The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

The Covid Idiot Shuffle

This is from the province of Ontario, in Canada where I live.

I’m going to enlarge and show the first graph properly:

Now what you’re going to notice is that Rt never went below about 80—that is 80 new cases per 100 Covid cases. Also, the general trend is UP. So you have a situation through stage one where case counts are gong down, but R is stubbornly high, even if not over 1. Then in stage 2 it actually burps over 1 and Ontario goes to stage 3 anyway.

Now, I know of a guy who lives in a rooming house (not me) who got Covid. He did the right thing: got tested, obeyed quarantine. Health authorities knew and followed up with him.

Great, but the problem is he lived in a rooming house. Not just him but everyone in the house should have been quarantined, and both is and there contacts needed to be traced (and ideally quarantined.) Nobody else in the house was even contacted. Ideally he should have been quarantined somewhere else than the house, probably everyone in the house (all exposed) should have been, since any rooming  house is a great place for Covid to spread.

There is no effective track and trace or quarantine in Ontario. There just isn’t. So  you don’t get below .8, and you don’t control spread, so every time Ontario reopens it is just a matter of time before the next wave.

Lockdowns and partial closures do not work without proper track and trace and quarantine. When a new outbreak is seen it has to be jumped on.

Of course, if you want poor people (like those who live in rooming houses) to obey the quarantine, you’re going to have to make up their wages while they’re stuck in quarantine, and you have to deliver food and other necessities. This is what effective quarantine regimes in other countries do: they make sure the quarantined are taken care of. It may be boring to be stuck at home, but they aren’t going to fall behind on the rent, or not be able to eat. (These poor people also tend to be the “essential workers” everyone praises then let’s die.)

This half-assing of dealing with Covid has been typical of most of the western world. There’s a refusal among elites to actually deal with Covid as a serious threat, and mobilize government and private resources (seize them, if necessary, yes it’s legal) to ensure that Covid is properly dealt with.

I’ve suggested and believe it’s because Covid has made rich people much richer in the West, but whatever it is, it’s killing and crippling a lot of people. About 15 to 25% of people who get even a mild case of Covid get long Covid, with a variety of nasty symptoms and we’re now seeing indications of some mental damage from Covid separate from long Covid.

You really, really don’t want to catch this shit.

Failure to do things right is mass murder by those with the authority to do things right. Premier Doug Ford, in Ontario, is an active danger to everyone in Ontario because he refuses to run the play that will actually get Covid (mostly) under control. Everyone who dies now or in the past almost year is  his fault. He is a mass murderer because the consequences of his decisions are obvious. He’s also crippling a hell of a lot of people.

Ontario isn’t unique, obviously, this is the typical play in almost all Western countries.

It is compounded by the point-blank refusal to do everything possible to ramp up  vaccine production as fast as possible and help other countries in every way. Every country where Covid isn’t under control is a place where it can mutate into a worse strain. Delta is WAY worse than original Covid and Delta is unlikely to be the last bad variant.

For decades the fact that our “masters” were incompetent psychopaths didn’t seem to matter all that much; sure some people were getting hurt, but it wasn’t you, right? And if it was, well you lost your power and money so  you didn’t matter and couldn’t do anything.

Now it’s you or grandmother or you kid getting a protentially life-long disability.

You replace your elites, by whatever method will work, or they will keep killing and crippling you.

Doug Ford, by any rational calculus is an ongoing threat to everyone in Ontario, including me. His actions and lack of actions stand a damn good chance of killing or crippling me and anyone I know in Ontario.

This is probably true of whoever the leaders are where you live.


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193 Comments

  1. Plague Species

    Excellent post. I agree completely. Obviously. Also, keep in mind new formulations of the vaccines are due and I don’t see any evidence that’s being pursued right now. With the evolution of new variants, the current formulations are quickly losing their efficacy.

    COVFEFE-45 Is Here To Stay

    Follow The Science

  2. Kim A.

    In the UK there is no effective track and trace. They are quite willing for the poor to die. They’ve put certain measures in place for “essential workers” but on the whole, they don’t really care.

  3. Jason

    You really, really don’t want to catch this shit.

    It’s a coronavirus. Most everyone is eventually going to be exposed to it, and many, many are going to “catch it” – however one defines that.

    Think and act from those basic premises.

    With that as the starting point, the ongoing suppression of already available, low-cost treatments with years of safety data and now voluminous evidence of efficacy, both as a prophylactic and as a course of treatment once one “catches it” – the ongoing suppression of these treatments is a crime against humanity, at least so far as the framework of international law is concerned. Any reasonable interpretation of said law would elicit such a finding.

    In individual terms, it’s simply unconscionable how many people would still be alive if treatments were seen as the first and preeminent tool, and the precautionary principle were followed first and foremost.

    Vaccines – particularly ones without any prior real-world experience – should never be a predominant tool of resistance against a coronavirus, let alone the sole solution.

    Incidentally, what I’ve just outlined is nothing more than the art of medicine. It would be nice to get back to it again, as opposed to being ruled by dictates masquerading as “science” from unaccountable Big Pharma et al.

    *The specific name that comes to mind is Ivermectin, though there are entire treatment protocols being used around the world that may or may not include Ivermectin as part of their regimen.

  4. NR

    First, there is still no credible evidence that Ivermectin is an effective COVID treatment. The big widely-cited study that claimed it was has been withdrawn because it manipulated data, and other studies don’t provide evidence that it actually works. See here:

    https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/ivermectin-still-lacks-scientific-support-as-a-covid-19-drug-69049

    Second, Florida is having a big COVID surge right now, and 96% of people hospitalized for it are unvaccinated:

    https://abc7chicago.com/florida-covid-coronavirus-hospitalization-rates-unvaccinated-people/10903372/

    And yet, Ian, you still have right-wingers coming to your comment section and telling people “vaccines don’t work!” If you want to see less COVID-related idiocy in the world, may I suggest that you at least address it on your own website?

  5. Jason

    I do not identify myself as a “right-winger” nor do I have any discernible attributes in my life that would suggest such an identifier to an even mildly intelligent person.

    I’ve never met NR. I know nothing about him, nor he me.

    Israel vaccinated fast and looked like it had beaten COVID-19. It just brought back a swathe of restrictions amid a Delta surge.

    Israel reintroduced an array of restrictions amid rising numbers of Delta-variant COVID-19 cases, despite its world-beating vaccination rollout.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-vaccinated-fast-looked-had-113759148.html

    I went to a party with 14 other vaccinated people; 11 of us got COVID

    Five days earlier, I had gone to a house party in Montgomery County. There were 15 adults there, all of us fully vaccinated. The next day, our host started to feel sick. The day after that, she tested positive for COVID-19. She let all of us know right away. I wasn’t too worried. It was bad luck for my friend, but surely she wasn’t that contagious. Surely all of us were immune. I’d been sitting across the room from her. I figured I’d stay home and isolate from my family for a few days, and that would be that. And even that seemed like overkill.

    The official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guideline stated that, since I was fully vaccinated, I didn’t need to do anything different unless I started developing symptoms. I’m an epidemiologist at a major medical research university, which has a dedicated COVID exposure hotline for staff. I called it, and workers said I didn’t need to do anything.

    Then, I started to hear that a few other people who had been at the party were getting sick. Then a few more. At this point, 11 of the 15 have tested positive for COVID.

    https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0804-breakthrough-covid-20210803-t32trfpiwzdf5okfar45f64whi-story.html

  6. Dan Lynch

    As usual I agree with Ian but will point out that if case numbers are increasing then by definition the transmission rate must be greater than 1.0. The truth is that no one is sure what the transmission rate is. Add the fact that many cases are asymptomatic, don’t get tested because they’re not aware that they are infected, and aren’t counted among the official statistics.

    If we were serious about tackling covid (HA !) we’d test the entire population about once a week. That’s the only way you are going to identify all cases so that they can be isolated and not continue spreading.

    At a minimum we should be doing weekly sewage testing for every single town, hamlet, or bump in the road, but in the U.S. we’re not even doing that.

    We live in a failed state. Though maybe we’ve had this weakness — the whole Ayn Rand look out for number one and don’t tell me what to do mentality — all along and covid merely makes that weakness more obvious.

  7. Jason

    A few months ago it was revealed that they weren’t counting every covid “breakthrough” case. They were only counting the ones that resulted in hospitalizations or death.

    More recently it’s come to light that they haven’t in fact been keeping an accurate record of any “breakthrough” cases. This has been reported all over the place, by everyone from patients to doctors. The epidemiologist quoted in the article I posted above was told to do nothing!

    * I put “breakthrough” in quotes because the vaccines were never sterilizing in the first place.

    The question to ask is why would there be an active propaganda campaign and cover-up from the get-go to convince people that a completely non-sterilizing vaccine in any way prevents transmission?

  8. NR

    I was referring in my comment to other anti-vax people who post here who are right-wingers. But regardless of whether you personally are a right-winger, Jason, you are repeating right-wing anti-vax propaganda and disinformation.

    A major study was just performed and found that although the COVID vaccines are less effective against the Delta variant, they are still effective:

    https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/227713/coronavirus-infections-three-times-lower-double/

    New research has found that double vaccinated people were three times less likely than unvaccinated people to test positive for the coronavirus.

    These results from the Imperial-led REACT-1 study, a major coronavirus monitoring programme, are based on swab tests taken by almost 100,000 people in England between 24 June and 12 July.

    The study’s analyses of PCR test results also suggest that fully vaccinated people may be less likely than unvaccinated people to pass the virus on to others, due to having a smaller viral load on average and therefore likely shedding less virus.

    And as we see from the data in Florida, 96% of people hospitalized for COVID there are unvaccinated. Vaccines work and the data shows they work. These are the plain and simple facts.

  9. When Trump said, “if we don’t test for it, it doesn’t exist.”
    NR responded, “I agree and anyone pointing it out is a right wing hack.”

  10. Willy

    What’s the motive for pushing to get everybody vaccinated to then have the vaccines fail and new variants arise?

    What’s wrong with erring on the side of (future and likely yearly) $150+ vaccines and the potential for flu-like symptoms, instead of hospital visits costing your life’s savings?

    Is Jason vaccinated?

  11. Jason

    I am making observations and stating facts. These same observations have been made by people of proverbially “all stripes and colors.”

    If your lens filters this information as “right-wing” that is your optics, not mine or the population at large – though the mainstream media on “both sides” may try to convince people otherwise.

    Back to the more important topic at hand, sans the silly, intentionally distracting labels. Even CNN’s chief White House correspondent is thinking a bit:

    Multiple officials have cited figures saying 99 percent of deaths are among the unvaccinated and 95% of hospitalizations are unvaccinated. But CDC Director Walensky says those numbers are based on data from Jan—June & “didn’t reflect the data we have now from the Delta variant.”

    This suggests these numbers have potentially changed. Walensky emphasizes that the overwhelming number of hospitalizations and deaths are still among unvaccinated.

    What’s not clear is why officials have kept citing the numbers if they’re being reevaluated by the CDC to account for the impact of the Delta variant.

    https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1423309668022095873

    Obfuscation, Kait, obfuscation. In the meantime, get the story and talking points straight. But then you know that, Kaitlan. And you’ll be happily repeating the new talking points, unquestioningly, soon enough. That’s how and why you’re CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent!

  12. Hugh

    The US has no national health care system and no national approach to covid. Testing and reporting case numbers were always going to be hit or miss. And the fractured approach was going to get a lot of people killed.

    I saw a story that said the CDC could have done a much better job of communicating what it does and does not know. I agree.

    I think there was a misplaced hope that vaccination and good weather would slow the transmission rate, but with the new more infectious variants, we are seeing a surge instead. But as NR says, the vaccinated, many of whom are older with other medical conditions, are not the ones ending up in the hospital and the morgue this time around.

  13. I have recently calculated that the risk to vaccinated, in Israel, or hospitalization and critical condition (ICU?) had dropped to 30% of the risk to the unvaccinated.

    I more recently speculated that the Pfizer vaccine will be worthless in 11 months, from the time of administration. I had no basis for a rational projection, so kind of guessed a more gradual decline of effectiveness, compared to the drop from the prior month.

    However, reading into the lines of a recent Gilad Atzmon piece, the precipitous drop in effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine continued through July, and probably accelerated:

    The vaccinated are now overrepresented amongst Delta cases and equally represented amongst critical cases. A few days ago an Israeli hospital director admitted that 90% of his patients are vaccinated. “The vaccine is waning in front of our eyes,” he said.

    Since death is a special case of “critical case”, it’s perhaps true that, in Israel, the Pfizer vaccine is still somewhat protective against death. But anybody wanna guess how long that will invert?

    Also, since Israel focused on vaccinating the most vulnerable, first, this result must be skewed by that effect.

    While a failing or failed vaccine is of concern, it’s the news about viral loads in the vaccinated, and ADE that should be keeping people awake at night.

    However, nothing seems to shake the faith of vaccine Pollyana’s, any more than anything sways them from the therapeutic/prophylactic pessimism. Of course, political tribalism is invoked by some of the less clever ones. For them, Trump wanting to be known as the “father of the vaccine” is just an inconvenient truth.

  14. Synoptocon

    I wonder if this isn’t a retrospective with the new Delta constants. Contemporary posts show it as bottoming at about .73 around 21 May.

    There actually was (I think still is) quarantine provision in Toronto, but you either have to be referred by a community agency or know it exists to self-refer. So effective quarantine, no. As I understand the lack of contact tracing, it comes down to insufficient new money for TPH and like agencies and an unwillingness to take the risk to privacy that goes with bringing on volunteers – though thousands self-recruited.

  15. there are lies, there is lying by omission, and then, again, there are BIG LIES

    from c19study.com, here are aggregate results of ivermectin studies

    61 Trails 585 scientists 23,284 patients
    30 Randomized Controlled Trials
    86% improvement in 14 prophylaxis trials
    74% improvement in 26 early treatment trials
    43% improvement in 21 late treatment trials
    67% improvement in 23 mortality results
    60% improvement in 30 Randomized Controlled Trials

    Dr Robert Malone mentioned ivermectin, recently, and indicated it was useful, but not “a silver bullet”. Indeed, looking at these figures, he’s absolutely right. Having said that, if you’re a frontline medical worker, and you don’t prophylax with ivermectin, or something as good, well, I don’t think you’re very bright.

    Likewise, if you are immuno suppressed and/or have co-morbidities, and don’t prophylax, I don’t think you’re very bright. Or, at best, ignorant. (Assuming you can get it. The medical mafia has made it almost impossible to get from most doctors, apparently. Indeed, they’re looking to yank the medical licenses of any doctor who spouts what THEY call “misinformation”)

  16. NR

    Jason, did you miss the link I provided that gives data showing that 96% of people hospitalized for COVID in Florida are unvaccinated? Currently, right now, today.

    But I guess if you ignore any and all data that contradicts your preferred narrative, you can believe whatever you want, right?

  17. NR

    I can’t wait for Oakchair to explain how the Florida data actually means that the COVID vaccines are actually only 0.8% effective. This ought to be a good one.

  18. Synoptocon

    All stripes and colors?

    I doubt it. I’d lay good money that we’d find differential representation of openness to experience, agreeableness and neuroticism.

  19. Jason

    What’s the motive for pushing to get everybody vaccinated to then have the vaccines fail and new variants arise?

    Certainly many motives could be proffered. The profit motive is most commonly mentioned. That one is used across-the-board. It’s not relegated to the more “conspiratorial” among us.

