We are on worse off with infections than Mexico. Think about that. Mexico has 27,211 per million. We have 5 times the number of infected here in the United States. The good news? Mexico and the United States have a comparable death rate per 1 million–2072 in Mexico compared to 2074 in the United States.
There is something seriously wrong with the United States’ so-called “management” of this pandemic. When China and India are doing a far superior job to us, it is time to stop our arrogant blustering about our response. And note–the number vaccinated in India is far below our vaccination rate and the Indians have not engaged in mass lock downs and mandatory mask wearing.
One other critical variable (apart from the possibility that China and India are lying about their numbers), the use of therapeutics in those countries is widespread. The U.S. approach? Cater to the pharmaceutical industry, give them billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, make them wealthy and wind up with a response to COVID that is worse than China, India and Mexico.
Hi Sir you answer your own question. Even if China and India are lying about the numbers but the magnitude of the difference in the numbers doesn’t make sense in the modern world. True a few years ago those countries could have and probably did suppress bad news, but the use of internet is so great the true nature of the pandemic would have been exposed by netizens. I hope you recall that in just past two days the Biden administration stopped the distribution of Regeneron to Florida and Texas citing equity issues (never mind the Ivermectin and Hydrochloroquin use here in US already prohibited by the medical profession as quakery. You aptly end your essay with this.
The U.S. approach? Cater to the pharmaceutical industry, give them billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, make them wealthy and wind up with a response to COVID that is worse than China, India and Mexico.
Well , Larry, I have to ask: how much of those numbers are based on a PCR-RT test run at 35-40 cycles when 24-28(max) is the threshold for reasonable indication of actual infection? A crisis came to hand-it couldn’t go to waste-et voila! A pretext.
A treatment would defuse the crisis. And render the EUAs void and criminal. The numbers are not a bug, they’re a feature. Totalitarianism has many flavors, this is ours.
But it’s for our own good, they said so
Oh, and the PCR test was developed as a manufacturing tool, not for clinical diagnosis.
Ask its creator, Dr Mullis
There appears to be 3 scenarios to consider.
1. The US over-counted and China & India under-counted: This is plausible since we know that at least 1 big county reduced their death count by 25%. We also know anecdotally that deaths in India were likely at least an order of magnitude higher as the live reporting during their last wave showed a huge discrepancy between reports from crematoria and burial grounds relative to official death count. China of course is totally opaque. No matter the population adjusted US number is crazy high relative to both China & India.
2. The general US population has a much poorer immune system relative to the Chinese and Indians. When one looks at the distribution of deaths by age group and prior health status, I’m sure it skews heavily to older people and those with obesity which is a growing percentage of the population. Junk food and fast food have become the primary food source for a large and growing segment of the population.
3. The US government impeded the delivery of mass testing early and the development, use and experimentation with therapeutics. India appears to have successfully tried therapeutics in several of their states.
There are two key questions we ought to ask: first, how did this virus originate and spread? Here we need to know that the Democrats are preventing subpoena power and Fauci, Daszak, et al are not testifying to a grand jury. Second, the CDC, NIH and state public health entities have had tens of billions of dollars in annual budgets? What did they spend it on considering they were winging it and more accurately running a political play not a well-prepared pandemic response plan which is one of the things that they have ostensibly been spending their colossal budgets on.
The bottom line from a financial ROI standpoint is that in all aspects of governmental expenditures from defense to health the American people don’t get value for money. On a per capita basis the US spends double what all other western countries yet we have poorer outcomes from infant mortality to lifespan. Just as we saw with the $2.3 trillion expenditure on Afghanistan it was largely siphoned by the Beltway Bandits. Grift & kleptocracy is fundamental to our current system.
Larry,
We mandate tests and those countries are testing only if you are actually sick. And yes, China targeted western nations.
I agree with you on the first point. The second point I find unconvincing. How did China target western nations? I remember in the early Sept/October 2019 when the Chinese were isolating people and checking on the apartments, there was a big media blow out about the totalitarian methods they were deploying. Now consider what the west is doing, how is it any different in dealing with pandemic? Consider in the early stages, the whole world didn’t know much about the pandemic, hopefully we know more, shouldn’t the great western scientists ask their respective governments how to modify their approach to the pandemic. What is the excuse?
