Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 174

[ecosophia]

We are now in the fourth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary more than three years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health are anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; public health authorities government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; and the story continues to unfold.

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 and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. 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 wholly owned 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 plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.

5. 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. 

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The thread on the news subreddit is something to behold. More "Removed by Reddit" posts than I've ever seen before on one thread. (Reddit general admins, rather than moderators of the individual community, remove posts when they break Reddit-wide rules such as by supporting violence.)

Lots of speculation that this was someone whose life or loved one's life was destroyed by this insurance company. Lots of people saying if they were the witness, they "didn't see nuthin'." Lots of comments saying "This was only a matter of time."

Lots of people sharing their stories of terrible treatment by health insurance companies in general and UHC in specific (it's infamous for being especially bad). For example:

"United sent a letter to my daughter explaining that they denied a claim for a one night stay in the hospital that literally saved her life. Also, my daughter was 4 years old at the time. The letter was addressed to her."

"UHC denied my patient's prescription for a Lovenox bridge so her Coumadin could be held prior to surgery. The reason? I prescribed it twice daily instead of once daily, which is the standard of care for a Lovenox bridge. I was so pissed off I just paid for the medication out of pocket myself and gave it to my patient. It was $12.... They were totally okay with the possibility of her suffering a stroke or major thromboembolic event to save TWELVE DOLLARS."

"United Healthcare refused to cover any of my labor and delivery bill because the doctor who delivered her wasn’t in my network. As if you can choose when/where you go into labor and select the OBGYN that comes in the room. I spent months appealing and then they kept saying they didn’t receive the paperwork I sent multiple times in multiple different ways. I would have laughed out loud if I saw [this headline] at that time."

Then there's this: https://prospect.org/health/2024-03-10-unitedhealth-exploits-emergency-change-ransomware-oregon/

"The Change Health (owned by United) outage brought the healthcare industry to a standstill in Feb when they suffered a huge security breach. The systems affected included clearinghouses that providers use to submit claims to insurance companies (not just United), systems that relay prescriptions to pharmacies, and perhaps most damaging, payment systems.

"The slimiest thing in all of this was that many small providers went under because they couldn't get paid for services for weeks, some months. So United came in and bought the providers for pennies on the dollar."

Now the thread is locked (probably because of the many comments needing to be removed by Reddit).

-Ochre Shabby Sea Serpent

[scotlyn]

I have seen a level of schadenfreude related to this specific homicide that surprised me, as it is coming from people on the left who, two or three posts previously, might have been lamenting the terrible effects on healthcare that RFK Jr will pose, and expressing worry at the next epidemic which will be caused by vaccine hesitancy. I cannot make out the worldview that holds all of those disparate thoughts in one head.

[claire_58]

Sounds like a "petunias" worldview to me.

[dendroica]

As far as I can tell, the left views the Trump-Musk alliance as the next phase of corporate oligarchy. Dismantle the regulatory agencies that play favorites and create endless red tape, and allow money and markets to have the final word with no input from The Science (or The Bureaucracy) that they still believe in. Things change, but ordinary folks still remain under someone's boot.

Being leftward leaving myself I tend to agree with them on that. But no one has any love for the health insurance industry, and I too have been surprised by the solidarity across political divides.

[scotlyn]

Speaking as a confirmed ordinary person - one of the chief identifying characteristic of this status being, to my own way of thinking, a marked disinterest in the concept of being in charge of anybody, and a pre-occupation, instead, with the small things that lie within one's reach, and the ways in which such small things might contribute to personal, family and community quality of life - ordinary people will ALWAYS be challenged by the demands of current, or aspiring elites, who are always with us. Like the weather, the seasons, the indifference of others to our pre-occupations, and all the other challenges life brings us.