    I can’t disprove it. Given how things have “evolved” the past few decades, I’d say it’s a damn good theory. Practically self-evident, in fact.

    And that’s just one motive.

    What’s wrong with erring on the side of (future and likely yearly) $150+ vaccines and the potential for flu-like symptoms, instead of hospital visits costing your life’s savings?

    Frustrating, once again. This completely ignores all the aforementioned prophylactic measures and treatments. I’m not going to debate this anymore. It’s a huge slap in the face to the Dr Pierre Kory’s of the world – a man who in no way toots his own horn – he just wants to see people live. And he’s just one example among many.

    Aside from the demeaning aspect, it’s simply not good argument. It ignores all prior presented evidence in the interest of its pre-determined conclusion. The vaccines are the sole focus. All else be damned.

    It’s also amazing that so many people still don’t understand and/or won’t accept that these vaccines have absolutely no prior safety profile. The safety of a given drug takes years to evaluate simply due to the nature of time itself. We have to wait for the time to elapse.

    It doesn’t matter that the mRNA technology was in development for decades. That fact is confused, whether intentionally or not, with the fact that the vaccines were rushed and are in fact an ongoing live experiment.

    This fact should simply be admitted to. It may even get a few more people to get vaccinated, since that has been made the overwhelming objective from on high.

    The population at large had heard enough “anecdotal” evidence in their personal lives to know that the vaccines aren’t entirely a walk in the park. Many people have had problems – from mild to severe, from short-lived to long-lasting – that are obviously directly causally-related to the vaccines.

    This information is left out of the narrative, is diminished, and in the end is belittling to those affected as well as to those who see those affected and decide the vaccine isn’t for them. Particularly since they’re also seeing how it doesn’t seem to work as advertised anyway.

    Is Jason vaccinated?

    For your records, Willy, or are you just curious? What do you think?

    I imagine you’re vaccinated.

    Now that I think about it, perhaps you have a pre-existing condition – like so many people – and after discussing it with your doctor you decided not to get a covid “jab.” But at the same time you see value in a mass vaccination campaign – for a coronavirus – for the public at large, with completely new, rushed-to-market vaccines that have absolutely no long-term safety profile.

    Understandable, I suppose. But even if that were true, I would think you’d view those who aren’t vaccinated from a place of at least a modicum of understanding. You certainly wouldn’t view “the un-vaccinated” as a monolith, I wouldn’t think. You’re a caring, sensitive guy. And smart, capable of absorbing and maintaining in equilibrium the nuance that comprises what we call intelligence. You read Ian Welsh for goodness sake!

    You’re rational enough to know that treating people as irrational agents who need to be fixed isn’t very rational.

  20. NR

    My link about the Florida cases was from late July, but here is a current article showing the same information:

    https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/vaccines/fl-ne-covid-hospital-patients-who-are-they-20210803-udptzx3vbnbyzoynd4utcrbium-story.html

    Actually, according to this article, 98% of hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated.

  21. js

    Most people will end up at some point or other taking medications that don’t have decades worth of information on them and a perfect safety profile (or having procedures that don’t). Not that this will be realized if we only ask the opinions of 20 year olds maybe, but among the older and wiser, who actually think about such things because they have to. So yea the risk of the vaccine or covid was kind of not even worth hesitating over.

  22. Jason

    From the article NR posted:

    “They mostly are infected with the Delta strain.”

    Now stop and think.

    The vaccinated are also mostly infected with the Delta strain. And they’re ending up in the hospital as well. Remember, the U.S. is weeks behind what’s being established as precedent in other areas of the world. This will become more obvious here as we move forward, unfortunately.

    Too, it looks like they are going to try to continue to blame it on the unvaccinated. This is unfortunate as well. It’s going to take a whole shitload of propaganda – more than the usual even – to get people to believe something that simply won’t hold in the face of the overwhelming evidence.

    So, back to the question. Why didn’t the unvaccinated succumb to earlier strains? Were they being more careful than the vaccinated? That’s not what we were led to believe.

    I don’t think we’ll come up with a definitive answer to this question, but it bears some thinking on. I said thinking. And reflecting. Not pouncing to rebut.

    A more important point was raised by metamars above. We should be quite concerned about ADE and the probability at this point that the vaccines “leak” (in their parlance) and are driving variants that are both more contagious and potentially more devastating.

  23. Willy

    I’d think that hiring disinformation agents (in various forms) to encourage just enough skepticism about vaccines, while at the same time other information agents convince the vaccinated that they do work (well enough), would create enough covid mutations that a highly profitable repeat-business sector would open up. Seem plausible? Seems the most plausible to me.

    Nobody ever said they were against prophylactic measures and treatments. What they said is that they were against prophylactic measures and treatments which haven’t been verified by credible researchers to work.

    It’s rational to treat most people as irrational agents who can be manipulated. Again, nobody is against mamas chicken soup or even snake oil as covid treatments, provided they’re proven to work. But who gets to do the proving these days? In any society, even libertarian, somebody has to be the expert. Otherwise chaos.

  24. Ché Pasa

    “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

    Anti-vaxxers have been doing their uttermost to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) — one of the prime uses of the internet from its foundation.

    Anything people can think of is used to convince others not to get vaccinated or propose alternative care (that probably isn’t effective) if someone is at risk of infection or has the disease.

    The commentariat at NC collectively lost its mind yesterday (not for the first time) over the looming specter of mandatory vaccination, whipped to a frenzy by “Yves” and “Lambert” because the vaccines “aren’t FDA approved” and forcing them on people without that imprimatur is… I don’t know, a death sentence? To see the shrieking and rending of garments over it, you’d think so. But even if they were fully approved, you know there would still be hysterics over it in some quarters.

    Vaccines of any kind scare people. I remember how frightened I was to get the smallpox vaccine when I was a kid (turned out I was naturally immune) and then later abject fear of the polio vaccine (by injection) both of which were mandatory — with exceptions. I got those vaccinations, and many others over the years. Surprise! They aren’t all perfectly protective, nor are any of the currently offered Covid vaccines. I’ve had flu and pneumonia after receiving those vaccines, and I’ve been warned that I may have no protection from Covid even though I’ve been vaccinated because I’m immune suppressed.

    I got the Moderna vaccine anyway. I had no ill effects. But I may not be protected. That is not an argument not to get vaccinated.

    The various health agencies have, it’s true, badly mangled public communications, and have routinely screwed up announcement of the “science,” pretty clearly because public health has not been a national priority for decades, they don’t have a strong or coherent communications shop, and they were subject to intense political pressure and manipulation and probably still are.

    Then there’s Pharma and its insatiable greed shooting for endless income from the vaccines and the endless boosters to come, and getting very close to their goal. But as we know, it’s never enough. Should we therefore not get vaccinated? Pfft.

    Yes, and vaccines are being dumped rather than distributed abroad where they are more needed than they are here. Should we not get vaccinated because of it? No, we should insist on global production and distribution, regardless of Pharma’s resistance.

    Then we hear the arguments that “it’s not that bad, and only 1% die.” So why risk being vaccinated when there are potential side effects — like with any drug or vaccine — that could in very rare cases lead to your death?

    Or we hear that vaccine protection “doesn’t last forever” so why get vaccinated?

    Round and round and round.

    Is there a way to get past this stupidity?

    Short term, probably not. Refuseniks are gonna refuse. The disease will settle in for a good long run, and a lot more people are going to get sick and die.

    Seems like a whole lot of people are fine with that — as long as it’s not them.

  25. Jason

    Most people will end up at some point or other taking medications that don’t have decades worth of information on them and a perfect safety profile

    It’s laughable at this point. Do you honestly not understand the difference between effectively no safety profile and a “perfect” safety profile, in your words?

    No one said “perfect” as there is no such thing. No one said “decades” but it does take at minimum two years, usually five to ten.

    In fact, the medicines that most people take throughout their lifetimes have substantial time-tested profiles.

    I don’t know why one would even attempt to make an argument against this process.

    Are you okay?

  26. Jason

    What they said is that they were against prophylactic measures and treatments which haven’t been verified by credible researchers to work.

    You’re obviously not serious, Willy. Your “haven’t been verified by credible researchers” is what I was referencing above. It”s a non-form of argument (you get an F) and it’s disgusting to boot.

    The FLCCC and similar organizations and doctors aren’t credible because they’re practicing the art of medicine, while the dictates from on high are deemed “credible” because…

    I suppose, seen through the framework of psychology, it’s because the people who got the shot are scared. Unknowns can be terrifying.

    The larger problem here is the utter lack of logic and appeals to emotion.

  27. Jerusalem Post:

    As of Thursday morning, there were some 250 COVID-19 patients in serious condition. What are their ages and what is their vaccination status?
    About 210 of them are individuals over the age of 60. Of those, 153 were fully vaccinated, seven were in the process of getting fully immunized and 50 were not vaccinated.

    So, nation-wide, it seems the Pfizer vaccine actually is, still, providing some protection from hospitalization, as the vaccination rate of adults in Israel is 85% > 75%.

    Intuitively, Atzmon’s hospital director source 90% figure seems in line with the national figures.

    Still nothing to celebrate. My estimate for Pfizer worthlessness @ 11 months seems safe, but I’m guessing 10 months is more likely. Since they started in Dec, we’re now approaching the 9 month mark.

    Really, if you think about it, their vaccination campaign must have been going gangbusters for many months.

    If I guesstimate 4 months, with doses equally distributed, then a more realistic estimate of Pfizer endpoint worthlessness is not 10 months, but 10 – (4/2) = 8 months.

    So, it looks like protection starts to fade precipitously at 6 months, and the fade is complete 2 months later.

    Well, these are crude estimates, indeed. I think they may have started with boosters in Israel, already, which will change the landscape. Also, I saw a headline about Israel going to the moderna vaccine (I think it was). So, maybe they will have better luck, with that.

  28. Becky

    refusniks, perfect, credible sources, blah, blah, blah

    Thank you, Jason, for seeing through the noise.

  29. Jason

    Last week, the CDC announced a surprising finding: “Delta infection resulted in similarly high SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated people.” Public officials had known from the early days of vaccine development that vaccinated people could catch COVID-19, but the assumption had been made that they were not going to be spreaders of COVID-19.

    It turns out that the delta variant is sufficiently different from the original Wuhan version of the virus that the vaccines work much less well. The CDC performed an analysis of COVID-19 cases arising from one public gathering in Massachusetts. They found that the gathering led to 469 COVID-19 delta cases among Massachusetts residents, with 74% of these cases in fully vaccinated attendees. Massachusetts is a highly vaccinated state, with approximately 64% of the population fully vaccinated.

    There are other issues coming up as well. How long does the vaccine really last? Is the vaccine itself part of the reason that the virus is mutating as rapidly as it is? Are we making problems for ourselves by creating an army of people with very light cases of COVID-19 who can spread the virus to both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated without realizing that they have more than a cold? Aren’t we inadvertently killing off the least able of the virus mutations and allowing the most virulent to multiply?

    My training is as an actuary, so I am familiar with modeling. I am also a “systems thinker.” I know that it is important to look at longer term impacts as well as short-term impacts. If a person works in the healthcare field, it is easy to consider only the obvious short-term benefits. It takes some analysis to figure out that today’s vaccines may lead to stronger variants (such as delta) and more overall spread of COVID-19.

    In this post, I will explain some of the issues involved…

    Given the likelihood of mutations away from the narrow target, it seems strange that the governments have set very high expectations for the new vaccines

    It seems to me that Pfizer and Moderna should have said, “We are producing new vaccines that will somewhat lessen symptoms. In a way, they will be like the annual influenza vaccines that various companies make each year. We will need to update the vaccines regularly, but we will likely miss. Hopefully, our guess regarding what will work will be ‘close enough,’ so the vaccine will provide some partial benefit for the upcoming variations.”

    Such a statement would have provided a more realistic set of expectations, compared to what many people have been assuming. No one would expect that herd immunity would ever be reached. The vaccines would be perceived as fairly weak tools that need to be used alongside medications, if they are to be used at all.

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/08/05/covid-19-vaccines-dont-really-work-as-hoped/

  30. Lets look at the links NR posted.
    Here is what the UK one found “those who had received both doses of a vaccine, at 1.21% compared to 0.40% (Covid infection rate)”. The Vaccines prevented 0.81% of people who got them from getting Covid. The Vaccines which started off with a 95% effective rate several months ago now according to this link have a 50% effectiveness rate.
    Rounding up 1 person out of ever 100 who got the experimental vaccine received any benefit from it.

    The Florida link isn’t of a study, research, or comprehensive data but rather it is a short term anecdotal report from a hospital with no comparison group. If the vaccinated people died from heart inflammation, or blood clots they count as having benefited from the vaccine because they didn’t catch Covid. This is the same as those Americans proclaiming that destroying the Village saved it.

    NR: “Ivermectin a decades old drug with 60+ studies finding it a safe and effective treatment for Covid has no credible evidence for benefits. The Experimental Vaccines with a few studies done by the corporation selling it that doesn’t even test for safety means Vaccines are safe and effective and need to be force on all.”

    NR in 1980: “The Vietnam Villages we bombed had zero deaths from Commies. Those opposing bombing villages are right wing hacks who want people to die.”

    It is obvious why NR posts so many insults, and logical fallacies.

  31. “Anti-vaxxers have been doing their uttermost to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD)”

    Examples include telling people that if they don’t get the vaccine they will kill people and be super spreads. Telling people that decade old safe drugs with 60+ studies of benefits are not credible. Censoring anyone questioning Pharma corporations. Wait that’s what the pro-drug corporation people did.

    “Anything people can think of is used to convince others not to get vaccinated”

    Examples include paying people, discriminatingly against them, firing them, and censoring them. Wait that is what the pro-drug corporation people did.

    “you know there would still be hysterics over it in some quarters (over forcibly durgging people)”

    Are you surprised people got hysterical when told the government controls their bodies?

    “Vaccines of any kind scare people”

    The death rate for non-obese young people from Covid is about 0% yet this group needs to be coerced to get the Vaccine. Maybe stop projecting your own fear on others?

    “I got the Moderna vaccine anyway. I had no ill effects.”

    Unless you had your blood clotting, inflammation, brain, heart and so on tested afterwards and before your statement is you making an evidence free assumption and is an anecdote logical fallacies to boot.

  32. Willy

    Jason, I really couldn’t care less what you think about me. The FLCCC is notorious for posting abstracts which contain unsubstantiated claims. Not credible.

    If you’ve gotten the shot and you’re still scared (I have and am not) just add in all the other remedies already, proven or not.

    The only thing that makes sense is that Jason is a paid Big Pharma FUD disinformation troll.

  33. Jason

    Willy, I wish you health and contentment.

  34. js

    What I consider “being okay” is getting back to normal life (not endless debates on the internet about how we should never get back to normal life, although they may pull me in too, and really not self-medicating myself with vet medicines because I think I have a medical degree even though I have no medical training).

  35. Becky

    self-medicating myself with vet medicines

    Another woefully uninformed, or simply non-serious, commenter.

    https://covid19criticalcare.com/

  36. janice

    The FLCCC is notorious for posting abstracts which contain unsubstantiated claims. Not credible.

    I don’t want to get into a “he-said, she-said” but this is patently false. The FLCCC are front-line doctors from around the world. They are absolutely credible.

    I am a nurse in the northeastern United States.