Muralidhar Rao,
The Chinese government only closed internal traffic out of Wuhan province. They did not stop people from leaving there for other parts of the world, Italy being one of them. This also included their own citizens going overseas for business or pleasure trips.
“the whole world didn’t know much about the pandemic, hopefully we know more…”
They Chinese government lied about it this existing, then lied about the transmissibility and the lethality. Our own government employees also hyped this to help influence the US election against the incumbent president.
“What is the excuse?” They (westerners) are partisan hacks who don’t want to be exposed, nor to lose thier power.
let us not forget: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughly-78percent-of-people-hospitalized-were-overweight-or-obese.html
“An overwhelming majority of people who have been hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died from Covid-19 have been overweight or obese, the CDC said in a new study Monday.
Among 148,494 adults who received a Covid-19 diagnosis during an emergency department or inpatient visit at 238 U.S. hospitals from March to December, 71,491 were hospitalized. Of those who were admitted, 27.8% were overweight and 50.2% were obese, according to the CDC report. Overweight is defined as having a body mass index of 25 or more, while obesity is defined as having a BMI of 30 or more…”
Assumption.
1-China created the virus as an anti-Western weapon.
2-This virus was created in such a way that it selectively infects white Westerners.
Thus, the virus spares all non-whites.
India is a problem for this reasoning: its figures are very bad, almost as bad as those of the USA. This is probably the proof that the Aryans (our ancestors) have finally dominated this country.
UK and France are very hard hit. They are therefore predominantly white ethnicity.
The above is an improbable assumption.
It is more reasonable to think that China, a totalitarian regime, was able to impose draconian restrictions as long as necessary on all cities whenever the virus was detected.
In Europe, we did the same to fight epidemics. The armed forces guarded the isolation zones of the sick. And it works. We defeated leprosy in this way.
Maybe there is another reason: China does not feel the duty to favor at all costs capitalist companies called pharmaceutical laboratories.
I agree with Larry. Some of the differences are due to the health status of the various populations. Some are due to internal politics and some are due to enemy action.
Taking the last first no matter how Covid appeared in China, the Chinese obviously wanted the rest of the world to share their misery and took no action to prevent the export of the disease. The last thing they would want is to see their economy crippled without ours being crippled too.
The reverse is also true, which makes some American behaviour problematic: the first country that controls and eliminates Covid is going to have an economic boost compared to the rest. It is a pity that the American Covid response is not seen as a national priority but instead has descended into partisan politics.
As for India and China recording less cases, I believe there are two good reasons for that:
1. They lie about the numbers, especially India.
2. America has kept vulnerable people alive a lot longer than they would have been kept in India and China. Obesity, heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure, etc. are treated in America. In India and China you would wouldn’t be around to catch Covid, you would already be long dead. That skews the figures.
On the plus side, I believe there are no shortages of vaccines in America, the pity is that so many people have fallen prey to disinformation.
walrus,
“… there are no shortages of vaccines in America, the pity is that so many people have fallen prey to disinformation.”
You are absolutely right. Barack’s Bacchanalia, “cases, cases, cases!” What’s the case rate? The Mayor of San Franciso attends the Democratic Debauch at night, indoors, without following her own ‘mandates’? Cases! Cases! Cases! What’s the case rate? Ha ha ha.
Did you see the parade of ‘cases’ at the Del Rio crossing? Ten thousand strong and apparently not in danger of Covid. No maks, No vax, No passport and no requirement to obey our laws. Good thing Biden, who is busy this weekend at Deleware, banned drone flights. Hate to see all the dead bodies piling up of out of control Covid. Hid’n Harris, not a word or a single sighting. Congratulations Joe & Kamala.
Did you see the bodies pill up in Afghanistan during Biden’s great victory at Kabul? Apparently not a single hospital was overwhelmed with ‘cases’ of Covid while the Taliban were conquering the country. Congratulations to all those medics who kept all those cases at bay.
I look forward to hearing about all the cases in the Pelosi Police force who in the fed sponsored 1/18 even didn’t bother with masks, but sure got the rest of the LARPing right. https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1439284536815333381
Tell us again about disinformation. I want to hear again about our victory in Afghanistan, how for $2 Trillion and thousand of casualties we made the place great – and Covid safe. I want to hear about the great covid protection AOC has, just like Barack, when they party while their are subjects masked up and obedient. How do I get into that social class? You know, the one the ‘rules’ don’t apply to.
