”

Embarek added somewhat defensively:

“Did we change dramatically the picture we had beforehand? I don’t think so,”

“Did we improve our understanding? Did we add details to that picture? Absolutely.”

As a reminder, China has strongly denied the possibility of a leak from the lab and has promoted unproven theories that the virus may have originated elsewhere before being brought to Wuhan, including possibly on imported frozen food packaging.

The visit by the WHO team took months to negotiate after China only agreed to it amid massive international pressure at the World Health Assembly meeting last May, and Beijing has continued to deny calls for a strictly independent investigation.

Chinese authorities have kept a tight hold on information about the possible causes of the pandemic that has now sickened more than 105 million people and killed more than 2.2 million worldwide .

Perhaps most stunningly, Facebook has already updated its "False Claims About COVID-19" policies:

Today, following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), we are expanding the list of false claims we will remove to include additional debunked claims about the coronavirus and vaccines. This includes claims such as: 

• COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured

So, people of the earth, do not (publicly) question these findings from WHO. It was a bat (or another species) that started the global pandemic that shut the world's economy.

Up until now, the Biden administration has been quiet about criticizing China about the origins of the virus but has stated a "robust and clear" investigation is needed. 

Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, told MSNBC that China is "falling far short of the mark" in granting access to the international community. "That lack of transparency, that lack of being forthcoming, is a profound problem, and it's one that continues," he said.

According to AP News, the WHO team visited the lab and spoke with officials for three hours... sounds like a full and thorough investigation to us.

The (New Normal) War On Domestic Terror

 Viewed from relatively peaceful Japan, the degradation of the US and European mood is almost palpable. The dissonance between the message around Covid and reality is growing but as always, the US is showing the way, although I am not so sure other countries will follow eagerly this time...

 

Authored (mostly satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

If you enjoyed the Global War on Terror, you’re going to love the new War on Domestic Terror! It’s just like the original Global War on Terror, except that this time the “Terrorists” are all “Domestic Violent Extremists” (“DVEs”), “Homegrown Violent Extremists” (“HVEs”), “Violent Conspiracy-Theorist Extremists” (“VCTEs”), “Violent Reality Denialist Extremists” (VRDEs”), “Insurrectionary Micro-Aggressionist Extremists” (“IMAEs”), “People Who Make Liberals Feel Uncomfortable” (“PWMLFUs”), and anyone else the Department of Homeland Security wants to label an “extremist” and slap a ridiculous acronym on.

According to a “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” issued by the DHS on January 27, these DCEs, HVEs, VCTEs, VRDEs, IMAEs, and PWMLFUs are “ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority” and other “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.” They are believed to be “motivated by a range of issues, including anger over Covid-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, police use of force,” and other dangerous “false narratives” (e.g., the existence of the “deep state,” “herd immunity,” “biological sex,” “God,” and so on).

“Inspired by foreign terrorist groups” and “emboldened by the breach of the US Capitol Building,” this diabolical network of “domestic terrorists” is “plotting attacks against government facilities,” “threatening violence against critical infrastructure” and actively “citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about Covid-19.” For all we know, they might be huddled in the “Wolf’s Lair” at Mar-a-Lago right now, plotting a devastating terrorist attack with those WMDs we never found in Iraq, or generating population-adjusted death-rate charts going back 20 years, or posting pictures of “extremist frogs” on the Internet.

The Department of Homeland Security is “concerned,” as are its counterparts throughout the global capitalist empire. The (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror isn’t just a war on American “domestic terror.” The “domestic terror” threat is international. France has just passed a “Global Security Law” banning citizens from filming the police beating the living snot out of people (among other “anti-terrorist” provisions). In Germany, the government is preparing to install an anti-terror moat around the Reichstag. In the Netherlands, the police are cracking down on the VCTEs, VRDEs, and other “angry citizens who hate the system,” who have been protesting over nightly curfews. Suddenly, everywhere you look (or at least if you are looking in the corporate media), “global extremism networks are growing.” It’s time for Globocap to take the gloves off again, root the “terrorists” out of their hidey holes, and roll out a new official narrative.

Actually, there’s not much new about it. When you strip away all the silly new acronyms, the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror is basically just a combination of the “War on Terror” narrative and the “New Normal” narrative, i.e., a militarization of the so-called “New Normal” and a pathologization of the “War on Terror.” Why would GloboCap want to do that, you ask?

I think you know, but I’ll go ahead and tell you.