  37. Jason

    IM Doc over at Naked Capitalism:

    “And the fact of the matter is that medical research by and large follows the same pattern especially when pharmaceutical or therapeutic procedures are employed. We do SMALL studies first based on hypotheses and findings coming out of basic research. Once signal is obtained in both efficacy and safety, ever larger studies are done until we do indeed very large randomized controlled studies.

    This is the way it is – and I am sorry you do not agree. You must be living in a different world. Not just this study – but multiple dozens of others have found very positive signals with ivermectin for COVID. And the safety of this agent is out there for 30 years for all to see.

    A few dozen real problems out of billions of doses given – and most of those were the Jarisch Herxheimer reactions because it worked so well on worms and other parasites.

    The fact we are not doing further studies on this drug is a supreme example of this entire establishment not practicing the tenets of science and medicine but instead practicing the tenets of business.

    I would just say again. This is EARLY research on ivermectin. If you cannot see the overwhelmingly positive signals coming from these dozens of papers, you do not understand statistics.

    In medicine’s past, when this was seen from a drug or procedure, people would have been falling over themselves to really get the compound into bigger studies to really see what was going on.”

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/links-8-5-2021.html#comment-3584962

  38. Willy

    janice,

    It just got posted why here.

    Why not just let people get their shots, then advise for those still afraid (and anybody else who might listen), that it’d be a good idea to check out all the other remedies, prophylactics, vitamins and other ailment aids?

    Why continuously rail against getting a damned vaccine? I still see ads all the time for from side-effects lawyers. If you grow a horn from your vax, then sue. Did something I don’t know about suddenly get mandated?

  39. melissa

    Willy, I recommend reading Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients”

    He states and then proves:

    “…the bar is very low: that drugs must only prove that they are better than nothing, even when there are highly effective treatments on the market already.“

    Written in 2013, I believe. There are many others.

    I thought this place was about uncovering monstrous crimes and the like? Suddenly some of the regulars are in love with Big Pharma? Strange.

  40. Ché Pasa

    Furthermore, Fauci has been almost as problematical as that lady with the shoulder scarves. Bafflegab has been his stock in trade for decades. Good luck trying to parse his statements.

    We’ve seen from the outset that Our Rulers and their servants don’t have the intention to stop the spread of Covid let alone eradicate it. They are fine with letting it become endemic and they don’t care if future variants are more lethal than the current ones — as long as they are protected and get the finest treatment should they become ill. That’s what matters to them, not what happens to the rest of us. In fact, the more of us that get sick and die, the better from their point of view.

    That’s the reality. The reality is also that the vaccines are partially effective and provide limited protection for most people who receive them. The vaccines are not perfect, but they have been shown to help immeasurably in reducing the prevalence of the disease and the severity of its consequences. 6-8 months appears to be the maximum effectiveness of the vaccines. Consequently, Our Rulers’ Pharma partners are salivating at the many trillions they will gain over time by producing and selling boosters and new and improved vaccines. Yay them.

    The unvaccinated are starting to realize that they and their loved ones are the ones suffering the most from Covid, and some are taking precautions including getting vaccinated, though of course many will continue to insist they and their previous refusals were not the problem. It’s always someone else’s fault. Politics uber alles.

    This could have been nipped in the bud a long time ago. It wasn’t and it won’t be. US lifespans and birthrates have been on the decline for quite a while. Now, since Covid, they’re cratering. Some of us do what we can to keep going, others have given up, and there are plenty who are eager to ensure that the pace of decline accelerates.

    Our Rulers don’t care.

  41. Willy

    melissa,

    I still hate Big Pharma.

    Prove to me that Jason isn’t one of their paid disinformation operatives.

  42. janice

    It just got posted why here.

    I don’t know what this means. As I said, I’m not here to get into a back and forth.

    I posted a link for everyone reading, so those who wish to may read and scrutinize the information themselves.

  43. Willy

    We’ve seen from the outset that Our Rulers and their servants don’t have the intention to stop the spread of Covid let alone eradicate it. They are fine with letting it become endemic and they don’t care if future variants are more lethal than the current ones — as long as they are protected and get the finest treatment should they become ill.

    Exactly. The payoff for not taming covid, is that Big Pharma will have (yet another) obsolescence business model from which to profit off of for decades to come. In light of this, it’s most rational to get the damned free vax, and then additionally, do all the other stuff which seems credible to increase your odds.

    Is this still too “nuanced”?

  44. melissa

    Prove to me that Jason isn’t one of their paid disinformation operatives.

    Hmmm. I was going to write, “What has Jason possibly written that makes you think he’s ‘one of their paid disinformation operatives'” but then I realized I’m either:

    1) Being intentionally provoked by someone not altogether well
    2) Simply dealing with someone who’s not altogether well

    Take care of yourself, Willy.

  45. Willy

    Lindsay Graham seems like one sorry turd of a physical specimen. Yet even he got the vax. From the looks of him, his covid should’ve killed him. Trump got the vax. Trumps family got the vax. Fox News staff all got the vax…

    If you look anything like Graham (or worse, with my sympathies) then augment and supplement as advised here. Sound reasonable?

  46. janice

    The unvaccinated are starting to realize that they and their loved ones are the ones suffering the most from Covid

    You’re speaking for all the unvaccinated? Geez, that’s audacious. Perhaps it was just a writing device. I frankly think it’s uncalled for at this time.

    Anyway, that’s NOT what’s happening in Israel and other places around the world with high vaccination rates. The vaccinated are wondering what’s going on.

    I don’t think it’s a good idea to make such a hard delineation between the vaxed and unvaxed. We need to be working together.

  47. Hugh

    I always wonder what it is about Ian’s site that it draws all the crazies. Anti-vaxxers, Trumpers, climate change deniers, China apologists, you name it, they show up with their noise machines. Facts? They don’t need them. Or they have their own, from an inexhaustible supply of goofball authorities. Call them on any of this and you get the Oh yeah? Well, back at you times ten!

    And so it goes. There is a point in just about every thread where the crazies take over. The only use to it is that it shows that a lot of people are more interested in cultivating their prejudices and delusions than in understanding anything or solving any problem. That’s our world.

  48. Rebecca

    I read the comments here from time to time and I’m amazed at the “outing” of Willy and Che. I know bruce wilder – whose posts I almost always appreciate – has said he enjoys Willy’s stories as opposed to some of the other things sometimes posted here. I don’t know bruce. I don’t know if you know Willy personally or if he’s just an online presence in your life, but I think you ought to reevaluate. Willy’s a nut job. Show me who your friends are and I’ll show you who you are. Online friends (sad) or not.

    Ian, these guys are a brutal combination of flighty, featherbrained, and just plain strange – and not in a good way, like “Keep Vermont Weird” or something similar.

  49. Synoptocon

    I love the smell of warm cotton in the morning.

  50. Willy

    janice,
    Che was referring to the Tony Wikrent post from a few days ago.

    Rebecca,
    without specific quotes to discuss, that’s called an ad hominem. Please be more specific so we can learn more about you.

  51. It is interesting how the powerful are psychopaths who don’t care if people die for their benefit while at the same time drug corporations who’ve killed people by committing fraud should be trusted uncritically. Willy says Pharma wants people to die and then says people should take their drugs.

    Also interesting how people can’t seem to avoid using ad hominem insults when they can’t come up with an intelligent argument. It is as if since their position is invalid so they try to distract with logical fallacies.

    ” It’s always someone else’s fault. Politics uber alles.”

    For example how the variants are caused by the unvaccinated. How vaccines don’t work unless everyone is forced to get them. How the increase in excess mortality rates since vaccination is the fault of people who didn’t get vaccines.

    “US lifespans and birthrates have been on the decline for quite a while. Now, since Covid, they’re cratering.”

    The revealing thing here is that before the mass vaccination campaign excess mortality rates were decreasing from Covid era highs. Once vaccines began being introduced in large amounts mortality rates increased. But hey we have adopted Trumps, “If we don’t test for it, it doesn’t exist” and therefore since the drug corporations didn’t test for negative health effects the vaccines can’t cause them. A Person dies 3 months after getting the vaccine and its just a coincidence. Person dies after a hospitalization for cancer and tests positive for Covid and Covid killed them. That’s is science, baby!

  52. “I always wonder what it is about Ian’s site that it draws all the crazies. Anti-vaxxers, Trumpers, climate change deniers, China apologists, you name it, they show up with their noise machines. Facts? They don’t need them. Or they have their own, from an inexhaustible supply of goofball authorities. Call them on any of this and you get the Oh yeah? Well, back at you times ten!

    And so it goes. There is a point in just about every thread where the crazies take over. The only use to it is that it shows that a lot of people are more interested in cultivating their prejudices and delusions than in understanding anything or solving any problem. That’s our world.”

    Take out the insults, and logical fallacies, and there would be nothing left in Hugh’s post. Anyone know the term for the type of post Hugh made? Cognitive dissonance, psychological projection, trolling?

  53. michelle

    Anti-vaxxers, Trumpers, climate change deniers, China apologists, you name it, they show up with their noise machines

    All rolled neatly into one. I guess it’s easier for a given brain to handle that way? Sad.

    Facts? They don’t need them.

    By far, the most relevant and substantial facts presented here today have been from Jason. There haven’t been any serious rebuttals. The attempts by “NR” were quickly and summarily debunked by Oakchair.

    It’s been frightening watching people who ought to know better accept what they’re told at face value. It’s even more horrifying now watching those same people double down as the faults in the narrative become more glaring.

    Or they have their own, from an inexhaustible supply of goofball authorities.

    The doctors affiliated with the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance are not “goofball authorities” nor are the myriad other doctors and scientists who are exhibiting a healthy skepticism towards the vaccines. That “healthy skepticism” is in fact science.

  54. Mark Pontin

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/05/us-healthcare-system-ranks-last-11-wealthiest-countries

    ‘The US is last on a ranking of healthcare systems among 11 of the wealthiest countries in the world, despite spending the highest percentage of its GDP on healthcare, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund. … The other countries analyzed in the report were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.’

    (Actually, when I look at the annual global stats, the US usually ranks somewhere about 38th for overall outcomes. This Commonwealth study here particularly emphasizes *access* to healthcare, among other factors.)

    https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly

    “The United States trails far behind other high-income countries on measures of health care affordability, administrative efficiency, equity, and outcomes ….”

    As noted, the US does NOT trail far behind other high-income countries in terms of siphoning off a massive share of annual GDP to rich asset holders invested in shares of US healthcare/insurance, however.

    The UK’s NHS — which has slipped to fourth place from first under the impact of COV19 — costs 10.2 percent of UK GDP, while Australia costs 9.4 percent of GDP and New Zealand costs 9.1 percent and are pretty much tied at 2nd and 3rd. Numero uno is Norway, which spends 10.5 percent of their GDP on healthcare.

    The US spends 17 percent of GDP on healthcare, by contrast. So, via one of the worst healthcare “systems” in the world, the rich in the U.S. steadily siphon off — loot, that is — 7-8 percent of US GDP for themselves. The “exceptional nation’s” system’s working!

    In an unfortunate note for Ian, Canada is ranked at #10 just before the US. Canadian healthcare still only costs 10.8 percent of Canada’s GDP.

    Interestingly, the four countries that spend the least — Norway, Australia, New Zealand, the UK — do the best in many respects. According to the study —

    A comparison of the features of top-performing countries and poorer-performing countries suggests that top-performing countries rely on four features to attain better and more equitable health outcomes:

    [1] They provide for universal coverage and remove cost barriers so people can get care when they need it and in a manner that works for them.
    [2] They invest in primary care systems to ensure that high-value services are equitably available locally in all communities to all people, reducing the risk of discrimination and unequal treatment.
    [3] They reduce the administrative burdens on patients and clinicians that cost them time and effort and can discourage access to care, especially for marginalized groups.
    [4] They invest in social services that increase equitable access to nutrition, education, child care, community safety, housing, transportation, and worker benefits that lead to a healthier population and fewer avoidable demands on health care.

  55. Astrid

    I’m going to put up an earnest comment and say Hugh’s “crazies” are what I appreciate about this space. This is one of the few spaces on the internet that not an echo chamber and there can be vigorous disagreements that go somewhere interesting. Not just not a MSM echo chamber, but also not other kinds of echo chamber as I see form up in MoA, Naked capitalism, Reddit, etc. Anyone can jump in and comment and as long as they’re not *too* abusive, Ian lets them say their piece. Lots of people have obviously thought very deeply on a lot of things, in addition to book reading and school of hard knocks. I really appreciate it!

    Though recently, I have been particularly interested by the depth of cognitive dissonance and ugliness of certain neoliberals who keep denying that they are neoliberals, keep saying they have facts and science on their side, yet parrot the neoliberal creed line by line and pretty much never offers a convincing rebuttal as far as I can see. It’s a good reminder to keep my opinions to myself in real life.

  56. Mark Pontin

    Jason wrote: “Why didn’t the unvaccinated succumb to earlier strains? Were they being more careful than the vaccinated? That’s not what we were led to believe … I don’t think we’ll come up with a definitive answer to this question, but it bears some thinking on.”

    With these particular unvaccinated who didn’t succumb to earlier strains — because plenty of unvaccinated did — a big factor would be that we’re seeing individuals with viral loads more than 1,000 times greater with the delta variant.

    Those much larger viral loads would also presumably contribute not only to delta’s general transmissibility but also to its breakthrough capability in the vaccinated delta-COV19 cases.

  57. Hugh

    It’s like being on the Titanic. We have the group that denies they’re on the Titanic. There’s the group that denies there are any icebergs. There’s the group that says the real problem isn’t the iceberg, the real problem is trying to avoid them. Or the real problem is the US, or the Democrats –but not Trump. It just reminds me of the old saying that you can’t cure stupid.

  58. NR

    The attempts by “NR” were quickly and summarily debunked by Oakchair.

    You mean how I posted links to scientific studies and factual data, and Oakchair “debunked” them by displaying his complete ignorance of statistical methods and relative risk?

    Oh yes, he certainly “debunked” me!

  59. Willy

    @Oakchair
    Willy says Pharma wants people to die and then says people should take their drugs.

    No. I did not say that, carefully worded to misrepresent what I’d actually said.

    I have always said that for Big Pharma profit is Job 1, with social costs being down the list. They are a business run by MBAs, often sociopathic MBAs, who will do whatever it takes to maintain profits so they don’t get fired. This doesn’t usually include creating drugs which will kill people, because that could get them sued and the sociopathic MBA could get fired. That’s far too obvious.

    But it’s not beyond comprehension to imagine that some equivalent, but far more devious, form of the Phoebus cartel could have been created to ensure many covid vaccine profit opportunities to come in the future.

  60. Willy

    @Oakchair

    And the rest of your posts are garbage.

  61. Soredemos

    @NR

    No, that’s 100% bullshit. There’s a huge amount of anecdotal evidence, and no I don’t mean from random people in bars, but from practicing doctors, that it is effective at treating covid. And contrary to the oft repeated trite phrase, anecdotes in fact are data points. There’s also a growing number a small scale pilot studies that show there’s probably something to it (and no, the small sample sizes do not at all discredit these studies. You use small studies to suggest what things are deserving of larger studies. Plenty of credible, worthwhile medical practices never even advanced beyond the small study scale).

    I direct you to IM Doc and his comments over at naked capitalism. He’s been talking about this issue extensively for weeks. You can practically sense him pulling his own hair out at this point.