Sir I beg to differ with you as to the medical conditions of people in India / China. No matter what your politics you have to admit that then President Trump was more than proactive when pandemic hit the NYC very hard, 1)he threatened India to get all the available Hydrochloroquin from them and Modi govt complied 2) He sent the ship to NYC harbor to treat patients 3) He converted Javits center into treatmement center. The list goes on. In response what did Gov Cuomo do? He sent the infected patients back to nursing homes and then cooked the nursing home deaths to make him look good. The whole MSM was infatuated about his acting skills etc. In the end why was he forced to resign? For Me Too Movement (so called sexual advances) never mind the deaths of old people. That is what happens when we blind and delude ourselves into thinking how exceptional we are. Bottom line the way I see it almighty dollar rules the day not compassion for the fellow human beings.
There is emerging evidence the Chinese under reported big-time their total COVID deaths, particularly in Wuhan’s districts.
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n415
Perhaps by a factor of ten.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.28.20116012v2
Even if it is a factor of say 100 still doesn’t explain why we have 448/100 =4.48 times the Chinese cases. Also now our govt is more focussed on jabbing the people instead of creating new facilities to treat patients if need be like Pres Trump did. That is the big problem the guys in power don’t think too hard
There are also significant financial rewards in the US for the maximum number of deaths in the US to be recorded as from Covid, especially in the hospital system, which may not be the case elsewhere. Some may wish to minimise the figure.
This may or may not be relevant but virtually all vaccinations in the US have been the mRNA variants, that is not the case in any other significant country other than perhaps Israel. This may have an effect on the already vaccinated catching Covid but we won’t know as for an unknown reason CDC apparently stopped differentiating in their stats in early May between vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Should have added to my first paragraph.
Also flu and pneumonia deaths strangely dropped in the stats of many countries, in the case of flu to almost nil, as the PCR test can’t differentiate between them.
Another explanation is genetic variation between populations.
Early research on ACE1 polymorphisms association to COVID outcomes shows mixed results but research on ACE2 is showing a correlation.
“For ACE2 rs2285666, the GG genotype or G-allele was significantly associated with an almost two-fold increased SARS-CoV-2 infection risk and a three-fold increased risk to develop serious disease or COVID-19 fatality.”
https://journals.lww.com/jpharmacogenetics/Fulltext/2021/10000/ACE2_polymorphism_and_susceptibility_for.1.aspx
This polymorphism is far more common in European populations than Asian.
“It was unanimously shown that a polymorphism rs2285666 present in ACE2, varied significantly among European and Asians (Asselta et al., 2020; Cao et al., 2020). The expression experiments have suggested that the alternate allele (TT-plus strand or AA-minus strand) of rs2285666 elevated the expression of this gene upto 50%, hence may play a role in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2020.564741/full
As to India, while they generally share more genes with West than East in the case of this ACE2 mutation they are more like East Asians.
“Moreover, our haplotype analysis for this gene revealed excessive sharing of the frequent South Asian haplotypes with East Eurasian populations, rather than West Eurasian populations (Srivastava et al., 2020)”
If I recall my earlier research correctly the Wuhan researchers were aware of the role of ACE in COVID infection.
Two major explanations:
1] Jan. 15 2020 the day Sars Cov2 was allegedly “sequenced”, the search for “Vaccine Immortality” began.
2] Concomitant to this: all treatments were deemed to be “OFF LIMITS” — in the west for the most part.
Were there treatments, there would have been no LEGAL reason and therefore no chance in hell any experimental “covid vaccine” would get the EUA: Emergency Use Authorization. And there would have been no “pandemic” either.
The USA and NATO all have the highest rates of “infection” in the world, the world’s most wealthy nations. And all in one big ugly chorus sang: There are no treatments; and if you get sick and go to hospital, you are sent home until you are so sick you may die. This was panned as “public health” by the monsters in charge.