See, the problem with the original “Global War on Terror” was that it wasn’t actually all that global. It was basically just a war on Islamic “terrorism” (i.e., resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology), which was fine as long as GloboCap was just destabilizing and restructuring the Greater Middle East. It was put on hold in 2016, so that GloboCap could focus on defeating “populism” (i.e., resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology), make an example of Donald Trump, and demonize everyone who voted for him (or just refused to take part in their free and fair elections), which they have just finished doing, in spectacular fashion. So, now it’s back to “War on Terror” business, except with a whole new cast of “terrorists,” or, technically, an expanded cast of “terrorists.” (I rattled off a list in my previous column.)

In short, GloboCap has simply expanded, recontextualized, and pathologized the “War on Terror” (i.e., the war on resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology). This was always inevitable, of course. A globally-hegemonic system (e.g., global capitalism) has no external enemies, as there is no territory “outside” the system. Its only enemies are within the system, and thus, by definition, are insurgents, also known as “terrorists” and “extremists.” These terms are utterly meaningless, obviously. They are purely strategic, deployed against anyone who deviates from GloboCap’s official ideology … which, in case you were wondering, is called “normality” (or, in our case, currently, “New Normality”).

In earlier times, these “terrorists” and “extremists” were known as “heretics,” “apostates,” and “blasphemers.” Today, they are also known as “deniers,” e.g., “science deniers,” “Covid deniers,” and recently, more disturbingly, “reality deniers.” This is an essential part of the pathologization of the “War on Terror” narrative. The new breed of “terrorists” do not just hate us for our freedom … they hate us because they hate “reality.” They are no longer our political or ideological opponents … they are suffering from a psychiatric disorder. They no longer need to be argued with or listened to … they need to be “treated,” “reeducated,” and “deprogrammed,” until they accept “Reality.” If you think I’m exaggerating the totalitarian nature of the “New Normal/War on Terror” narrative, read this op-ed in The New York Times exploring the concept of a “Reality Czar” to deal with our “Reality Crisis.”

And this is just the beginning, of course. The consensus (at least in GloboCap circles) is, the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror will probably continue for the next 10 to 20 years, which should provide the global capitalist ruling classes with more than enough time to carry out the “Great Reset,” destroy what’s left of human society, and condition the public to get used to living like cringing, neo-feudal peasants who have to ask permission to leave their houses. We’re still in the initial “shock and awe” phase (which they will have to scale back a bit eventually), but just look at how much they’ve already accomplished.

The economic damage is literally incalculable … millions have been plunged into desperate poverty, countless independent businesses crushed, whole industries crippled, developing countries rendered economically dependent (i.e., compliant) for the foreseeable future, as billionaires amassed over $1 trillion in wealth and supranational corporate behemoths consolidated their dominance across the planet.

And that’s just the economic damage. The attack on society has been even more dramatic. GloboCap, in the space of a year, has transformed the majority of the global masses into an enormous, paranoid totalitarian cult that is no longer capable of even rudimentary reasoning. (I’m not going to go on about it here … at this point, you either recognize it or you’re in it.) They’re actually lining up in parking lots, the double-masked members of this Covidian cult, to be injected with an experimental “vaccine” that they believe will save the human species from a virus that causes mild to moderate symptoms in roughly 95% of those “infected,” and that over 99% of the “infected” survive.

So, it is no big surprise that these same mindless cultists are gung-ho for the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror, and the upcoming globally-televised show trial of Donald Trump for “inciting insurrection,” and the ongoing corporate censorship of the Internet, and can’t wait to be issued their “Freedom Passports,” which will allow them to take part in “New Normal” life — double-masked and socially-distanced, naturally — while having their every movement and transaction, and every word they write on Facebook, or in an email, or say to someone on their smartphones, or in the vicinity of their 5G toasters, recorded by GloboCap’s Intelligence Services and their corporate partners, subsidiaries, and assigns. These people have nothing at all to worry about, as they would never dream of disobeying orders, and could not produce an original thought, much less one displeasing to GloboCap, if you held a fake apocalyptic plague to their heads.

As for the rest of us “extremists,” “domestic terrorists,” “heretics,” and “reality deniers,” (i.e., anyone criticizing global capitalism, or challenging its official narratives, and its increasingly totalitarian ideology, regardless of our specific DHS acronyms), I wish I had something hopeful to tell you, but, the truth is, things aren’t looking so good. I guess I’ll see you in a quarantine camp, or in the psych ward, or an offshore detention facility … or, I don’t know, maybe I’ll see you in the streets.

IMF Wants To Use "Digital Footprint Of Customers' Online Activities" To Assess Creditworthiness

 As we explained 2 years ago, at this stage a Chinese style social credit score is almost unavoidable and short of a miracle will be implemented in the Western hemisphere sooner than later...