    The simple reality is that even if Ivermectin is doing literally nothing for covid, it’s a cheap, incredibly safe dug. Far safer than that Remdesivir stuff, that actually really does nothing for covid, that Fauci was shilling for way back in the early days of this pandemic (if anyone even remembers those times at this point). Ivermectin is one of the safest drugs in all of medicine, and the way it is being smeared and fear-mongered about is basically without precedent in the annals of ‘evidence based’ medicine. Absolute worst case scenario is that it does nothing beyond being a placebo. It is completely unjustified that it’s being vilified the way it has been.

    It’s not expensive, and it isn’t dangerous. Which is why its credibility must be destroyed, from the perspective of the drug makers who see big profits in their own treatment drugs under threat.

    The probable efficacy of the vaccines is falling by the day (and for the record, I’ve already had both Pfizer shots, so don’t attempt to dismiss me as some sort of anti-vax denialist), and a drug that has a lot of evidence to support its efficacy as a treatment is not just being ignored, but vilified.

    No one who has, however earnestly, jumped on the ‘hate Ivermectin’ bandwagon is going to come out of this looking good in the long term. Because, again, it’s safe and cheap. Worst case is it simply does nothing. No one who is attacking its use is actually protecting anyone from some potential danger. You’re just being a sheep.

  62. Willy

    Speaking of David Brooks, I remember the Tony Wikrent link to his ‘collapsing levels of trust’ article:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/collapsing-levels-trust-are-devastating-america/616581/

    I was already fully aware of Brooks reputation, but that didn’t keep others from proclaiming that a broken clock cannot ever tell time right, not even twice a day. Brooks may be wrong in what he figured were the causes, but he was right on the money about the effects. And boy do we have effects.

    Ran Prieur had some good comments about “about psychological collapse and online communities going bad” back on July 30:
    http://www.ranprieur.com/

    It used to be that ordinary people would accept whatever the TV said — or before that, the church. Only a few weirdos developed the skill of looking at a broad swath of potential facts, and drawing their own pictures.
    It’s like seeing shapes in the clouds. It’s not just something you do or don’t do — it’s a skill you can develop, to see more shapes more easily. And now everyone is learning it.
    Through the magic of the internet, everyone is discovering that they can make reality look like whatever they want. They feel like they’re finding truth, when really they’re veering off into madness.

    I’d add in the human need for cognitive closure, where one feels uncomfortable until whatever issue is settled.

    bruce is big on keeping debates low key. He seems to assume (erroneously IMO) that it’s all just one big tribal misunderstanding. I wonder if he’s around to chime in on all this.

    I have a lot of respect for Vaush. He said that just because the drug companies are out for #1, doesn’t mean they can’t produce a reasonable product. Anything else just isn’t plausible enough, yet.

  63. NR

    Soredemos:

    I invite you to show me where I have ever “attacked” Ivermectin usage. All I’ve said is that there is no evidence showing that it is an effective COVID treatment. Of course, this does not mean it isn’t one, just that we don’t have the studies right now to support the claim that it is.

    Here’s a direct link to the recent meta analysis on the topic, read it for yourself:

    https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD015017.pub2/full

  64. Ché Pasa

    Most of my commentary on Covid — and other things — is based on personal experience or that of friends and relations and people I’ve interviewed. I realize among some people personal experience is worthless unless it fits a particular framework or narrative.

    Early on, Covid or the complications from it were devastating. We have friends who got sick and lost relatives on the Navajo Reservation and Pine Ridge, and they had friends who were going through hell on other Native lands or in cities like Tulsa and Houston. We found out very early that this disease was real and could be severe and/or deadly. Common treatments were not working; hospitals were overwhelmed, and for months it was difficult or impossible for people without access to such simple things as masks and running water and hand sanitizer to cope or avoid catching the disease, and shortly hundreds of thousands/millions were sick and tens of thousands were dead.

    A Navajo friend called what was happening “genocide” and she wasn’t far from wrong.

    The specific things that might have helped slow or stop the spread either weren’t available or weren’t done or were implemented so poorly that they may as well not have been done. Ian has documented plenty of that failure.

    The introduction of vaccines was slow, poorly implemented (I won’t detail what I went through, but I imagine everyone has heard horror stories by now), but soon enough they were making a difference. Vaccinated people weren’t getting as sick and weren’t dying as often. Simple, straightforward, and easy to understand. The vaccines weren’t perfect. And that was made clear: 95% or 70% effective is not 100%; really. It isn’t.

    You can dispute all you want, and you can do you utmost to convince others not to get vaccinated — but why? If you don’t want to get vaccinated then you have an obligation to keep your distance and stay out of the faces and lives of others. Especially people you don’t know.

    You can promote alternative medications as much as you want and by all means, take them! I’ve been taking Plaquenil, vitamins D and B12, zinc and a shit-ton of other stuff for years but I don’t think they prevent me from getting Covid. Vaccines may not have protected me. I know that.

    I didn’t socialize at all for over a year, and I rarely socialize now except on Zoom and such. When I’m indoors with others I wear a mask. I wash and use hand sanitizer. When I’m around other vaccinated people, as I was a couple of days ago where there were maybe a hundred in attendance, I keep my distance (most of the time) and wear a mask (as did most everyone even though they were all vaccinated.)

    I go to the hospital tomorrow for day-long treatment and everyone will be masked and most will be vaccinated (hospital requires all staff to be vaccinated by September, no exceptions). Staff will wear and change gloves and will wipe down everything. And yet they and I know that even with precautions, eventually some will test positive, show symptoms and some will die. Fewer will do so with vaccine than without. And when everyone is vaccinated (ha) 100% of those who get sick and die of Covid will be among the vaccinated. Amazing.

  65. Astrid

    Anyone who really believes in universal vaccination can start by advocating for 5 days of paid sick leave (or $250/day for unemployed and still employed) no questions asked, for anyone who get two shots. The payment will be authorized by the administrator of the shots and be tracked by social security administration. And anyone (or their close family) who has a serious or fatal adverse reaction to the vaccine can seek compensation from the vaccine maker or the government. If they believe in the vaccines so much, they need to put their money where their mouthflaps are.

  66. Ché Pasa

    @Astrid

    Good idea. Now make it happen.

    Our national government and those who own it have no intention of doing any such thing, though some states, localities and employers are nudging closer to it.

    But I think even if it does happen more generally, it’s too late to do much good, and a wasted generation would have to pass before it would make a difference.

  67. Willy

    In my future globalized business you don’t have to believe in vaccines. Or ivermectin.
    Not entirely. We’ll inject your ass with all the available vaccines, ivermectin, zinc, HCQ, kalonji, honey and a bit of grandmas chicken soup. And all we’ll ask for in return is a great big ole group hug. And that you don’t sit on that ass for a while.

  68. Soredemos

    @NR

    That amounts to attacking it. Because you’re wrong, and you’re wrong about the evidence. Yet you continue to engage in agnotology.

  69. janice

    With these particular unvaccinated who didn’t succumb to earlier strains — because plenty of unvaccinated did

    Everyone was unvaccinated and succumbing to earlier strains before the vaccine campaign began in December, only 8 months ago.

    Israel’s vaccination campaign in particular was impressive.

    This is the latest from Israel:

    “95% of the severe patients are vaccinated”.
    “85-90% of the hospitalizations are in Fully vaccinated people.”
    “We are opening more and more COVID wards.”
    “The effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out”

    (Dr. Kobi Haviv, earlier today on Chanel 13 @newsisrael13)

    At the Herzog Medical Center in Jerusalem:
    72 Corona patients are hospitalized, and another 7 patients are soon expected to arrive.
    25 patients -> in critical condition.
    8 -> “moderate”.
    9 -> “mild “.
    During the last day, 2 patients died.

    https://twitter.com/RanIsraeli/status/1423322271503028228

    As one wit in the thread put it: “Quick, give me more mRNA.”

  70. Hugh

    Soredemos, there is this thing called the Hippocratic Oath: first due no harm. Your IM Doc doesn’t know if, where, when, and with whom Ivermectin might have some benefit. You yourself say it might have no benefit. I’m guessing your doc is pushing the line that Ivermectin is innocuous to salve his/her conscience. But what they are doing is not medicine. Charitably, you could call it a pragmatic treatment. Even there they are running close to the line. Such a treatment is on a case by case basis, and there needs to be a clinical indication to justify it. And no pulling your hair doesn’t count.

  71. Astrid

    Che,

    I am not so sure that the current vaccines should be administered beyond the elderly and those with comorbidity factors. If the vaccines were proven to have sterilizing immunity and break the chain of transmission, then universal administration might be worthwhile. But the news coming out is that they do not break the chain of transmission and may encourage transmission by lowering the inhibitions of the vaccinated.

    For the young and healthy, especially those who can also physically isolate themselves or continue masking, not vaccination is quite likely to lead to better health outcome for themselves and others, than “vax to stop mask”. Vaccines may perversely select for vaccine resistance and lower their effectiveness for the truly vulnerable, just as we see with abusive use of antibiotics.

    Not that it matters. I am not a billionaire and I don’t know any billionaires ( when I was young, I really wanted to befriend superrich people so they would invite me to vacation on their superyachts, nowadays I think it’s probably a good thing that I never got to know such psychopaths in my life). I know some PMCers in some position of moderate influence, but none of them can possibly imagine giving money to deplorables. So I can’t get the virtue signaling Democrats to do anything useful.

    But maybe they’ll do something like this in October 2022 as a hail Mary, after everything else they’ve done in public health and economic stimulus utterly fails. Hey it’s either that or a hot war with Iran or in the South China Sea. With the right vaccine and distributed universally, this action might actually stop Covid, though we’ll probably get rat derived variants every couple years for funsies.

  72. Eric Anderson

    Nope.
    Still can’t read the comments.

  73. Jason

    Thanks for your utterly rational approach in cutting to the chase, janice. Much appreciated.

    I would think everyone would be quite interested in janice’s post and the information contained therein. I’ll repeat it, for posterity’s sake. Lord knows not too many here seem to understand or care…:

    Everyone was unvaccinated and succumbing to earlier strains before the vaccine campaign began in December, only 8 months ago.

    Israel’s vaccination campaign in particular was impressive.

    This is the latest from Israel:

    “95% of the severe patients are vaccinated”.
    “85-90% of the hospitalizations are in Fully vaccinated people.”
    “We are opening more and more COVID wards.”
    “The effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out”

    (Dr. Kobi Haviv, earlier today on Chanel 13 @newsisrael13)

    At the Herzog Medical Center in Jerusalem:
    72 Corona patients are hospitalized, and another 7 patients are soon expected to arrive.
    25 patients -> in critical condition.
    8 -> “moderate”.
    9 -> “mild “.
    During the last day, 2 patients died.

    https://twitter.com/RanIsraeli/status/1423322271503028228

    As one wit in the thread put it: “Quick, give me more mRNA.”

  74. NR

    Because you’re wrong, and you’re wrong about the evidence.

    This is a bold statement with nothing to back it up.

    In any case, all I posted was a link to a meta-analysis. If you have a problem with it, I suggest you take it up with the authors.

  75. Rebecca

    Nope.
    Still can’t read the comments.

    Which means he read the comments.

    That dude used to post regularly, too.

    Good for you, man. Stick to your guns in not posting. You of course continue to read Ian’s writing.

    And we know you know sneak a peak at the comments sometimes, too. We’re all human.

  76. Oakchair

    @ NR

    The UK study you posted found Covid vaccines prevent 0.8 out of every 100 people who get the vaccine from getting Covid. You have consistently denied and insulted people who stated what you now agree is a fact. I await you’re apology for your trolling behavior but like Trump you’ll likely double down.

    Here are the risk ratios for ivermectin verse placebo in the link NR posted. Mortality 0.60. So either NR lacks the capabilities to comprehend that this means ivermectin reduced deaths or NR is a liar. Soredemos will await NR’s apology for the insults and trolling.

    @ Willy “The payoff for not taming covid, is that Big Pharma will have (yet another) obsolescence business model from which to profit off of for decades to come. In light of this, it’s most rational to get the damned free vax,

    No. I did not say that,

    I have always said that for Big Pharma profit is Job 1,.”

    Trump tried this strategy you’re using where you go in circles denying what you said then repeat it all while projecting your own behavior onto everyone else as a distraction.

  77. Jason

    you go in circles denying what you said then repeat it all while projecting your own behavior onto everyone else as a distraction.

    Yes, Willy’s a real piece of work. But don’t waste column space.

  78. Willy

    Eric comes from the days of StewartM, Mojave Wolf, Webstir… and other pros who filled the place with good ideas. I was just a duly-designated representative from the kids table back then. It looks like Oakchair occupies that seat now.

  79. Willy

    Jason, all you needed to say was that you’ve been vaccinated, you have no problem with others getting theirs, as long as they understand that this thing isn’t over yet, and with bad news increasingly coming in, that you’re recommending additional measures against covid so we stay protected.

  80. Sue

    A preliminary study shows that as many as 40% of white-tailed deer have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in 4 states:
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.29.454326v1.full

    With a population of 30 million white tailed deer in North America, the concern is that deer may become a wild reservoir for the virus to mutate and spread to other species.

    I am vaccinated, and I honestly do not know what to think about the pandemic at this point or our chances of reducing it to something manageable. I do not know how effective the vaccines are against the new variants, as the data is new and changing, and public health officials continually shift emphasis. Originally, the vaccines were 90+% effective at preventing illness, now their effectiveness is based on preventing hospitalization and death. The viral loads in the vaccinated and unvaccinated appear to be equal with the Delta variant, according to the Provincetown data. In the Provincetown study 74% of the cases were vaccinated, 26% were unvaccinated. Only 5 people were hospitalized: 4 vaccinated and 1 unvaccinated with co-morbidities. There were no deaths. I do wonder why out of the 26% unvaccinated cases more did not end up hospitalized. I wish I could make sense of it.

    I got the Moderna vaccine, but I will admit that It was not an easy decision, mainly because the PREP Act (Public Readiness And Emergency Preparedness law) was enacted, which makes it impossible to sue over vaccine safety until 2024. What if the vaccine injured me and I wound up with a lot of medical bills or couldn’t work? But in the end I took the risk, because I so badly want to stop the spread of this disease. This is why I also continue to wear a mask.

    I have a feeling things are going to become more confusing before they become clearer. Last year I read the book Bring Out Your Dead, by J.M. Powell about the yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793. It was stunning in its similarity to the handling of this pandemic over 200 years later from the mass exodus of the rich, to the racism, and the untested medical treatments. Quite uncomfortable reading.

  81. Deganawida

    other pros who filled the place with good ideas. I was just a duly-designated representative from the kids table back then

    You should give yourself more credit in the present.

    You speak of the elders filling the place with good ideas. What are those good ideas? Why aren’t you carrying them forth in their absence?

    You – though not you alone – have not been a very good representative of this sacred space.

    If the environment you inhabit compels you to act as negatively as you often do, you are helping neither yourself nor the wider environment, and you must retreat until you rediscover a harmonious internal state.

    It is your loneliness and anger that lead you here, subtly concealed in a sometime concern for others.

  82. NR

    Oakchair:

    I have consistently stated that you are ignorant of concepts like statistical methods and relative risk because you have consistently displayed your ignorance of concepts like statistical methods and relative risk. And now it seems that you don’t know what “very low-certainty evidence” means either. I would have thought that was simple enough at least, but I guess not.