Why did the 2,200-plus billionaires in the world get $1.9 trillion richer in 2020? [according to Forbes magazine online]
And “Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel Becomes A Billionaire As Stock Jumps On Coronavirus Vaccine News”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2020/04/03/moderna-ceo-stphane-bancel-becomes-a-billionaire-as-stock-jumps-on-coronavirus-vaccine-news/?sh=7032f2585bf3
Why did our country waste $3 Trillion over 20 years in AFGH?
We did not even get a loaf of bread out of that effort.
-30-
Jim,
We live under a kakistocracy, a government run by the worst, least qualified, or unscrupulous citizens. That’s the definition found in Wikipedia, whose entry on this is worth a read. I particularly enjoyed the “History” section of that entry; great descriptive quotes, particularly that by a US Senator, whose descriptive includes this concluding sentence, “In such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned—to protect the innocent is to be guilty; and what perhaps is the worst effect, even men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are abhorrent, are goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of guilt and violence.” Well, that sure sounds like our “cancel culture” of today, and all that flows therefrom.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy
@Jim: “Why did our country waste $3 Trillion over 20 years in AFGH?”
We should have left immediately after Wayne Downing enabled the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban back in mid-November 2001. But ‘Big Army’ wanted in and so did the UN. To stay for 20 more years and waste that $3 trillion was the worst mistake we ever made.
What sort of grip do the defense industry unions have over US government policy making?
Teachers unions push open borders and sanctuary cities just to keep their failing K-12 classrooms filled and teachers union dues flowing. So this is not wild speculation.
SEIU has not seen a group of employees funded by tax dollars it does not want to suck into their union dues paying web. Green New Deal and BLM manifestos both demanded all jobs be union jobs. Nurses unions demand tax payer funded universal health care. Instructors unions demand free college.
So why should the defense industry unions escape the same cynical scrutiny when it comes to fostering self-serving public policy.
Not withstanding China lying about its numbers, perhaps they simply use different parameters and different testing methods?
How did their flu, cold and pneumonia numbers look for the same time. Chinese herbals or other therapeutics used? And what about the ubiquitous and long lasting “Chinese Crud” most travelers to China pick up – myself included – was it pollution, or was is a viral infection?
I trust nothing about global data gathering today- anything in medicine or science is now fatally politicized. Until someone can explain the Johns Hopkins data analysis of CDC morbidity reports that found no increase in “all cause death” averages for 2020 compared to the prior 10 years, I remain firmly in the election year flu season skeptic camp.
All “covid” advantage accrued to Democrats. -what happened to the random law of averages in that?
Because the Chinese enact strict quarantines (more stricter than US) and contact tracing. That will be find in the short run but unless there is a 100% effective vaccine, this will not work in the long run. It causes too much economic problems and will not work in a western style democracy.
Colorado questions its “covid” death numbers – failure to distinguish between dying from covid and dying with covid:
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/numbers-are-skewed-colorado-officials-warn-inflated-covid-deaths
NB: Dr Scarf Lady Birx set this erroneous reporting off very early in the game when she demanded in public to dump even “assumed” covid cases into the “covid” data file. Trump erred not firing her right then and there, and failure to realize financial incentives for covid cases and deaths would ultimately become counter-productive.
But at that early time of early partisan hysteria and media covid porn, Trump’s hands were pretty much tied and the country mood was ready to go off the cliff of dishonesty and superstition instead of waiting for “real science”.
The “covid” mismanagement postmortem is left for the historians.
It’s remarkable to me that people trust statistics from *anywhere* RE: the Covid.
It’s been a political project from the beginning.
That is all.
Adding: if we were truly in the midst of a pandemic it wouldn’t be necessary for the media to pump our fearPorn 27/7/365 incessantly telling us so; we’d all have family,
friends, and acquaintances who’d been seriously sickened or killed by the virus.
It’s the undertested, illness-inducing “vaccines” that I fear, not the virus.
Adding: if we were truly in the midst of a pandemic it wouldn’t be necessary for the media to pump our fearPorn 27/7/365 incessantly telling us so; we’d all have family,
friends, and acquaintances who’d been seriously sickened or killed by the virus.
It’s the undertested, illness-inducing “vaccines” that I fear, not the virus.
And the net-negative benefit “lockdowns”, and Health Authoritarianism, and
destruction of small businesses since 3/2020, and..