In the face of such challenges, we navigate... :)

Sometimes we benefit from a changing of the guard, because the new elites, for a time, will strive harder to be more help to us than harm. I think this possibility lies open to us at the present time. As always, we do need to hold whoever currently styles itself our elite firmly to account. Still, the new guard will, no doubt, very quickly develop the same sense of entitlement to their superlative status that marks the outgoing guard, and we will, as always, have to keep navigating, dodging, and diving, to muddle ourselves through, and to open hold the space we need for ourselves in which to build some quality into our lives, despite the demands they place upon us.

The left, at least that part of it which DOES aspire to rule, and which is now in the position of the old guard retreating in disarray, might do well to ask ITSELF how effectively it DID stand between the corporate oligarchy and ordinary people during their ascendancy. If it ever does get around to asking itself that question in any public way, and to answering it in any honest way, it will then be fit to begin to rebuild itself into an alternative to the current guard, and be a source of change by the time changing that ossified guard becomes critical.

[dendroica]

I largely agree with you, and only meant to suggest that the "2+2=petunias" mindset exists on both sides, and anyone who believes that a man whose life has been based on greed, glamour, and public promiscuity is a bastion of Christian values, and that another man who is perhaps the world's leading investor in pie-in-the-sky green energy, neural implants, and transhumanism is a bulwark of conservatism, is also sitting on a nest of unexamined incompatibilities.

[scotlyn]

Of course. We all, ordinary people, all have to come to terms with the fact that the cavalry is never going to come. Not for us.

At best we may sometimes be positioned to benefit from internecine quarrels among those who aspire to rule... At worst, their quarrels will lead to battles that flatten our fields and burn our houses as their horses wheel and they hack at each other. And even then, it will not be personal. Just a hazard that goes with the territory... like when someone annoys Thor enough for him to start throwing thunderbolts around, and one of them is what flattens our fields or burns our houses.

[boccaccio]

I went mainly on X and can second your findings. Out of dozens if not a few hunderded comments, there was not even one that expressed lament over the assasination. If the elite had any inkling of what is brewing...

Same is happening in all the rest of the West. I just read that the first round of the Romanian presidential elections have to be done again due to alledged Russian interference on behave of the surprise winner. The Romanian elites seem to miss completely that this will only help said winner as most people voted for him as a protest. He is very right wing and was supposed to have a run-off against the center right candidate. He would never have won that. Now he will undoubtedly become the big winner of the first round and will possibly have to face a left wing candidate. I think that gives him a serious chance to win, all thanks to the intervention from the elites. This kind of own goals are happening all the time these days.

[(Anonymous)]

Romanian presidential elections have to be done again due to alledged Russian interference on behave of the surprise winner. The Romanian elites seem to miss completely that this will only help said winner as most people voted for him as a protest.

Archivist here, I am Romanian. Is not that simple they will ban him and after hold election. There was also another candidate, a woman that had similar anti-war, anti-waxxine, pro-Christian, conservative stance and she wasn't allowed by the same Constitutional Court to run... She could have won also. She is probably the reason that Calin Georgescu was first on the first run and would have probably won.

The early votes from expats came and were counted and he won by 70% on those early counting and the Constitutional Court cancelled the election as the early-voting was on-going. They invalidated the firs round after the same Court there were no problems with it. A private jet came from US hours before...

I am living in a village and the people here were organically supporting the candidate on social media and the reason presented by the secret intelligence service is bulksheet.

I for one I am happy they cancelled it, for these reasons:

- I expect something big to happen in EU, US economically around January- March, so I am happy they extended their mandates so they will reap the shirtstorm.

- No more pretense of decency or democracy;

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings to the land of Brancusi!
Thank you for this update!

[stubborn_ass]

Same thing in Georgia, Moldavia etc. As the prediction goes - "the masks fall off".

[(Anonymous)]

I think we can add France, Ukraine, South Korea and the list adds countries by the day !

[(Anonymous)]

He is very right wing

Archvist here again, IMHO and not only my opinion is not very right wing at all, he is center-right but he is just anti-war... and that's making him very right wing!

[boccaccio]

Thanks for the update. You're right of course, I was just using the label that is assigned to him for ease of communiction. I think the war mongering centristst etc are the real extremists.