  83. capelin

    You really, really don’t want to catch this shit.

    Ian, your observations on how Covid is _not being dealt with ring true. Sooo much common sense not being followed by the PTB, and why would they, they benefit.

    I think you err on two major counts though; one, believing that we could ever stop Covid, let alone with Vaccines, and two, your fear of Covid is overblown.

    at least 40% of people with covid are asymtomatic. For starters. So, maybe “you” don’t want to catch this shit.

    But maybe “you” do, if you’re in decent health and would rather one’s immune system learn from the real thing, not some hacked experimental cardboard-cutout variant-accelerant version of the virus.

    either way, we’re all gunna get Covid19, even we who are the 1% in the world who can even think of “working at home” – ie, shifting the exposure burden to others.

    Vaccines don’t stop you from ketchin’ it, they just suppress the effects. So let’s go travel!

    Remember “Flatten the Curve” tm? Well, here we are, this is what it looks like; even the suits are talking “endemic”.

    I’m dealing with invasive Bull-Thistle, and there’s a narrow window to erradicate it before it’s just too widespread.

    That window for Covid was about a week after it left the lab, but we’re still trading in multiple level fantasies involving the institutions we’ve not trusted our whole lives suddenly being our saviours, if only we give them more powers and submit, because this time is exceptional!!

    and, i’m scared.

    Wait till this winter, it’s gunna be freakin chaos.

  84. Mr Jones

    But in the end I took the risk, because I so badly want to stop the spread of this disease.

    That is both a socially-conscious, as well as a personally conscientious, decision.

    Unfortunately, the vaccines don’t stop the spread of the disease.

  85. Willy

    Deganawida,

    If you don’t give me specific examples of what you’re talking about, then not only will I have nothing to work with, but I’ll disregard your comment to carry on as usual.

  86. Jason

    all you needed to say was that you’ve been vaccinated, you have no problem with others getting theirs, as long as they understand that this thing isn’t over yet, and with bad news increasingly coming in, that you’re recommending additional measures against covid so we stay protected.

    Thank you for announcing to me, entirely unprompted, what I should have said. Or, as you put it: “all you needed to say….”

    I don’t believe there should have been a mass vaccination campaign and I don’t believe the numbers or propaganda coming from Big Pharma in support of said campaign. I am very concerned about the unknown effects of these vaccines over the long-term. I believe that a substantial number of negative reactions to these vaccines – including very serious ones – are not showing up in the datasets. I also believe, as I have stated more than once, that the vaccines “leak” and that ADE is real. I don’t know exactly what is to be done about this, as even some of those most vocal about ADE have said that vaccinations should continue for the most vulnerable, while some have said the entire vaccination campaign should be shut down. I do not know, but I do know that hiding our heads in the sand and pretending it isn’t happening isn’t going to help.

    Given that that just touches on what I believe to this point, why would I make anything approaching a statement like the one you offered Willy? So as not to maintain any personal integrity?

  87. Mr Jones

    It’s funny how they no one’s commented on what’s happening in Israel.

    Scared. Shitless.

  88. Hugh

    Shorter Jason, 600,000 dead from covid is not enough. What? You shooting for a million?

  89. Willy

    Because Jason, you’ve been spending an awful lot of energy in the comments here. This seems very important to you for some reason. And you never admit to your current vaccine status.

    I tend to lean more towards plausibility than possibility. There are just too many famous and credible names and organizations to ignore. I hear your concerns about the vaccine, but currently, these things are free and the side effect risks are low and the hospitalization costs are astronomical.

    Practically everybody who is somebody has gotten one. Sean Hannity. Joe Rogan. Neil degrasse Tyson. Bill Gates. Mitch McConnell. Christopher Ruddy. Bill Nye the Science Guy. The overwhelming majority of progressive Youtubers. Wouldn’t one of them have stated their concerns by now?

    You can augment your vaccine with current other methods to protect yourself. You can discuss promising still other methods to protect yourself. You can invent even still other methods to protect yourself. What’s to lose by getting a vaccine?

  90. @ Mr Jones

    What are the odds that Israel is called a conspiracy nut case nation and claimed to be lying about everything?

    The vaccine enthusiast crowd already completely ignores the fact that Covid vaccination is associated with increased excess mortality rates.

    Uk excess mortality was bellow pre-Covid levels then they began vaccinating and mortality went up 100%. Germany Vaccination rates went from 5 to 20% from April to June and excess mortality went form -10% to 15%. France was at 0% excess mortality and began mass vaccination and mortality went up to 20%.

    https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-people-fully-vaccinated-covid?time=2021-03-03..latest&country=

  91. VietnamVet

    In the West there is no Plan B, no alternatives; mRNA vaccines are it. This is clearly untenable now. They are non-sterilizing. The fully vaccinated can catch the Delta Variant and transfer it to others. There are increasing numbers of fully vaccinated being hospitalized. Blaming and shaming the unvaccinated, shows the amoral greed of the pro-vaxxers. More virulent variants evolving in the vaccinated population is likely.

    If there were democratic working governments in the West to protect and serve their citizens, every possibly effective treatment would be tested and deployed by Manhattan Project priority programs and proven public health measures implemented; universal and accurate testing, contact tracing, safe paid quarantines, work and school bubbles, and completely closing the borders.

    Ian’s post is right on.

  92. Correction. UK excess mortality fell to -15% from 40% then when vaccination began mortality increased to around 5%.

  93. Mark Pontin

    VietnamVet:: “In the West there is no Plan B, no alternatives; mRNA vaccines are it.”

    Wrong. The UK, with Israel the most vaccinated population in the world, primarily used Oxford-AstroZeneca, which is a genetically-engineered adenovirus vector vaccine, like Russia’s Sputnik V.

    Beyond that, a dozen-odd nasal spray-modality prophylactic COVID treatments are under development and heading towards human trials. They should start hitting next year.

    “The fully vaccinated can catch the Delta Variant and transfer it to others.”

    Correct, alas.

    ‘They (mRNA vaccines) are non-sterilizing.’

    And? You are aware that, historically, the majority of vaccines do NOT provide sterilizing immunity, aren’t you? Of course not. You’re just repeating a talking-point you’ve read on the internet. You can find out more here —

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/sterilizing-immunity

    “There are increasing numbers of fully vaccinated being hospitalized. ”

    Doh! If the delta variant produces breakthrough cases — and it does, unfortunately — then when the majority of a population are vaccinated, as in the UK and Israel, then by definition those who become infected must increasingly be vaccinated too.

    Two questions you should actually ask are:
    (a) What are the stats on COVID fatalities?
    (b) What’s the probable prognosis of Long Covid from breakthrough (and asymptomatic) cases?

    The answers are:
    (a) In the UK daily fatalities are running as low as 24 and as high as 120, all within a few days. If the trend maintains, they’re going to have about the mortality rate of a bad flu season. We shall see.
    (b) We DON’T KNOW about the Long Covid implications yet. It’s a novel virus.

    Speaking of which ….

    “If there were democratic working governments in the West to protect and serve their citizens, every possibly effective treatment would be tested and deployed by Manhattan Project priority programs…”

    Have you just noticed? There mostly are NOT democratic working governments in the West. However, few places are as awful as the US, which was founded by colonial kleptocrats to maintain slavery and has continued in the same mode, beneath the con job. (See forex that international study that has just found that the US has the by far the worst, most predatory ‘healthcare system’ of any developed nation in the world, which I linked to and quoted in my post above.)

    That said, as regards the Manhattan Project part, there are now or in development 160-180 COVID vaccines. And this in a period of two years, where before it would have taken ten-fifteen years.

    That’s really pretty extraordinary.

  94. Mark Pontin

    @ Oakchair —

    Better liars please.

    Though you’re funny, I’ll give you that.

  95. Soredemos

    @Astrid

    I’ve never found naked capitalism to be an echochamber. But if it is one, it’s at least one where people know what they’re talking about (and where there’s very low tolerance for people not knowing what they’re talking about).

    Moon of Alabama on the other hand has one of the most awful and braindead commentariates I’ve ever encountered. They’re literally worthless. They actually bring negative value to the site, which I value for b’s posts, which are usually worthwhile (though when he’s wrong, eg Myanmar, he tends to be staggeringly wrong, and I’ve never known him to ever back down or admit error). I’ve made it a rule to just not scroll down past the main article section. A few noteworthy offenders are vk, who is a caricature of a China shill, though I doubt he’s on anyone’s payroll, psychohistorian, an NC refugee who rage quit that site when they wouldn’t indulge his belief that literally everything bad in the world is traced back to banks, and Norwegian, who is both a climate change and covid denialist. And those are actually what passes for the cream of the crop of the MOA crowd. It only gets dumber from there.

  96. Mark Pontin

    Jason wrote: “Vaccines – particularly ones without any prior real-world experience – should never be a predominant tool of resistance against a coronavirus, let alone the sole solution.”

    I don’t disagree. But along with what you’ve just said, I hope you’re clear that in the cases of at least half the coronaviruses, there’s no effective herd immunity because they mutate so much that NO VACCINES AT ALL would have been possible — at least, as vaccines were classically understood.

    So biotechnology was deployed — a genetically-engineered adenovirus vector vaccine for Oxford-AZ and Russia’s Sputnik V, mRNA in the cases of Moderna and Pfizer-BionTech — to target the spike protein that’s the mechanism by which the COVID19 virus invades our cells. The hope was that if there were COV19 variants in which the spike protein mutated, it wouldn’t be able to do its work (of invading our cells).

    It was a big experiment. Which meant that nobody knew these ‘vaccines’ wouldn’t work as well as hoped once the delta variant emerged, nor that the lack of sterilizing immunity — and, again, to be clear, a lot of classical vaccines DON’T provide sterilizing immunity against their respective pathogens — would be consequential.

    Now it turns out, given the delta variant, that the vaccines have been substantially oversold by TPTB and the PMC, who in varying degrees are now stuck with their propaganda since the virus and the vaccines having become politicized — not least by themselves — in their desire to return to neoliberal BAU.

    This politicization — and consequent hysteria, as seen here from, forex, Oakchair, Metamars, and Janice — is a massive problem. Once upon a time it was understood (if sub rosa) that:

    (a) Given the range of individual human response, in any scenario of large-scale vaccination there’d some small percentage of individuals who’d have adverse effects and, if the cross-section of the populace were large enough, a few people would die (my father is allergic to penicillin, FFS);

    (b) Something like half of classical vaccines, IIRC, do not have sterilizing immunity.

    Unfortunately, these points are hysterically politicized in a US society which, simultaneously, has near-universal internet access and is the most uneducated, ignorant population of any developed nation.

  97. “People who post evidence are hysterical liars because it disagrees with me.”
    -Guy who will hopefully someday be able to engage in an evidence and logic based discussion without adopting troll behaviors.

  98. Says Mark Pontin:
    This politicization — and consequent hysteria, as seen here from, forex, Oakchair, Metamars, and Janice — is a massive problem.

    Ah-h-h-h, I’ve been trying to “follow the science” pretty much since Day 1, which is not surprising since 1) I am trained as a scientist (BA physics & math) and 2) I am a student of bad science in it’s many flavors, and different aspects of it’s corruption and dysfunction. See my sub-reddit r/bad_science_culture for a decent overview.

    The corruption of science, and the bad faith, lack of transparency, and persistent lying by health authorities (WHO, CDC) and politicians, as well as censorship by Big Tech, has been SO BAD that not only has a large segment of the population woken up to this, but qualified dudes that delve into the science have made statements along the lines of “I wasn’t a conspiracy theorist, before, but something is very wrong” include:

    Chris Martenson
    Pierre Kory
    Dr John Campbell

    Of course, there are also others who have been fighting the corruption that is now laid bare, for decades, such as Robert F Kennedy, Jr, and Gary Null.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but you would also include these individuals in the “hysteria” category.

    Because of politicization by others.

    Yeah, right. Sure! I find your logic less than impeccable. Perhaps you should search for other alternative explanations, that would not be laughed at by the likes of Martenson, Kory, and Campbell?

    When Dr. Mobeen Syed shows you a list of 3 recent youtube videos about ivermectin that have been deleted by youtube, and when Chris Martenson is reduced to calling ivermectin “wizibin 2” (as well as hydroxychloroquine “wizibin 1”), because of fear of getting deplatformed, they are not suffering from hysteria.

    IN FACT, JUST RECENTLY DR JOSEPH MERCOLA DELETED HIS LIFE’S WORK OF ARTICLES FROM HIS WEBSITE.

    He explains in “Why I Am Deleting All Content After 48 Hours” @ mercola dot com:

    We are not living from the lessons we’ve learned before. Never in my life, would I believe the sitting President of the United States call out 12 Americans in a McCarthyism like attack in the United States. As you are aware, I was placed at the top of this list.

    The last week has brought a tremendous amount of reflections to me, and a lot of unacceptable threats to a company full of amazing people that have helped me support you in this journey.

    By now I am sure you know that there was a recent NY Times article attacking me and it was one of the most widely distributed stories in the world. The article was loaded with false statements made about me and my organization.

    The report would be laughed at if it were to be submitted for peer review, the groups that created it are funded by dark money and operated by an illegal foreign agent. The press never questioned it, but ran with their orders from above.

    I can deal with the CNN crews that chase me by car while I bicycle from my home. I feel sorry for the people in media that have to follow the orders they are given.

    It is easy to dismiss the media pawns, but the most powerful individual on the planet has targeted me as his primary obstacle that must be removed. Every three letter agency is at his disposal, and the executive powers have grown beyond what an individual American’s rights can protect against.

    A dissenter of medical mandates is now a target and obstacle to be removed. I know – that’s 25 years’ worth of blood, sweat and tears coming down.

    For the crime of making it his life’s work to empower people, the world over, to “take charge of their health” with affordable interventions, this guy is now, apparently, in fear of political persecution enough to commit digital suicide.

    You strike me as the kind of fool who, being a passenger on the Titanic, after being told by an engineer that it is probably going to sink, having struck an iceberg, prefers to take mental and emotional refuge in a trust of authorities, even as the boat starts to list.

    “How could you fail to interpret this hour?”, asked Jesus.

    Your cluelessness is of Biblical proportions.

  99. Astrid

    Soredemos,

    Yves moderates and censors her comments with a very heavy hand. Yes, what’s left there is worth reading, but I’ve read it for long enough to know what’s been stripped away. I also know when the hive mind collects around a wrong take because that’s Yves’s bad take. Sometimes she permit a level of deviation from her ideas but do it often enough and your voice disappears.

    Every moderated and most unmoderated but niche sites have fairly narrow Overton windows. I read them, figure out the Overton Window, and then try to interpret what I read based on the Overton Window. How I manage all this and still keep a job, hell if I know but my yard and husband pretty neglect this summer and fending for themselves. MoA’s commentators do not seem extraordinarily stupid or wrongheaded to me in this context.

    We’ve circled around this in your view of The Gray Zone writers. I think what a lot of what you attribute to “bad” and “wrong” are not provably wrong on facts or illogical interpretations of facts. They’re just takes that you personally disagree with. I can deal with reading plenty of interpretations that I end up not agreeing with, but find knowing about them to be very useful in trying to piece together a fuller picture. And sometimes I change my mind about what the right take should be.

  100. Astrid

    Willy,

    This isn’t the first or even the tenth time you’ve asked people to provide you evidence of X, saying you’ll think about it seriously if they do. When they actually make the effort to provide a proper response ( as I’ve done several times on your baseless hatred of Jimmy Dore, but others certain have sparred with you in similar pathways recently), you just ignore the meat of their argument and then proceed to attack them as bad people based on some other tiny sliver of information you picked up from their argument.

