Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 108
Aug. 29th, 2023 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
We are now in the third year of these open posts. As the phrase "died suddenly" repeats in the mass media like a mantra, statistics for work days lost to illness and all-cause mortality mount up in heavily vaccinated nations, and more and more ugly facts about the official response to Covid spill out into public, we are entering what may well turn out to be the most difficult period of the Covid disaster -- the phase in which denial rises in lockstep with the death rate, and a great many people try not to admit what has been done to them by the people and institutions they trusted. It could get ugly, folks. So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before:
1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.
2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue.
4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.
With that said, the floor is open for discussion.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-29 07:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-29 09:36 pm (UTC)The meme isn't actually mine, btw. I found it as part of a flurry of good Covid memes in a site I visit from time to time, and thought it was very funny.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-29 10:05 pm (UTC)Does this mean you're expecting a return of widespread obsession over masking?
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-30 12:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-30 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-30 07:02 pm (UTC)https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/pfizers-covid-vaccine-causes-vaids
Caveats: the study only looked at children, the testing was in vitro. Take with salt: Big grains.
But if this means what it looks like it means, then the vax is dampening immune response to *everything* not just to coronas. They looked at staph, influenza, hepatitis, and listeria. This might explain the recent uptick in several infectious diseases we don't normally have to worry about, but it's impossible to say for sure.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-30 10:55 pm (UTC)Saying it for sure is quite possible, and quite a few people are doing just that. Whether they also publicize whatever communications from higher powers, deep intuition, or divination results led to their unexpected surety is entirely optional on their part. In our current progressive materialist culture, their arguments may not come across as being anywhere near as compelling as throwing about easy-to-falsify statistical data in a great obfuscating cloud. On the other hand, putting too much trust in the statistical props that failing élites end up clinging to, in the vain hope of softening their impending impact, is what got us into this unenviable situation in the first place.
Many commenters on this blog are perfectly comfortable saying exactly what is causing the recent uptick in infectious diseases, despite our not having reams of easy-to-falsify statistical data ready at hand. Certain compelling myths are perfectly comfortable acknowledging their inherent nature as inspired narratives, while others sheepishly try to hide their true nature behind a pretense of being statistical facts.
— Christophe
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-31 01:31 pm (UTC)But it is settled many times over in my own mind. Everybody's got their own evidence threshold, so I try to put the bits and pieces out there as neutrally as possible, trusting that people can draw their own conclusions.
Plus, sometimes I read it wrong ;)
VAIDS-- rising rates of infectious disease
Date: 2023-08-31 05:50 pm (UTC)Childers over at Coffee and Covid notes that Monday, Ethical Skeptic was crunching the CDC numbers for deaths from bacterial and zoonotic infections. C&C reposts his graph, but frustratingly doesn't link the original post. Does anybody know where Ethical Skeptic's original post for this is? I'd like a link to it. I'm not seeing it on his substack, which hasn't posted anything since July. If it's twitter, that'd explain it-- I deleted my account and now I'm pretty much locked out unless someone posts a direct link.
Anyway, Ethical Skeptic's number-crunching strongly supports the VAIDS vaccine theory-- a sharp overall rise in deaths from all infections is exactly what you'd expect in that scenario.
If that's what we're looking at... well, I'd expect to see, current or near future, a concurrent rise in diseases we don't normally have to deal with much in the US, in populations where you wouldn't expect it: stuff like Tuberculosis, hepatitis, staph infections, maybe even food poisoning (salmonella, listeria, e. coli), plus greater lethality of normal stuff like strep, flu, pneumonia etc. Possibly even a resurgence of childhood diseases that we have purportedly effective vaccines for: measles, mumps, chickenpox, whooping cough...
Re: VAIDS-- rising rates of infectious disease
Date: 2023-09-01 02:56 am (UTC)Re: VAIDS-- rising rates of infectious disease
Date: 2023-09-01 06:44 pm (UTC)Re: VAIDS-- rising rates of infectious disease
Date: 2023-09-01 09:41 pm (UTC)Re: VAIDS-- rising rates of infectious disease
Date: 2023-09-02 02:15 am (UTC)i wash my hands when they need to be washed, but depend on them to provide germs that help train my immune system when they're not covered in mud or worse...
everything in moderation and whatnot.
Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-29 11:06 pm (UTC)Now I'm at the point where I feel red-hot hostility towards the idea of wearing a mask. I do respect other people's right to wear a mask if they choose, and I try to avoid the "raspberry jam," as our kind host puts it (what goes around comes around), but I must admit, when I see a person wearing a mask, my thoughts about their character and intelligence are not of the most charitable nature.