Idaho has started healthcare rationing.
https://apnews.com/article/health-public-health-coronavirus-pandemic-idaho-a0729894b42af1c3dadeccaffeabea0c
“BOISE, Idaho (AP) — In another ominous sign about the spread of the delta variant, Idaho public health leaders on Thursday expanded health care rationing statewide and individual hospital systems in Alaska and Montana have enacted similar crisis standards amid a spike in the number of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization…”
“… to allow “crisis standards of care” because the increase in COVID-19 patients has exhausted the state’s medical resources.”
CDC told health care providers they no longer needed to track numbers of vaccinated hospital admittees, so this looks like another tainted data set-up to “blame the unvaccinated” and pretend “vaccines” are working.
Plus not admitting they are short-staffed often due to their own in-house vaccine mandates, that have caused too many health care workers to leave their former employment leaving them under-staffer according to accreditation requirements.
Local yarn shop has a front door sign: “Masks now required for everyone. Thanks to the unvaccinated. ”
Victor Davis Hansen said it best: Science is dying. It is now superstition, under the disguise of morality.
Eh… there is no mistery. China do real and huge lockdowns and massive testing whenever they have an outbreak. They are more strict with the use of masks.
Even if their vaccines are less effective than the ones used in the USA and Europe, they are close to as good when we look at preventing death.
That said, people should remember that not every country counts deaths as well as most of Europe or even the USA.
India`s real number of covid-19 deaths are estimated to be around 4 million, which puts them among the worst hit, considering the age of their population.
Either way, we only will know something close to the real death tool from the pandemic in a few years, when the excess deaths studies are made with better data.
One of the reasons for the high death rate is that the US and State Governments prevented doctors from treating the initial infection. Early intervention is a key medical tool whether the disease is cancer or heart disease or infection with SARS-CoV-2. Could the huge difference between China and the USA be partly explained by the fact China has from the beginning used anti-viral pharmaceuticals to treat patients infected with SARS-CoV-2? China also provided guidance on treatment. “Chinese Clinical Guidance for COVID-19 Pneumonia Diagnosis and Treatment” was available on the web in April 2020. Some US doctors made use of the information coming from China, and other countries but not the US government or health institutions.
What lack of initial treatment means – Dr Peter McCullough testifies to Texas Senate 10 March 2021. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAHi3lX3oGM
I totally agree with you. Since the beginning of the pandemic the focus was on insufficient number of ventilators in US as if a person gets sick because of the covid they need to go on the ventilators right away (though there was sufficient evidence that ventilators are more than 50% inefficient). I think it was political game, to make the then president Trump look bad and also enable the mail in voting etc to take him down. We now know the results. Unfortunately the story turned to China rather than how this sad state of affairs was allowed to continue by our ruling class.
Is this like “why did the chicken cross the road?” .
The US has that many ore cases because it wants to. So it counts more cases. Comparing one country to another on any metric is almost always a fool’s errand. Apples/oranges. Confounds abound.
Eric, re counting cumulative cases (as opposed to current cases, Covid deaths, excess mortality etc):
“If you can’t count what’s important, you make what you can count important”. Among other things, this dubious logic was applied in VN to make body count a success metric. How about a new epigram for the era of full spectrum media fear propaganda?
If what is important it a high count, you count something which gives you a high count
I Think China wanted To Create A Global Catastrophic Event. In That Time Frame..2020..and Knew the Capabilities of its Covid..(2019) Virus..and had been demonstrating it to Some International Partys in Wuhan..Perhaps of Human Victims..when There were Containment Problems they had not Anticipataed so that Foreign “Observers”…Got Infected…Like The Iranians..The Chinese New Year was a Perfect Tactical Opportunity to Create Mass Infections…And Dispatch “Super Spreaders” Globally…Look at the Mapped data,,,Italy..Wurope..The USA…Etc…They Have Been able too Bread and Massive Hive of Super Spreaders Worker Bees..and Dispatch them at Will…With The USA as a The Primary…Hated Target..through Migration…And The Biden Cartels Co-Operation with its Criminal Open Border Agenda..Importing..Drugs..Criminals…and Infected Drones to Send all Over America…..It has Now Been Five Waves..And This..is a Apparent Intenionally…Developed War..Against Capitolism..and The Free World…I Grew Up..Hating Communism…Because Of “Body Counts”..We All know..What the Bin Biden Cartel is doing…Is..As Once Described..”UnAmerican Activity..”