  101. Ché Pasa

    I highly recommend Mark Pontin’s brief but pithy — and sane — commentary on the problems and spread of Covid and the risks for the public — both known and unknown — from catching/having the disease and from being vaccinated against it.

    Wild claims serve no one, not even those who make them. The resulting hysterics are harmful all around. Too often what we see is performance art, made mostly for entertainment. And that includes much of the hooey emanating from Our Rulers and their servants.

    Realistically, we’re all in a global petri dish with regard to this disease. It’s a petri dish we can’t escape. We’re all targets and participants in the experiment. Some at the upper end of the economic scale have many advantages and get much better treatment than the rest of us, but they’re still part of the experiment. We don’t know the outcome and neither do they.

    Constant stirring and restirring of the pot with real and bogus information is part of the experiment. Keeping your head together under the circumstances is hard enough, and it won’t get easier as we venture further into uncharted territory.

    There is no cure, no perfect protection. We do what we can, when we can. I see real frustration when I’m in a healthcare setting. Misinformation is rampant, but there’s also a lot of confusion among the professionals in the field. They are all feeling their way along. What’s striking to me is their lack of confidence that they have and know The Answer. They don’t.

    Neither do any of us.

  102. Plague Species

    Anyone who really believes in universal vaccination can start by advocating for 5 days of paid sick leave (or $250/day for unemployed and still employed) no questions asked, for anyone who get two shots. The payment will be authorized by the administrator of the shots and be tracked by social security administration. And anyone (or their close family) who has a serious or fatal adverse reaction to the vaccine can seek compensation from the vaccine maker or the government. If they believe in the vaccines so much, they need to put their money where their mouthflaps are.

    Absolutely. I agree with this. No lawyers though. An agreed upon amount should be determined to compensate them if the vaccine causes disability or death. I don’t want class action attorneys making multi-millions off of this.

    But, I suspect you could do this, and America should and every country should, and the Vaccine Obstinate will still refuse to receive it. At that point, it’s stiff legal fines and even jail time.

  103. Plague Species

    Hugh is right, who are these people and why are they attracted to Ian’s blog? They are not genuine in any way.

  104. Plague Species

    …and, i’m scared.

    Maybe you are but not these other goons. They have Ignorance & Ivermectin on their side.

    Can you believe the wealthy elite are so stoopid they don’t know about the COVFEFE-45 Miracle Cure that is Ivermectin? They rule the world and they are able to do so because they are so stoopid. Be stoopid and be rich. That’s the key. Who would have thought?

  105. Astrid

    Che,

    Covid is not measles. Vaccination doesn’t prevent infection. There are effective physical barriers to infection, for now. This is the flu and there’s a reason why flu vaccines are not mandatory or even recommended for non elderly people. The chance of preventing severe disease does not justify the cost of side effects from vaccination.

    There is no perfect cure, but the mRNA vaccines are apparently not stopping the spread or even slowing down mutation rates in any way. They’re just therapeutics that will considerably lessen the severity in course of disease, so much so that infections may be undetectable in 9x greater proportion as compared to the placebo.

    If that’s the case, then whether other people choose to vaccinate or not does not affect your personal safety. In fact if you’re not fully protected by your vaccination, other vaccinated people may be less safe because they are not perceptably sick and infectious and because they may think it’s okay to forgo masks because *they* are safe.

    Then there’s the selection pressure of a disease coursing through a vaccinated population. If the vaccines actually had any effect in infection control and preventing spread, then mass vaccination will select for variants that evade vaccine protections. At this point, more vax reduce the long term protection of the vaccinated.

    Forcing people who are, due to youth and lack of comorbidity, at low risk for a severe course of Covid, to get vaccinated with shots that result in visible side effects in over half of those vaccinated (based on my sampling of coworkers, almost all of whom vaxed ASAP, more than half reported feeling very tired or under the weather for multiple days afterwards) and can result in long term symptoms or death at much higher rates than the flu vaccine – it’s just the wrong way to do it. It will destroy what little trust there is in the public health system and that will bite use if a truly effective at preventing infection vaccine is found and need to be rolled out.

    The unvaccinated are being targeted as scapegoats so the US government can pretend for a little longer that things can go back to normal if only they would get the shot. Israeli data show there is no normal. Getting this under control must be either though serious public health efforts including supporting development of better vaccines, physical barriers and making, restrictions on movements, and testing therapeutics like Ivermectin on a mass expedited basis…or just have it run its course over the population again and again, to unknown results, until all the vulnerable are culled. Right now it looks like the vulnerable is 1% of the population. But MERS suggest it had the potential to evolve into something killing as much as 35% of the infected. Now that it’s endemic in wild animal populations, we’re stuck with Covid for good.

  106. Plague Species

    I believe that a substantial number of negative reactions to these vaccines – including very serious ones – are not showing up in the datasets.

    And you believe this why? Did IM Doc at NC influence you to believe this? If so, NC is engaging in…..

    Misinformation

  107. BlizzardOfOzzz

    I still hate Big Pharma.

    Prove to me that Jason isn’t one of their paid disinformation operatives.

    The narrative true believers are facing massive and escalating cognitive dissonance. They are already showing outbursts like the above, “Big Pharma skepticism is disinfo funded by Big Pharma!”

    Remember it was Ian’s last post where the narrative was that the Not-Vax will protect you from the Fake Virus, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a Science Denier responsible for Muh 6 Gorillion Deaths! That was hilarious, because even then reports of the Vax failure were breaking through (pun intended) to the mainstream. Narrative followers will not bat an eye, apparently, just start parroting the new line. What is the new line, anyway? It changes so fast it’s hard to keep up. “The vax doesn’t stop you from transmitting, or from getting sick, but … ???”

    Maybe we should be patient with them – the strain must be immense!

  108. Jason

    I don’t disagree. But along with what you’ve just said, I hope you’re clear that in the cases of at least half the coronaviruses, there’s no effective herd immunity because they mutate so much that NO VACCINES AT ALL would have been possible — at least, as vaccines were classically understood.

    Yes, that’s abundantly clear Mark. I would suggest you think a bit more about your final sentence: “at least, as vaccines were classically understood.”

    So biotechnology was deployed — a genetically-engineered adenovirus vector vaccine for Oxford-AZ and Russia’s Sputnik V, mRNA in the cases of Moderna and Pfizer-BionTech — to target the spike protein that’s the mechanism by which the COVID19 virus invades our cells. The hope was that if there were COV19 variants in which the spike protein mutated, it wouldn’t be able to do its work (of invading our cells).

    Yes, that’s what happened. Thank you for reiterating.

    It was a big experiment. Which meant that nobody knew these ‘vaccines’ wouldn’t work as well as hoped once the delta variant emerged, nor that the lack of sterilizing immunity — and, again, to be clear, a lot of classical vaccines DON’T provide sterilizing immunity against their respective pathogens — would be consequential.

    Nobody knew? According the the media-saturated world, EVERYBODY KNEW. This is a complete rewriting of history, in the short space of less than a year.

    By the way, it’s just the Delta variant? Is it your contention that the vaccines did provide a significant level of sterilizing immunity previously?

    That isn’t an argument I’d make. I’d stick to telling people they prevent the most serious outcomes. And really, we don’t know how well they’ve done that because they were only rolled out eight months ago. We have no control to tell us what may have happened if we didn’t vaccinate at all.

    The only vaccine that provides complete sterilizing immunity is the HPV vaccine., incidentally. As you say, most vaccines are not entirely sterilizing.

    Now it turns out, given the delta variant, that the vaccines have been substantially oversold by TPTB and the PMC, who in varying degrees are now stuck with their propaganda since the virus and the vaccines having become politicized — not least by themselves — in their desire to return to neoliberal BAU.

    They were oversold from the beginning, well before the delta variant emerged. All this harping on delta is a convenient sidetrack.

    This politicization — and consequent hysteria, as seen here from, forex, Oakchair, Metamars, and Janice — is a massive problem. Once upon a time it was understood (if sub rosa) that:

    (a) Given the range of individual human response, in any scenario of large-scale vaccination there’d some small percentage of individuals who’d have adverse effects and, if the cross-section of the populace were large enough, a few people would die (my father is allergic to penicillin, FFS);

    I bolded the pertinent word. Now let’s go back to your own words from above:

    “NO VACCINES AT ALL would have been possible — at least, as vaccines were classically understood…”

    So biotechnology was deployed…The hope was that if there were COV19 variants in which the spike protein mutated, it wouldn’t be able to do its work (of invading our cells)”

    A multi-billion dollar experiment launched on a wing and a prayer. Yet I’m the one who’s crazy for indulging in elementary skepticism.

    Many here can easily be sold bridges again and again and again and again.

    (b) Something like half of classical vaccines, IIRC, do not have sterilizing immunity.

    Complete sterilizing immunity? The only one that’s even claimed for is HPV, that I’m aware. And that’s not even a traditional (classical) vaccine.

  109. Jason

    Given the range of individual human response, in any scenario of large-scale vaccination there’d some small percentage of individuals who’d have adverse effects and, if the cross-section of the populace were large enough, a few people would die

    The potential for a larger understanding is contained in your own narrative.

  110. Jason

    Has anyone ever considered that the mRNA technology itself might not be all it’s cracked up to be? We’re told the technology itself has been “in development for decades” yet anytime they’ve tried to put the technology to real-world use it hasn’t ended up well. All previous mRNA “vaccine” experiments were put on hold or stopped outright.

    Yet even Brett Weinstein has to constantly assure us the technology itself is solid and has untold potential.

    Okay.

  111. Mr Jones

    “Furry’s Newsletter” is free. No subscription fees.

  112. Jason

    Did IM Doc at NC influence you to believe this?

    Yes, I only listen to IM Doc. I am unable to read and disseminate information myself. In fact, I find that if I curl up every night with a printout of IM Doc’s writings, I sleep much better. And my dreams lately, oh my dreams…

    Now Furry Substack? I can’t handle those truths. PS’ brilliant unsealing of the otherwise esoteric realities of elite machinations gives me nightmares.

  113. A comment from “VACCINATED ONLY – Biden Approves” at thegatewaypundit provides a chilling anecdote:

    In Marysville, Ohio on 7-21-21 my wife and daughter bumped into a 24 year old Walmart employee they knew, being pushed in a wheelchair by his mother. He could not talk and had lost much weight. He had gotten the vaccination on 4-2-21 to keep his job. A severe reaction put in in the hospital on 4-3-21. He remained there until his insurance ran out on 7-19-21.

  114. Jason

    Soredemos, there is this thing called the Hippocratic Oath: first due no harm. Your IM Doc doesn’t know if, where, when, and with whom Ivermectin might have some benefit.

    This is pure idiocy. One shouldn’t invoke the Hippocratic Oath in regards to rushing headlong into a “vaccination” campaign for a coronavirus using “vaccines” that aren’t in fact vaccines as we’ve always known them (as Mark Pontin has made clear…thank you Mark).

    A doctor would only be “doing harm” using Ivermectin to prevent and/or treat covid if the patient had an adverse reaction to Ivermectin and the doctor ignored it.

    I’m not aware of any doctors being called out for keeping their patients on Ivermectin when it was causing negative reactions. Are you? The question is rhetorical.

    I should say at this point that I tried to avoid the over-concentration on Ivermectin in my initial post when I wrote this:

    *The specific name that comes to mind is Ivermectin, though there are entire treatment protocols being used around the world that may or may not include Ivermectin as part of their regimen.

    In keeping with Hugh’s interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath, I suppose we should shut these protocols down immediately – via Hugh’s beloved human intervention if necessary – and get down to the all-important business of getting shots in arms. That’s science and medicine, baby.

  115. Astrid

    Hugh’s solution to anything seems to require humanitarian shots for deplorables, so at least he’s consistent.

  116. Plague Species

    A new term for these COVFEFE-45 times.

    Closet Vaccinators.

    Is Jason one? We know the dashing McDonald Trump is. He’s vaccinated on the Down Low.

  117. Jason

    In fact, I got the 2-dose regimen of Pfizer’s magic potion, followed by J&J’s one-shot wonder.

    Can’t wait for the boosters. Just covering all the bases.

    Do no harm.

  118. Willy

    Astrid:
    When they actually make the effort to provide a proper response…

    False. I didn’t see anybody here in this thread providing clear examples. All I saw was random and silly knee-jerk judgement, all too common.

    “baseless hatred of Jimmy Dore”

    I did once recommend Dore. But that was before Majority Report, Young Turks, Vaush, and most other public progressives questioned his continuous attacks against their fellows serving in congress. Not only is Jimmy Dore not intelligent, he is not our friend:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvWpZPXvlM4

    If you can’t get through this 20 minute video, then watch for a few minutes starting at around 10:15. Do remember that Kulinski is one of the most calmly reasonable prog voices we have. Observe Dore’s behavior. Is this the behavior of a friend?

  119. Hugh

    Jason doesn’t understand the Hippocratic Oath, medicine, or the scientific method generally. Naturally, this doesn’t stop him or give him pause for a second.

    A vaccine is just a way of presenting some of the proteins of a pathogen, like the proteins that make up the “spike” assembly of covid which helps the virus enter cells, to the immune system so that it can identify and create antibodies to these proteins and so develop an immune response to them.

    mRNA is the biological blueprint for proteins. But it isn’t very stable and will quickly fall apart into its component bases. That’s why you heard so much about ultra low temperatures and its embedding in lipid (fatty) nanoparticles. These were to stabilize the mRNA and help its uptake by immune cells (antigen presenting cells called dendritic cells) . Once there the mRNA would have enough time to float around inside the dendritic cell, pick up the amino acids which formed into the proteins to be targeted, and so give the dendritic cell something to present to T cells and the rest of the immune system.

  120. Willy

    Boris Johnson. Vladimir Putin. Cher. Russell Wilson. Xi Jinping. Michael Jordan. Danny Divito. Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Queen Elizabeth. David Attenborough. Dolly Parton. Hugh Jackman. Greta Thunberg. Morgan Freeman. Buzz Aldrin. Louie Anderson. Pope Francis. Dalai Lama. Steven King. Steve Martin. Gloria Steinem. Richard Petty. Bibi Netanyoohoo. Jair Bolsonaro. Narendra Modi. Ali Khamenei. Erdogan. Gandalf.

    I’m not saying that neoliberal Big Pharma is that strong. It’s obvious. I’m saying that none of these people have bitched about their shots, yet. And I’d assume that any of them can afford good lawyers.

  121. Mr Jones

    PS, I thought the elite got a special “vaccine” we’re not aware of. You hypothesized that a while back, remember?

    Oh, you weren’t being serious then? But you are now?

    Now I understand. I think.

    Human beings are a “plague species” – but that doesn’t include “Plague Species” himself, who for some reason has created an intentionally self-defeating moniker for the species of which we’re all a part – himself too – simply through accident of birth.

    What is “Plague Species” purpose, other than to make people feel bad? He’s never posted anything that could be construed as even remotely helpful to anything.

    His entire raison d’etre is to sow division. It’s the one thing he does well.

  122. Plague Species

    PS, I thought the elite got a special “vaccine” we’re not aware of. You hypothesized that a while back, remember?

    I never thought that. Not sure why you’re lying. On second thought, it’s obvious why you’re lying. You’re Astrid’s husband.