Earlier on in this covidian epoch of epic nonsense, even though I realized that the masks were humbug, I did not always feel up possible confrontations with the Mask Karens and Mask Kens. I witnessed some really ghastly public screaming and yelling episodes over people not wearing masks. In those dark days I was having a rough time (weren't we all, in one way or another) and just trying to stay strong-- I didn't need the PTSD of getting screamed at directly. So I'd put the danged thing on when it was obligatory-- such as in the grocery store and on public transport-- but nose out.
Now, however, I feel very differently about the masks, and I would go to greater lengths to not wear one. If I had to, as for example, on an airplane (and you mess with airplane rules, whatever they may be, and all you'll get is arrested and hauled off the plane). I would wear one in such an instance, if I really had to travel, but the mask would say something on it to protest, such as "1984."
It would take A LOT, but A LOT more to get me to ever wear a mask again in a grocery store or restaurant. Now, I would risk getting yelled at. And if I could, I would go way, way, way out of my way to avoid a place that, on its own discretion, insisted on a mask.
I'm long past trying to talk to people about whether the masks work or not. The people who are all for masking, no matter what you say, what evidence you show them, they just go round and round with their crazy-shale. So I don't care what they think. I won't wear a mask, period. In case any masked person challenges me (and you know what, they may never!!) I am practicing my scary stare. And then, as I lock eyes with them, I would say, very, slowly, "Your mask has a booger on it."
Nom du jour: Puce Curmudgeonly Pooka
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-30 01:11 am (UTC)I stand with you. I vow no more masks. I will go hungry or eat outta the freaking dumpster.
Actually hah no wait …….won’t do that i will go eat a pine tree or some lam quarters or purslane or dandelion or plantation or the list goes on and on
VA Mtn Man
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-30 02:48 am (UTC)Here in Australia, I never wore a proper mask. Instead, I made a couple of masks out of an old t-shirt and wore them loose so that there was no impediment to my breathing. I flouted the outdoor and public transport mandates, but I did wear these masks at the supermarket. Despite me literally wearing an old rag over my face, in all the time I wore them only a few people even looked at me.
I think people are over wearing masks here. I noticed that when the indoor mandates were lifted, 90% of people stopped wearing masks within a week or two. I catch this bus service that had a high rate of compliance to the PT mask mandates (80%). On the very first day I caught this bus after the PT mandate was lifted not a single person on the bus was wearing a mask.
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-30 04:20 am (UTC)Yes, that means that, in my view, a lot of people are still openly abusing their children in public (and probably in private, for all I know). It also means that out of the approximately two or three hundred families whose children attend our local elementary school, we were the _only_ ones who refused to subject our own children to abuse just because somebody told us to.
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-30 07:10 pm (UTC)I had a complete phobia of clowns, people in masks, people in big animal costumes (think mall easter bunny, team mascots, that sort of thing), mall Santas, and even masks that were *not* on people-- even those innocuous little ceramic mime faces freaked me out a bit. And for the whole month of October, there were certain stores with large mask displays near the entrance that my mother simply had to avoid because I could not be dragged in there.
This is not uncommon in the preschool crowd. Whole lotta "I can't even" whenever I think about making everybody mask up at schools and daycares. And that's before you even get to the social/speech developmental issues. That is nightmare world for a lot of little kids.
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-31 01:29 am (UTC)https://www.facebook.com/HillsboroughSch/videos/school-board-meeting-march-9-2021/1123230244791431/
Hillsborough County Public Schools
School Board Meeting March 9, 2021
55:03
ZENDRIE SMITH: Zendrie Smith. I'm a physical therapist, pediatric physical therapist. I have used deep breathing exercises as a standard protocol for starting every physical therapy session during my entire career. But things have changed. My patients' inhalations used to be free to capture every molecule of oxygen in the air. Now it is restricted to the oxygen that is able to penetrate a mask. The child ends up rebreathing their own exhaust. The human body reads this as a signal that there is a problem. The triggers the immune system to overreact. Our children who are already at risk for allergies are faced with even greater risk.
School Board members, masking children throughout the school day has never been done in history. This is an experiment. Developing bodies have never been submitted to this. We do not know what the long term outcome is. We have to protect our children.
I invite you to give the parents the freedom of choice of whether to mask their children or not. Most of us will prefer to let our children breathe and play freely. Covid has not been proven to be transmittable in the asymptomatic person. I do advise that everybody finds the doctor that treat covid in 5 days with the right medication. They are local to us. If you need a doctor please feel free to contact me. Thank you.
56:26
[END]
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-31 11:08 am (UTC)My daughter will be 14 next november 2023. She was the last one wearing a mask at school once the mandate had gone.
She only stopped wearing it at school once the teacher observed that, and asked her why.
We already know, and we asked her about the reason.