Is the intention for an honest evaluation of how the U.S. responded to the pandemic, if so then why compare us to China instead of S. Korea, Japan, or Taiwan?
1. People in the U.S. don’t trust China’s numbers but we do trust the other three countries.
2. Those other three counties (except perhaps Taiwan) do much commerce w/China, as we do, so they have to react to China as we did. This is an apples to apples comparison.
S.Korea: cases 6k/mil, deaths: 50/mil
Japan: cases: 13k/mil, deaths: 140/mil
USA: cases: 129k/mil, 2k/mil
Our response was terrible. The only question that remains is why.
1. We spend more time writing about how well prepared we are to handle outbreaks than actually being able to do so. Here is a link to the WHO situation reports, you can scroll back to the beginning and see how the SE Asian countries got their rear ends in gear starting on Jan 5 while we had our thumbs up ours
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
2. Federalism
We have 50 state govts, Japan and S. Korea can set national policies. It makes sense for a national govt to take charge on some things. We are still fighting over this.
3. S.Korea / Japan did LESS testing than we did but they did BETTER testing combined w/contact tracing.
a) Wear masks, you get sick, you get tested, if positive, they isolate you until you are no longer contagious.
b) They track down everyone you came in contact with, isolate them for 5 days (at start of pandemic), test them, if they are negative, cool, if they are positive, rinse repeat.
The wear masks of a) becomes relevant because it changes the definition of how many people you came in contact with for contact tracing. You can ignore people in the supermarket but test your family.
————————-
We don’t even talk about contact tracing in the U.S. anymore. That fad is gone but I bet they are still doing it in Japan.
In short Larry, we are morons.
Christian,
“We don’t even talk about contact tracing in the U.S. anymore”
Thank God for that. To think that only elites, and the FBI agents at the January 18 ‘rally’ in D.C., and attendees of Barack’s Bachanalia, and attendees of the Emmys last night, or Pelosi’s fund raisering dinner, or AOC’s guests at the MET, or any George Flyod event, get to ignore the rules the leftists want to impose on everyone else is entirely an American idea.
A few questions come to mind from point 2: Perhaps this is an oversight in the Constitution, pandemics have always existed and the Framers would have been well aware of the issue – did they maybe drop the ball on that one? What powers would you remove from the 50 states and give to Federal government in order to better fight pandemics? Should Federal government also take charge with other really important things, like Climate Change?
We all are missing the main point here. Our Federal beauracracy is totally corrupt that goes for all branches of Govt. So with such a corrupt system I am glad the powers limited their actions to Trump’s deplorables rather than the whole population at large. Just consider the Fisa abuse where is the Supreme Court? Consider FBI abuse of power in that case, where is the Justice Department? Consider the Rod Rosenstein’s behavior, where is the Senate in holding him accountable? Same goes for CDC / FDA not concentrating on therapeutics rather than vaccines? Who will hold them accountable? For your kind information there is a law suit against WHO in India about the therapeutics? Where is our much touted great litigators? The list goes on. I am really saddened to see such state of affairs in our country. Rather than fixing our problems we assign it big bad China and God only knows who else will come next.
Muralindhar,
“Our Federal beauracracy is totally corrupt that goes for all branches of Govt.”
Wow, every single employee, all one million plus of them. Don’t blame China though. Thanks for the insight on America’s problem.
Chuba, Was our response “terrible” because:
(1) we went into immediate over-kill hysteria; or
(2) because we tainted all data; or
(3) because we financially incentivized false reporting; or
(4) because it was an election year and Democrats had no other agenda to run on; or
(7) because few recognized how corrupt the massive deep state administrative agencies in the US had become; or
(8) because our education system and loss of bedrock institutions created a passive, fearful, easy to manipulate population who never struggled with personal set backs; 0r
(9) because Democrats pushed zero tolerance of “”covid” at apolitical weapon against Trump, or
(10) because Democrats hijacked the word science and used it as a cudgel to silence any and all further inquiry into this season flu infection and/or Chines bioweapon.