  123. Burt Munson

    Jason doesn’t understand the Hippocratic Oath, medicine, or the scientific method generally. Naturally, this doesn’t stop him or give him pause for a second.

    My impression – as a regular reader and rare commenter – is exactly the opposite.

  124. Willy

    Indeed. A decent society or culture would take the likes of a “Plague Species” out back and shoot him.

    Instead of letting him vent as a free citizen with free speech in a free country? Authoritarianism, much?

  125. Plague Species

    A decent society or culture would take the likes of a “Plague Species” out back and shoot him.

    Wow, Hillary, is that you? Why not sodomize me with a bayonet while you’re at it for good measure.

  126. Astrid

    Willy,

    I’ve read and listened to Dore through plenty of his spats, including with Kulinsky. Dore is the one who makes sense to me, he sticks to simple, comon sense ideas and don’t wander off into false equivalencies. He is a loud mouth comedian who is speaking truth to power, the rest are has-beens corrupted by the teeny amount of power and money that they were given access to.

    As for your act. I don’t think anyone took your bait on this thread, but it’s been done many times and it is dishonest. It makes me think much less of you than I once did.

  127. Willy

    Astrid, Dore is clearly a self-serving asshole. I wouldn’t want anybody like that in a position of power.

    You clearly cannot tell the difference between truth and power, between a good guy and a self-serving asshole. You “debate” entirely using ad hominem with no sense of self-awareness whatsoever. You’re dead to me, a cult zombie with little to offer.

  128. Hugh

    We keep coming back to the same place. The anti-vaxxers are just going to believe what they believe. They don’t need facts or are perfectly capable of making up their own.

    They demand that vaccines be beyond perfect. Not they would take them even then. At the same time, they promote taking whatever rumor mill “treatment” no testing, no questions asked, jus cuz.

    To them, this is “real” science. And even after 600,000 dead in the US because of their idiocy, they take no responsibility for those dead, they blow them off without a second thought and double down on more of their murderous, obscene nuttery.

  129. Willy

    Rebecca, Ian has said it right here. Intelligence doesn’t come from IQ or memory or any measured abstract reasoning ability. It comes from the ability to manage painful emotions which come from having certain thoughts, for the purpose of getting to the truth, ones own emotions be damned.

  130. Willy

    After dozens of posts, Jason finally admitted that he’s gotten the vax, implying he’s not an anti-vaxxer, just a vax-skeptic, because they come from
    Big Pharma. I don’t have a problem with that.

    If anything comes from all this nonsense, it should be a greater appreciation for Big Power’s ability to do whatever it takes at whatever level, to remain Big Power.

  131. Jason

    Hugh, have you gotten your booster yet? I think your protection is wearing out.

    And please, take all necessary precautions and then some, so as to keep everyone safe. Remember, vaxed or not, we are all vectors for this crazy virus.

    Oh hey, what’s your viral load, Hugh?

    Please be safe out there and consider others before yourself. Remember, we’re all in this together.

  132. Plague Species

    What a miracle worker I am. I’m barely part of society and yet I am still capable of sowing division.

    https://regmorrison.edublogs.org/1999/07/20/plague-species-the-spirit-in-the-gene/

    Despite the astonishing behavioral flexibility that has steered this maladapted primate so adroitly through some 2.5 million hazardous years, the animal is still vulnerable in the way that all animals are vulnerable: through its adaptive specialisations. By endowing the human brain with its language facility, evolution has ensured that human genes will continue to bypass the cerebral cortex at will, disguising fact with ‘significance’ and turning imagination into perceived fact. This prodigious talent for spiritualising its perceptions seems certain to keep this sapient primate safely sequestered from reality and well within reach of the biosphere’s standard forms of population control.

    My wife’s mother lives with my wife’s sister and her husband versus being in a nursing home. My wife’s mother is 95. She can no longer attend church, she’s Roman Catholic, so they have the priest come say a mass for her every now and then and administer the Holy Eucharist. After administering mass yesterday, the priest informed them all they should not receive the vaccine because it is the Mark of the Beast. True story. Reg wouldn’t be surprised to hear it just as I’m not surprised to hear, or see Jason type that he “believes” a substantial number of negative reactions to these vaccines – including very serious ones – are not showing up in the datasets.

    Belief is the magic by which imagination is turned into fact very much like the priest turns water into wine.

  133. Jason

    After dozens of posts, Jason finally admitted that he’s gotten the vax, implying he’s not an anti-vaxxer, just a vax-skeptic, because they come from Big Pharma. I don’t have a problem with that.

    Yep. I got two doses of Pfizer and a J&J. Believe that, and I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

    Oh, I see everyone here already has lots of bridges. Bridges to nowhere.

  134. Plague Species

    Are you serious.? Someone threatens to take me out back and shoot me and you don’t moderate that but instead you moderate my last two comments. That’s fair & balanced.

  135. Plague Species

    Please be safe out there and consider others before yourself. Remember, we’re all in this together.

    My family does, Jason. Despite being vaccinated we still abide by containment measures to include testing and masking and social distancing. My daughter works at a local restaurant and she is continually harassed by your ilk to remove her mask and not be so scared and paranoid about COVFEFE-45. You and your ilk, here and outside of this space, are the ones who have no decency whatsoever. On top of that, you threaten to take people out back and shoot them. Nice. Classy. So brave.

  136. Rebecca

    Ian has said it right here. Intelligence doesn’t come from IQ or memory or any measured abstract reasoning ability. It comes from the ability to manage painful emotions which come from having certain thoughts, for the purpose of getting to the truth, ones own emotions be damned.

    I think you guys are a bit over-enamored of Ian. Look, I enjoy his writing, but it isn’t gospel. I have to imagine Ian, being a smart guy, knows this.

    Now, do you honestly believe that Ian’s definition is THE end-all, be-all? I can’t imagine Ian himself believes that. It would make him an entirely self-absorbed egomaniac. It would also close the door on further inquiry into one’s own ideas. That’s the definition of stupidity, not intelligence.

  137. Willy

    Plague, it’s the auto-moderator. Most of my comments which get held are eventually released. But I agree that it’s annoying since it breaks up the cadence. Timely posts get lost in time.

    In other news, Jason says nothing about focusing on big power and goes back to the anti-vax baloney. Dozens of posts and he’s still only taken seriously by a few weak-minded sockpuppets.

  138. Willy

    Now, do you honestly believe that Ian’s definition is THE end-all, be-all?

    This may be news to you, but nobody is perfect. For the record, I believe in things like batting averages and spectrums. And that a messy liberal democracy is the best we’ve got. At least until AI takes over.

    Do you have any other black/white traits you’d like to paste onto me?

  139. Plague Species

    The depths of his personal insecurities are so great that he feels safer in an utterly discordant environment.

    You and Astrid need to get on the right page about this. COVFEFE-45 and tghe handling of it is the reflection of a discordant society, no doubt about it. Astrid told me the other day that I am paranoid, meaning scared, about COVFEFE-45. Therefore, according to Astrid, I am sacred of a discordant society and yet you are telling me I feel safer in an utterly discordant society.

    I know what I am. I’m whatever you want me to be just as anyone in your life is whatever you want them to be.

  140. Rebecca

    Someone threatens to take me out back and shoot me

    No, you get some startup seeds to start your own community of fellow travelers. That’s it though. You’re on your own.

    And please stay away from us. We’re rebuilding something special here.

    We have no more use for you than you do for us.

    Perhaps, after a period of separation, we’ll decide that we can all live together, we can try again.

    Absence makes the heart grow stronger.

  141. Jason

    I know what I am. I’m whatever you want me to be just as anyone in your life is whatever you want them to be.

    That’s actually rather insightful. Good for you, Plague.

  142. Astrid

    I believe Plague Species already declared that I work at the Army War College for the Mossad and evidently I’m married to this Mr. Jones. I guess I better break the news to my husband that I’m an internet bigamist, but he likes the paychecks so it’ll even out.

    Hugh is certain I’m working for the Chinese hasbara, which sounds like one of those interesting Chinese joint ventures where they suck out all the intellectual property of their partner before kicking them out. I need to make sure I get some voting shares so I can stay in the venture and profit.

    Different clue recently added a bunch of stuff about me being a hall monitor in school, something something booger picking, and definitely secret Chinese, whatever the hell that means. As noted above, I’m pretty busy already, so I guess this is more of a gig economy thing. Good to know I have this to fall back on if the Israelis discovered all the pro-Palestinian stuff that I’ve said and written all my life.

    It’s not harassment or projection if they do it. And little things like Plague Species saying that the Chinese shouldn’t have any children or use any fossil fuel is totally cool, but a common turn of phrase is all of a sudden a death threat. But pointing out evidence that all the allegations about Uighur genocide are baseless lies from known liars gets me called a genocide denier. Pointing out evidence that there’s no actual or circumstantial evidence showing Woody Allen sexually abused anyone, beyond what Mia Farrow claimed a 4 year old child said, gets me called a rape denier.

    And of course none of them actually read what people directly respond then with. That’s why Plague Species is yelling about auto moderation again, even though Ian personally explained the setup to him several times that I can recall.

    Such elevated minds we have gracing us!

  143. Rebecca

    Do you have any other black/white traits you’d like to paste onto me?

    You do it to yourself, Willy, You’re the black-white guy, and you don’t even know it. Sad.

    Please take care of yourself.

  144. Jason

    Are you serious.?

    Deadly serious.

    Someone threatens to take me out back and shoot me and you don’t moderate that but instead you moderate my last two comments.

    Who here believes “Plague Species” read Rebecca’s post as a literal threat to take him out back and shoot him?

    That’s fair & balanced.

    Free speech isn’t always fair and balanced. Just ask Willy.

  145. “Big Pharma wants money so they are paying people to not buy their products.”

    “The experimental injections are effective but unless we force everyone to get they won’t work.”

    “Anti vaxxers are scared which is why we need to mindlessly forcibly drug people with experimental drugs when the death rate for Covid is .1%, and about zero percent for young people who aren’t obese. I can’t live unless we bring this tiny risk down to zero.”

    “Anyone pointing out the injections prevent .8 out of 100 people getting them from catching Covid is a right wing lunatic. Here is a study showing just that but since I didn’t read it I don’t realize it.”

    “The elite are psychopaths that is why we need to mindlessly obey and take drugs they say to take.”

    “The data is all hysterical lies because it doesn’t say what I want it to. Let’s censor the evidence, make people carry around papers , and force experimental drugs people. “

    “Anti-vaxxers (anyone who doesn’t fully agree with drug corporations) ignore facts which is why my response to the research and data is entirely insults.”

    “Fraud is bad unless it’s fraud committed by a drug corporation then it is good. “

    The amount of cognitive dissonance spewing forth from the vaccine enthusiasts tells us all we need to know about the quality of their positions and opinions.

  146. Plague Species

    Astrid, it’s Mr Jones, not Mr. Jones. Keep the socks straight.

  147. Jason

    Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Two of Plague’s posts didn’t show up. He has nothing else that gives him even a modicum of pleasure in his life. Apparently he’s married with at least one kid, but that’s hardly satisfying. His entire ego-identity is dependent on his posts to a rather obscure blog showing up in a timely manner.

    Ian, Plague’s life is in your hands. Please do well by him.

  148. Hugh

    The crazies took over this thread a long time ago.

  149. Plague Species

    The crazies took over this thread a long time ago.

    Yep, I’m out of here, meaning I’m done with this thread. Why this thread of ALL threads though? 145 comments and counting. An agenda is in play. Like Trump, they are what they accuse others of being.

  150. Willy

    Rebecca you said this upthread:
    I don’t know if you know Willy personally or if he’s just an online presence in your life, but I think you ought to reevaluate. Willy’s a nut job. Show me who your friends are and I’ll show you who you are. Online friends (sad) or not.
    Ian, these guys are a brutal combination of flighty, featherbrained, and just plain strange – and not in a good way, like “Keep Vermont Weird” or something similar.

    And then you said this later:

    You do it to yourself, Willy, You’re the black-white guy, and you don’t even know it. Sad.

    Why would anybody in their right mind take you seriously?

  151. Willy

    Hugh, NR said it best in another ridiculous thread. Their accusations are always confessions. Note Rebecca, who accuses much and offers nothing substantive.

    Their goal is to divide and obfuscate and get people so frustrated they leave. Disagreement is always met with ad hominem, while accusing you of ad hominem. With no policy ideas, this is all they have.

    Personally I don’t know why Ian doesn’t do a post about how the plutocratic neoliberal right actually operates, and all the tools they’re willing to use to get what they want.

  152. Rebecca

    Why would anybody in their right mind take you seriously?

    I don’t think people with your conception of a “right mind” will take me seriously. I’m fine with that.

  153. Rebecca

    145 comments and counting. An agenda is in play

    If it were 85, no agenda. 165, maybe.

    Ultimately, it depends on the subject, and how it’s going.

    Don’t color outside the lines.

    Fun playground.

  154. Willy

    I saw Malcolm Nance on Stephanie Miller. He’s a former military intelligence officer.

    He said that the Trump right is backed by multiple billionaires financing a massive disinformation machine, built entirely for their own personal benefit, operating at all levels. He said that if Stephanie Miller was a conservative instead of a progressive, that she’d be operating out of a multi-million dollar studio instead of her home office.

    Rich conservatives have turned Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Candace Owens, and now Dimmy Jour, as continuously evidenced by a great many honest progressives. I would think real progressives should be concerned about that.

    I also once had a libertarian friend.

    She approached me on our neighborhood Nextdoor network. She initiated brief private messages which became lengthy emails, back and forth, then lunch together. We seemed to have everything in common. All the same interests and attitudes and life experiences. She laughed at all my jokes. She freely gave out hugs and tasty treats.
    She cared about the world.

    She agreed with all my takes on politics.

    This was 2015. She invited me to what I’d thought was a local community meeting against some local government overreach regarding a specific local issue. The place was full of hundreds of Trumpers. During the cheering, hooting, hollering spots, she was amongst the loudest of the cheering hooting hollerers. Then she steered me over me to a table to sign up for what I’d thought was for that specific issue which I actually went there for. It wasn’t. What they didn’t say, what I didn’t know until I started getting all their spam, was that this was for some idiotic freedumb patriot newsletter.
    The whole time she’d lied to me, just to entice me into her cult.

    This is how they roll. They know that being straight-up honest about obviously failed policy won’t win them converts. So they lie. They use disinformation. They gaslight. They pretend to be your new best friend. They get you to hate people from your own side. If you quibble, they unleash sockpuppets armed with ad hominem attacks, while accusing you of ad hominem attacks. This is how they roll.

    This is why I comment as I do, armies of nonsensical sockpuppets be damned.

  155. Willy

    Rebecca, besides your obsession with me, what do you actually stand for? What national governmental policies do you espouse? What are your cultural beliefs?

    Unlike the mysterious Jason, I’ll freely tell you mine.

  156. Jason

    A good way to get more people to get jabbed with the biotechnology would be to immediately eliminate the liability waiver granted to the Pharma companies.

    Is anyone here against that?

    Meanwhile, interesting actions taking place behind the scenes:

    Quietly last month OSHA and other agencies changed their ruling for employer required vaccines. Previously the employer was responsible for any health issues / side effects with their employees re: vaccine and was required to record and report them.