 

Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,

For years, researchers have warned of a system in which the government controls every aspect of its citizens’ lives. Every citizen would have to rely entirely on the government to survive in this system. This system has been openly discussed for many years by the “ruling class.” Aka: those who have been allotted social credit (or not) and power based upon their views and opinions. 

The system has already begun in China and is now spreading globally

In a recent post, “What is Really New In Fintech,” on the IMF blog (International Monetary Fund), authors Arnoud Boot, Peter Hoffmann, Luc Laeven, and Lev Ratnovski suggest “rapid technological change” in the financial industry. Many social media and other online platforms are now creating and accepting payments. This revolutionary change in the banking world could change the face of finance forever. 

As a result of this rapid change, the authors bring up the following questions:

• What are the transformative aspects of recent financial innovation that can uproot finance as we know it?

• Which new policy challenges will the transformation of finance bring?

To answer these questions, the authors wrote: 

Recent IMF and ECB staff research distinguishes two areas of financial innovation. One is information: new tools to collect and analyse data on customers, for example for determining creditworthiness. Another is communication: new approaches to customer relationships and the distribution of financial products. We argue that each dimension contains some transformative components.

The authors mention the importance and functionality of “determining creditworthiness.” The method they want to use to do so can be found in the section labeled “New Types Of Information,” where they write (emphasis ours):

The most transformative information innovation is the increase in use of new types of data coming from the digital footprint of customers’ various online activities—mainly for creditworthiness analysis.

Credit scoring using so-called hard information (income, employment time, assets, and debts) is nothing new. Typically, the more data is available, the more accurate is the assessment. But this method has two problems. First, hard information tends to be “procyclical”: it boosts credit expansion in good times but exacerbates contraction during downturns.

The second and most complex problem is that certain kinds of people, like new entrepreneurs, innovators, and many informal workers, might not have enough hard data available. Even a well-paid expatriate moving to the United States can be caught in the conundrum of not getting a credit card for lack of credit record, and not having a credit record for lack of credit cards.

Fintech resolves the dilemma by tapping various nonfinancial data: the type of browser and hardware used to access the internet, the history of online searches, and purchases. Recent research documents that, once powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, these alternative data sources are often superior than traditional credit assessment methods, and can advance financial inclusion, by, for example, enabling more credit to informal workers and households, and firms in rural areas.

The type of browser used could potentially indicate a different ranking for browsers that heavily track users, like Chrome, vs. browsers that emphasize privacy, like Brave.

So what does this all mean for our financial future?

It means the IMF authors suggest the global banking network begin using a history of online searches and purchases to determine “creditworthiness.” In other words, do you read CNN and purchase sports memorabilia? You’re approved! Do you read The Organic Prepper and buy “conspiracy” or “prepping” material? We’re sorry, you can not be approved at this time based on your credit score.

In Brandon Turbeville’s 2019 article Social Media, Universal Basic Income, and Cashless Society: How China’s Social Credit System Is Coming To America he wrote: 

“Unbeknownst to most people, there appears to be a real attempt to create a system in which all citizens are rationed their “wages” digitally each month in place of a paycheck or ability to gain or lose money. This system would see any form of dissent resulting in the cut off of those credits and the ability to work, eat, or even exist in society. It would not only be the end of dissent but of any semblance of real individuality.”

Turbeville outlines a plan to create a Universal Basic Income (UBI). The scheme, tied to a social credit system, will essentially cut off the financial lifeline to anyone who does not entirely tow the establishment line. I encourage you to take a look at the article and see for yourself how this scheme is coming together. For more information, here’s an article that compares UBI to modern feudalism.

With Biden’s new administration that is openly more “global” in its outlook, the IMF has already stated that it will seek to reset its relationship with the United States and that Biden’s “commitment to multilateral institutions and his pledge to re-enter the Paris climate agreement should help the IMF advance its own targets.”

And you thought it was challenging to gain approval before…

The pairing of online history with credit scores is bad enough. Doing so has prevented many otherwise creditworthy citizens from accessing what they need to start businesses, buy homes, rent apartments, or buy cars. Some states have suggested laws that use your search history and social media when being assessed for your worthiness to purchase a firearm, and the Bank of America has made it incredibly clear just this past week that your purchases and financial records are by no means private.

However, pairing both of those with the Universal Basic Income is even worse. We are fast approaching a time where even the slightest difference of opinion from the norm (i.e., the ruling class) can result in a complete freeze out of the “offender” from the entire society.