Christian,
A lot of it may be due to being in proximity to China, the world’s greatest virus incubator. The history of breakouts and near-breakouts of scary things of the SARs/MERs variations has created a practiced response in their neighbors. Does anyone recall Lil’ Kim instantly bunkering himself up when COVID broke out? So thoroughly did that rabbit go to ground many intell agencies were openly speculating he had died.
Unrelated, but for anyone interested in China here’s a interesting bit of messaging which Xi must surely have signed off on before publishing.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-09-14/common-prosperity-china-crackdown-analysis
A growing disparity of wealth, Xi fears it, and reflexively bounces back to his Marxism. Depressing. I wonder, would Deng have done this?
“A lot of it may be due to being in proximity to China, the world’s greatest virus incubator.”
Some truth in that. I’d say all of the countries in SE Asia have had to deal with outbreaks with limited resources and developed a mindset of, ‘an ounce of prevention’ and civic mindedness. We have traditionally been insulated and believe technology will save us and we did a fine job developing vaccines but the problem is that a lot can happen in a year or two.
For every rule there is an exception. H1N1, the 2009 Swine Flu was traced to farms in central Mexico and I would not rule out the possibility of an outbreak starting in in North America from a factory farm.
Another view from American Thinker: Genetic Therapy Agent – GTA (aka “Covid vaccine”)
……”Oh, and here’s why I label the GTAs just that: Traditional vaccines work via introduction of an organism into your system that induces an immune response corresponding to that organism.
China virus GTAs work differently: They introduce a genetic code into your bloodstream that programs your body to (supposedly) create an immune response. Yet as Dr. McCullough, one of the most published experts in his field, pointed out, we’ve never asked the human body to do this before.
Making this even more tragic is that becoming a GTA guinea pig is wholly unnecessary. McCullough also informed that COVID has always been treatable, and with early intervention its fatal to precious few.
In fact, because they’ve demonized efficacious early treatments, Fauci and his feckless medical establishment fellows have blood on their dissembling, unholy hands…….”
https://twitter.com/theseeker268/status/1439943910390845448?s=21
The “don’t look here” scientist Peter Daszak who “laundered” US future generation’s money that Tiny Fauci handed out, to the Bat Lady of Wuhan. Walrus considers these guys upstanding. Lol!
You are referencing a third hand account by axe grinding idiots. Your premise is the equivalent of accusing Marie Curie of deliberately discovering radioactivity to help Iran build a nuclear weapon.
I do not have the time or inclination to try to explain this rubbish.
walrus
“axe grinding idiots.” I caution you that although you are an original “pilgrim” you are not exempt from the rules.
Col. Lang, I am not referring to Sam or anyone at SST as an “axe grinding idiot”, I am referring to the authors of the content to which Sam refers.
Sam referred to a Twitter post. The post refers to an entity called “Drastic Research”.
Drastic Research publishes what it calls “independent research” but is actually a Covid conspiracy website.
The article the Twitter referenced is called “project Defuse” which refers to a funding request for a research project to find a common point of attack against multiple coronavirus strains, That was eventually rejected by DARPA.
However “Drastic” twists this request into a malevolent conspiracy be Wuhan, EcoHealth, Fauci, et al. to bioengineer a lethal human virus!
Frankly, what is going on here appears to be right out of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible “.
walrus,
I know you defend Fauci, Daszak and the Bat Lady of Wuhan as noble warriors to defeat malevolent viral pandemics.
Here’s the problem many have. Why do they go to such effort to obscure the funding and research? Why did they push early in the pandemic a letter published by The Lancet that anyone who explores a lab leak possibility are conspiracy theorists? That’s your position and you’re entitled to that. Maligning Drastic as conspiracy theorists is also your prerogative. But the record is that without the sleuthing of Drastic we wouldn’t know what we know now. Many “credentialed” as you label those that back your worldview including Nobel laureate and president emeritus of Caltech David Baltimore have questioned the natural origin theory that you promote. Instead of a true investigation into the origin what we see are obfuscations and roadblocks. Instead what we saw with the WHO investigation members of the team including Daszak all had conflicts of interest. Why? Now, even the WHO chief says it is not at all evident that the origin of the virus was natural.