    Now, it has been changed to “promote vaccinations”

    OSHA does not wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination, and also does not wish to disincentivize employers’ vaccination efforts. As a result, OSHA will not enforce 29 CFR 1904’s recording requirements to require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination through May 2022

    Um, I have a question about that….

    THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE HERE! Please move on.

    https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/faqs#vaccine

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/links-8-6-2021.html#comment-3585247

  157. Rebecca

    I’ll freely tell you mine.

    I don’t want to go sleep just yet. Thanks.

  158. Willy

    A good way to get more people to get jabbed with the biotechnology would be to immediately eliminate the liability waiver granted to the Pharma companies.

    I dont know the details but finally, a reasonable point. See how easy that was?

  159. Willy

    Rebecca, so we’re to assume that you stand for nothing?

  160. Rebecca

    Beware the quiet ones, Willy. Beware the quiet ones.

    I like your use of “we” in the question when you’re the one asking. I also appreciate the gentle curiosity inherent in the opening of the query “So, we’re to assume….

    Good stuff, Willy. Good stuff.

  161. Willy

    Rebecca, do you stand for anything?

  162. Jason

    I dont know the details

    Uh huh. They’re, ah, not hard to find.

    but finally, a reasonable point.

    The point has been made previously. Many times.

  163. scottie

    Leave her alone, Willy. You’re the veteran here. Act like it.

  164. Willy

    Sorry about that Jason. But you comment so profusely on Covid threads, and I’m pretty busy (excepting today), that I don’t follow everything you say.

  165. NR

    At this point I’m just staring at these comments with the same sort of horrified fascination one would look at a plane crash or a train wreck with.

    Although I will say that Oakchair accusing other people of ignoring data and research is unintentionally hilarious in a way that few other things I’ve seen recently are. So there are moments of levity, at least. Of course in that exact same comment he lied about the death rate for COVID (actual data on that is here, if anyone is interested: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality ). So I guess we’re back to horrified fascination again.

  166. Willy

    No sockpuppets allowed in my discussion, scottie.

    Don’t be shy Rebecca. Tell us what you believe in. What do think is the progressives best course of action regarding covid, vaccines, the government and Big Pharma?

  167. Rebecca

    Thanks scottie, but I can take care of myself. Willy’s a self-induced contradiction. I get a kick out of him, actually.,

    Willy, do you have a camera on your computer? If we were looking at each other, the conversation might go differently.

  168. Jason

    But you comment so profusely on Covid threads, and I’m pretty busy (excepting today), that I don’t follow everything you say.

    I’ve personally only mentioned it here one other time, I believe. Many other people have brought it up many times over the preceding months.

    I guess you missed it. All those other times.

    Oh, and you’re pretty busy, except today?

    Okay Willy.

  169. Willy

    NR, you’re still a valuable commenter, reliably honest with good insights. Oaktree is irrelevant noise. Jason is learning the art of convincingly stating his case, albeit slowly. And so am I.

    And hopefully, Rebecca is busy working up her list of beliefs so we have more to work with, real things to discuss, than her obsession with Willies.

  170. Willy

    I run my own business, where I’m usually out in the field. For the next two weeks starting tomorrow my free time will likely be scarce.

    Can we agree to be more about the ideas instead of the personal nonsense? There are other places one can go for that sort of crap.

  171. Allison Carpenter

    Now, do you honestly believe that Ian’s definition is THE end-all, be-all? I can’t imagine Ian himself believes that. It would make him an entirely self-absorbed egomaniac. It would also close the door on further inquiry into one’s own ideas. That’s the definition of stupidity, not intelligence.

    Brilliant! Thanks Rebecca.

  172. Willy

    Rebecca, I care about the ideas, which is why I’m here. If you want a date with somebody you can abuse, there are other places for that.

    Do you have anything to offer, ideawise, for the few remaining readers, willing to learn more about dealing with covid?

  173. Astrid

    And Willy calls me a zombie. I guess time to shop for brains. Aarrrrrggghhhhh.

    Besides Dore and Dore’s house, Willy wasted a good chunk of my time asking me for evidence of Chinese non-genocide of Uighurs. It wasn’t good enough for me to cite to TGZ’s debunking of Adrian Zenz’s numbers and lies, he wanted evidence thatUighurs were not oppressed in Xinjiang and it couldn’t be from Chinese state media. Honestly that is pretty hard to find in YouTube because it actively suppresses pro-Chinesr content, but I link to some on YouTube and Bilibili. Then Willy said “too busy, didn’t read”.

    Just keep that in mind if you respond to Willy with evidence. Others may read your writing and benefit from their knowledge, however. Or maybe he’ll just fixate how how he knows X is bad no matter what you say and BTW you’re a zombie.

    Pure class, those four.

  174. Q Jackson

    I don’t know why people don’t like these threads. I understand that if they ended up like this all the time, it’d be a nightmare. But this is funny! You have to dissociate yourself from everything. It’s rollicking a good time.

    Rebecca’s not ready to go to sleep yet!

    I’m out.

  175. Jason

    Just keep that in mind if you respond to Willy with evidence. Others may read your writing and benefit from their knowledge, however. Or maybe he’ll just fixate how how he knows X is bad no matter what you say and BTW you’re a zombie.

    Exactly.

  176. Willy

    No Astrid. I don’t believe in any Uyghur genocide. I do believe that a significant proportion of Uyghurs have been herded into re-education camps, and that the evidence is far more overwhelming than any TGZ “debunking”.

    I’ve offered contrary opinions with evidence, but you yourself never debate over any of the details preferring to instead accuse me of doing the same.

  177. Willy

    Astrid, post that Uyghur article again. This time I’ll read it.

  178. Willy

    Jason, I’ve basically come to agree with some of your points, right here on this very thread.

    Are they suddenly wrong now because I agree with them?

  179. Rebecca

    If you want a date with somebody

    I asked about a face-to-face meeting to discuss ideas non-anonymously, in the interest of avoiding all the pitfalls associated with said non-anonymity.

    You took that to mean I wanted a date?

  180. Jason

    Are they suddenly wrong now because I agree with them?

    Strange question. Are you asking me for yourself, Willy?

    I don’t think I’ve posted any “ideas” that are unique to me. Thank you for the compliment, though.

  181. Astrid

    Willy, please state them here. I will read and engage them, even though I have other things to do like haul the mulch sitting in my driveway for the last 3 months.

    And please let it not be also debunked trash sourced from the (actual terrorist terrorist) ETIM, the NED (including the World Uighur Congress and their insular pack of grafters and liars), or (MIC funded) ASIL.

    And yes, that included the trash Amnesty International report quoting 3 million in detention with no verifiable source).

    Or that The Nation article linked by Naked Capitalism (makes me really question Yves’s quality control on China stories) finding “probable genocide” by an close affiliate of Adrian Zenz.

    Or soundless one minute tiktok clips of racially ambiguous couple posted by a known ETIM affiliate.

    On the basis of such flimsy and disproven evidence, the West wants to sanction all companies doing business in Xinjiang and prevent export of their major agricultural product cotton. Because making sure people of Xinjiang can’t sell their goods or work near their homes is very humanitarian.

  182. Jason

    Sorry Willy. You didn’t use the word “ideas.” You used “points.”

    The answer is the same. The “points” I make are simply distilled versions of larger points made by people much more knowledegable about the subject.

    These same “points” are made by countless others. Please don’t give me any undue credit.

  183. Astrid

    Willy,

    Here’s the link to the exchange:
    https://www.ianwelsh.net/canada-day-canadas-shame/#comment-129063

    Like others say about Ian, I actually respect people now for self reflecting and admitting that they’re wrong. I’m always open to the possibility that I’m wrong and I do change my mind, if evidence and logic dictates I’m wrong.

  184. Here are the survival rates that include low symptomatic people per age group according to the CDC. NR decided he should cherry pick out low symptomatic cases.
    Ages 0-19. 99.997%
    Ages 20-49. 99.98%
    Ages 50-69. 99.5%
    Over 70. 94.6%

    Also compared with people who have a “normal” BMI those with higher BMI have a 2.68-4.18 increased risk for Covid mortality. People with a normal BMI aged 20-49 have around a 0.005% chance of dying from catching Covid.

    https://www.nbc26.com/news/coronavirus/cdc-estimates-covid-19-fatality-rate-including-asymptomatic-cases

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32783686/

  185. Willy

    Astrid, my evidence for the Uyghur camps is thus:
    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=uyghur+camps&t=hr&ia=web

    But I warn you, debunking those returns could mean that you won’t be able to get to that mulch in your driveway today.

  186. Willy

    Dore says most of the right stuff in most of the right ways, which is what drew me in. But his routine attacks on the very few DC progressives we have, as a matter of some ‘tough love’ principle or whatever he’ thinks he’s doing, turned me off.

    My logic is that this would be like attacking the few decent players one has on their home town baseball team, because they can’t always carry the team to victory. It’s irrational, when more good players are needed. Does Dore recommend who these new players should be, to be primaried against the many well-funded corporate Dems who stand in their way?

    Our few progressives only have so much power because of the incredible wealth and power which is arrayed against them and because the way American national politics works. I believe they need support, not attacks which smear their character and demoralize their resolve. AOC could easily quit to get a lucrative lobbying job or have babies or do the mulch in her suburban landscape. Is that what Dore wants?

  187. Astrid

    Willy,

    If this is your level of information sourcing, with Wikipedia and Would Uighur Congress at the top, I don’t need to respond anything beyond https://thegrayzone.com/?s=Uighur

    I thought you at least read TGZ article debunking this crap. I guess not.

    Still don’t want to mulch. My nice neighbors invited me to their pool party at 6. That sounds nice as long as I social distance.

  188. Astrid

    Dore attacks “progressives” because their actions show they are not actually progressive. Fake progressives who kick left and apologize for Pelosi ARE WORTHLESS.

  189. Astrid

    Thanks to BBC’s efforts, I found another couple YT channels (linked from the video I linked below) depicting life in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China. I don’t think that much of their content and I think their boosterism is painting an overly rosy picture, but it’s still far closer to the truth than what Western MSM wants you to believe:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yDz1FwNp0

  190. Mark Pontin

    Jason: ‘Nobody knew? According the the media-saturated world, EVERYBODY KNEW. This is a complete rewriting of history, in the short space of less than a year.’

    Horse manure. Very simply, in the first half of 2020 when the pandemic emerged, there was a perceived potential for 1-2 percent of the global population dying from the original COVID19 variant — — and rhetoric about a ‘complete rewriting of history’ and ‘media-saturated world’ is irrelevant to that actual historic reality we all lived through.

    So preventative solutions were desperately sought. Various more or less experimental biotechnologies were pulled out of the back room, rapidly adapted, and deployed. That adapted biotech had high efficacy with the original COVID19 virus — and has indeed greatly ameliorated fatality rates — so was promoted as THE one-stop solution, both because there’s a natural human desire for one-stop solutions to large-scale mortal problems and because our neoliberal masters wanted a return to global neoliberal BAU as soon as possible.

    So that was the hope. Nobody knew anything about the delta variant — obviously, because it didn’t exist yet — and almost everybody hoped for the best for whatever reasons, ordinary human or neolib predatory. Again, rhetoric about ‘media-saturated world’ has nothing to do with that actual lived reality back in 2020.

    Also, do you rely on the mainstream media for accurate information about anything? They’re capitalist propaganda organs and you shouldn’t. I don’t and I used to be a journalist — full disclosure here — for outlets like MIT Technology Review. That meant I’d some knowledge of the mRNA technology because Moderna was created by a VC partnership heavily composed of MIT-affiliated bioengineers and I did some copy-writing work, essentially, for some ag-bio companies they started.

    So I’ve a little insight on what actually went on at Moderna. My impression is that everybody at the VC partnership hoped and — on the evidence prior to the emergence of delta — expected the best for the mRNA vaccines. Indeed, l’ll provide a little insider baseball. The people at Moderna originally had to fight the head honcho there, who’s this charmer —
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noubar_Afeyan
    — because he pounded on the table and shouted, “I will NEVER allow the Moderna technology to be used as a vaccine!”

    And Afeyan took that position because the mRNA technology was originally being developed as a high-end, expensive personalized treatment for cancer and some other things, and he wanted to keep it as that. He changed that position because (a) hilariously, the US government made a multi-billion-dollar market for him and (b) Fauci and the NIAID had worked with Moderna for a decade of unprofitability and forced him to. (And Fauci and the NIAID had done that because, among other reasons, Big Pharma considers vaccine development unprofitable.)

    Jason: ‘A multi-billion dollar experiment launched on a wing and a prayer. ‘

    Sure. And perfectly reasonable, too: again, we were plausibly looking at a potential global fatality rate of of 1-2 percent.

    Jason: ‘They were oversold from the beginning, well before the delta variant emerged. ‘

    I actually wouldn’t disagree. I’m on record here as saying the adenovirus vector route was the preferable one since it was far more portable, less expensive (the high-tech that produces the lipid nanoparticles for the mRNA vaccines, and the high-tech to produce _that_ high-tech is bleeding-edge expensive) and was something that there was more knowledge about, especially among Russian scientists (who are no slouches).

    But what I and you may argue for on the internet in terms of policy has, of course, absolutely zero effect in reality. On that note, time for lunch.

  191. Astrid

    If you want to see who is telling China’s story internationally, it’s this guy and people like him. More than a few of those Chinese students landing in Harvard, MIT and Stanford are not just book smart. Just because they would never be allowed on CNN and BBC doesn’t mean they are not being heard.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L4OygShqZxQ

  192. Jason

    Dore’s a blessing and a curse. He’s the only one straight calling out the pols for everything at this point. He takes absolutely no bullshit and he airs all their bullshit brilliantly – better than anyone.

    But, he can’t go five minutes without invoking himself. I understand it’s a comedy show and that’s his whole persona – he tells us as much himself – but it’s nevertheless unbearable at times, and It’s gotten progressively worse since I began watching him last spring.*

    He’s also obviously a total hypocrite when it comes to Fox News, “Tucker” and all that nonsense. Just call them out, too, Jimmy. Be consistent. But he won’t do that, because he enjoys being on “Tucker.” I am glad the message gets out, obviously, and I understand that’s the idea: spread the message wherever you can. And I realize too that he doesn’t get invited on the CNN’s of the world.

    I don’t know how much of an impact it ultimately has. The message may get lost in the overall milieu of Fox. That still doesn’t in and of itself mean you don’t go on. But if you know that there’s a lot of stuff that you disagree with “Tucker” on and you also know that you can’t call those things out with the same ferocity as you do others, if at all…Well, then how are you any different from the pieces of shit you rightfully call out? Takes one to know one, I guess.

    All that said, I have yet to see anyone step up and create an informational show that uses the techniques Jimmy uses, sans the language, personalities, and other bullshit. I’ve said in the past that some of Jimmy’s videos could be used in a classroom if they were cleaned up. They are a wonderful breakdown of the daily lies and distortions of the political class and their masters and cronies.

    *Some of the shows last spring with Hedges, Ratigan, and others were brilliant. I remember Matt Stoller – who’s usually a bore – coming on late one night, probably had a drink or a few, and going off a bit on some behind the scenes stuff when he was working on Bernie’s payroll. He said that the political class in Washington laughs at Bernie – they don’t take him seriously. He’s not a threat and never has been. But they’d actually be scared of an Elizabeth Warren – if she were really serious about her proposals, as opposed to her political career.

  193. Ian Welsh

    Comments closed. I try to run a loose hand, but this is, in fact, out of control.

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