Obviously, it was not the mandates, neither a health issue. That was pretty clear for her.
She simply wanted the anonimity the diaper gaves to her, and so she explain that to us.
In fact, our principal problem (specially my wife and our daughter) is their radical introversion (98 - 100% in the Myers Briggs test), so that fits with she having difficulties to make friends.
Luckily, after about 6 months, she finally have some friends, but still doesn't want to go out, even for an icecream.
This is only one of the problems in this game. The amount of problems that caused to teenagers, specially in the 14 - 20 years age, due the lack of proper social relation when it is most necessary for their personal growth.
This damage may be hard to reverse.
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-30 12:23 pm (UTC)I have some "minimally compliant" gauze masks that let me breath, and I expect I may don one if for some reason (gods forbid) I have to get inside a medical (or veterinary) facility with a mandate, if it were for the sake of my own or another's health or safety. I imagine I would also comply on a plane if I for some reason I had to fly in a dire emergency, which is highly unlikely (the only thing I can imagine would be some sort of improbable situation where a friend or family member got sick or injured in a far-off place and needed help, and the airlines all had mandates again). But that's about it. I plan to boycott any businesses that require them. I know one farmer's market that won't enforce them for fresh produce and dairy, and I can probably get most other groceries at a Spanish market that also didn't pay much attention to rules the last time (just wear the mask on your chin so we can pretend we're following the government mandate, we don't actually care).
I think what's different this time is that more people have woken up.
They say that in coercive situations, usually about one-third of people are reliably compliant and buy in completely, about one-third are reliably skeptical, and about one-third can be persuaded either way. I think during the height of cootie-mania, we saw two-thirds of everyone persuaded, and no more than one-third pushing back. I think that this time, the middle pendulum has swung the other way, and we'll see only one-third compliant, and the middle third siding with the skeptics and pushing back - I think they've lost that persuadable middle.
I saw this in the anec-data of my own circles. The PMC liberals I know all went in whole hog for cootie-mania and jab-a-paloosa, and they almost all still Believe the Science(TM). I have no doubt that their set will be re-donning their virtue-signalers as soon as they're told to by the Experts(TM). The skeptics were skeptics last time and still are, and like us are probably even more done with this nonsense this time around. What's changed is that a bunch of the go-along-to-get-along people I know, who believed back in 2020-2021 that the authorities were telling the truth and acting in the public's best interest, have caught on. They watched the various lies become obvious, they wore masks and got jabbed then got covid anyway and so did everyone else, and a lot of them have seen the impact of school closures and masking on kids and the impact of cootie-mania on the economy, and they've stopped listening to the Experts(TM) who got it all wrong and started listening to the skeptics.
If told to wear a mask someplace I plan to treat it as a joke - are you kidding? Didn't we learn last time that this DOESN'T WORK? - and if they keep pushing, boycott (with the handful of exceptions noted above).
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-30 05:16 pm (UTC)The PMC liberals that I know would grudgingly return to masking if they were asked to or if they felt at high risk of infection - since most of them still believe that masks work - but they've also become more responsive to local indicators like hospitalizations, deaths, severe illness in their own social circles, etc. vs. following the media.
Put simply, I don't think that a rehash of The Great Fearmongering of 2020-21 is possible with this virus at this time, even if it does start killing people at substantially higher rates. From my perspective, if people return to acting really frightened this fall and winter, it will be because they truly have something to fear this time rather than because The Experts told them to Be Very Afraid.
Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-08-30 07:16 pm (UTC)Re: Some mask reflections
Date: 2023-09-02 12:14 pm (UTC)Rintrah's latest thoughts are interesting I think because he differentiates himself from GVB. He sees a likely slow build of more serious disease due to ongoing infections of different serotypes rather than the 'sudden switch' prediction of GVB:
https://www.rintrah.nl/serotype-evolution-how-dengue-became-so-deadly/
"Rather, I’m expecting that with multiple simultaneously circulating serotypes, we will just see a rapid deterioration of the situation."
He makes a fair case and the rise of the newest BA.2 is a little concerning, albeit not immediately, as in it's current form it's probably not spreading quickly:
https://twitter.com/yunlong_cao/status/1697318194976010446
'1) BA.2.86 is antigenically distinct compared to XBB.1.5.
2) BA.2.86 can significantly escape XBB-infection/vaccination induced antibodies.
3) However, the infectivity of BA.2.86 may be much lower than XBB.1.5 and EG.5.'
This also concerns:
https://twitter.com/DowdEdward/status/1697729433917084080
'Real Time August Disability Data from BLS has held on to highs from June. Even more disturbing is Employed Men accelerated in July & Employed Women hit new all time high in August. For some reason the employed rate of change is worse than overall. Any guesses?'