The fact is when you read the DARPA proposal from Daszak it shows:
Nicholas Wade, the former science editor of The NY Times got the ball rolling in the mainstream by presenting the evidence of natural origin vs lab leak. He credited Drastic members for unearthing key evidence. The committee can take a read.
https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038
One of the members of Drastic located in India was interviewed by the Times of India. He asks the pertinent question “If nothing went wrong at the Wuhan lab, why the obfuscations?”
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/covid-origin-if-nothing-went-wrong-at-wuhan-lab-then-why-the-obfuscations/articleshow/83473826.cms
Drastic, IMO, is an example of citizens around the world using their research and analytical skills to uncover & correlate information that the “authorities” want to obscure.
I would like to see Fauci, Daszak, Farrar and Baric testify under oath. Of course they are protected by the Democrats who are unwilling to provide subpoena power to an investigatory committee of either the House or Senate. IMO, they should be testifying to a grand jury investigating genocide.
Lancet tries to rehabilitate itself after getting brazenly misused by Team Fauci’s and the Democrat covid hysteria agenda: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/ouch-richard-ebright-15-top-scientists-eviscerate-fauci-daszak-lancet-medical-journal/
Is this a light at the end of the tunnel ….finally. Science is getting back to science, and not mind control scientology?
Errrr…..Deap, no.
This is not about misuse of the Lancet, nor a conclusive debunking of Fauci and others, despite what Gatewaypundit might want to believe.
READ the Lancet letters conclusion:
“We hold that there is currently no compelling evidence to choose between a natural origin (ie, a virus that has evolved and been transmitted to humans solely via contact with wild or farmed animals) and a research-related origin (which might have occurred at sampling sites, during transportation or within the laboratory, and might have involved natural, selected, or engineered viruses).
An evidence-based, independent, and prejudice-free evaluation will require an international consultation of high-level experts with no conflicts of interest, from various disciplines and countries; the mandate will be to establish the different scenarios, and the associated hypotheses, and then to propose protocols, methods, and required data in order to elucidate the question of SARS-CoV-2’s origin. Beyond this issue, it is important to continue debating about the risk–benefit balance of current practices of field and laboratory research, including gain-of-function experiments, as well as the human activities contributing to zoonotic events.“
Science taking an upper hand in the covid discussion, instead of mass fear media and politicians – one finds hope in slight signs.
The Lancet article early this week seemed to generate, in mainstream reporting, chiefly a few stories focused on the fact that the Director Gruber (32 yrs at FDA and widely respected) and the Depty Dir Krause, of the FDA’s chief department for overseeing vaccines, resigned at end of August.
The news articles mention disagreements between the Directors and their overseer, Peter Marks (9yrs at FDA) at FDA’s CBER, including over the issue of 3rd jabs. One article did mention the Lancet article, whose lead author is Krause, joined by a group international scientists.
The subsequent rejection of Pfizer’s plan for General distribution of 3rd shots, on Friday, by an 18-person FDA advisory committee on Friday, seems to have sparked more discussion. The committee recommended, instead, that 3rd shots be offered only to those over 65 and to high risk, immune-compromised individuals. The committee includes some CDC staff.
The committee’s recommendations are non-binding, as Peter Marks was quick to point out. As NYT reports:
Failed to close Blockquote.
smoke
What are you going to do about it?
Closed it in the follow-up post (“failed to close”). Saw the typo in “awaiting review”, but I am unaware of a way to edit at that step.
I was concerned that my unclosed Blockquote might turn the rest of the thread, all following posts, into Blockquote italics. I have seen that happen on some threads. Dunno if that is a problem on this program.
COVID is a problem of urban liberals in the west. It is a political tool. It has been weaponized against us by our own elite.
All,
If you read Daszak’s proposal to DARPA, you’ll find this:
“We will analyze all SARSr-CoV..sequences for..proteolytic cleavage sites in S2 and for..potential Furin cleavage sites..[W]e will introduce appropriate human-specific cleavage sites and evaluate growth potential in Vero cells and HAE cultures.”
Translates as: “We will artificially insert furin cleavage sites at the spike-gene S1-S2 border of bat SARS-related coronaviruses, and we will ask whether this increases their ability to infect human cells.”
https://twitter.com/jamiemetzl/status/1440289858732187648?s=21
Jamie Metzl is correct. “.. the shocking obfuscation & misinformation campaign” run by Fauci, Daszak & Farrar requires to be investigated by a special prosecutor.