Statistics

FDA Releases Pfizer COVID Vaccine Safety Data: Should You Take It?

WHO’S IN CHARGE

FDA report is here.

Before discussing it, I want to emphasize that making this vaccine mandatory is evil, the work of tyrants. There is nothing in the government-driven coronadoom crisis that warrants forcing people under the point of a gun—or starvation, or joblessness, or shunning—to take a vaccine most don’t necessarily need, especially those under about 40 years old and otherwise healthy.

Risk is the first consideration about whether to take a vaccine. Safety and efficacy follow. See this, at bottom, for who is most at risk of the virus. It’s small for most people.

Some have said you need a driver’s license to drive therefore….you need a vaccination to breathe? To live? The minds of the people who say this are clouded by irrational fear.

Too, we cannot and must not let medical experts decide these questions for us. Doctors don’t know what is ideal for a culture any more than astrophysicists. Memorizing bones or stars does not mean you know what is best for a people.

We must not allow the precedent of giving government all control of citizens unless they submit to whatever fanciful medical treatment is in current fashion. The history of medicine alone is sufficient argument for this.

One last qualification, about cause, well known to regular readers. We can’t read cause out of the data, but we can, do, and must read it into it. For instance, we assume the side effects (mentioned later) were caused by vaccine in the vaccine group, and were caused by something else beside the placebo in the placebo group. And we either assume that whatever this cause or these causes were in the placebo group, they weren’t operating in the drug group (which isn’t likely), or they were, but to an unknown extent.

Meaning not all the adverse events (AEs) in the vaccine group were caused by the vaccine, but by it and other things. The numbers of both can be guessed at using probability models.

With those provisos, onto the data—which I, like you, have to take as given to us.

ADVERSE EVENTS

The most important AE is death. Only 2 in the vaccine arm, 4 in the placebo. The Ns were 21,621 vaccine and 21,631 placebo, two doses for both, three weeks apart. Deaths were heart attacks, strokes, and two unknowns in the placebo group. All older than 55. This data is, of course, in favor of the vaccine.

Others (S is “serious”): “The most common SAEs in the vaccine group which were numerically higher than in the placebo group were appendicitis (0.04%), acute myocardial infarction (0.02%), and cerebrovascular accident (0.02%), and in the placebo arm numerically higher than in the vaccine arm were pneumonia (0.03%), atrial fibrillation (0.02%), and syncope [passing out] (0.02%).”

The placebo AEs can be put down to anxiety, if you like, or usual disease with the pneumonia. Appendicitis is indeed serious, as are heart attacks (MIs); and “cerebrovascular accident” is a nice euphemism for stroke.

Next, tables of “solicited” and “unsolicited” AEs. The difference is those the experimenters thought to ask about and those they didn’t. This opens the possibility that unsolicted AEs are under-counted.

With our assumption about cause, the vaccine has been confirmed to produce more AEs.

Note that this table (above) is 18-55 only, but a chart for 55+ is similar. Pain, swelling, and redness, while greater with vaccines, are minor.

I won’t show it, but there are similar charts showing vaccines produce in 18-55 year olds more fever (15.8% vs. 0.5%) fatigue (59.4% vs. 22.8%), headaches (51.7% vs. 24.1%), chills (35.1% vs. 3.8%), vomiting (1.9% vs. 1.2%), diarrhea (10.4% vs. 8.4%), muscle pain (37.3% vs. 8.2%), joint pain (21.9% vs. 5.2%), and use of antipyretic or anti-pain meds (45 vs. 12.6%). Results are similar for 55+.

Whether these are important is a question for you, and not anybody else. Meaning the answer will vary depending on person.

More infrequent events:

Reports of lymphadenopathy [swollen lymph nodes] were imbalanced with notably more cases in the vaccine group (64) vs. the placebo group (6), which is plausibly related to vaccination. Bell’s palsy [in which you make a face like the Joker] was reported by four vaccine participants and none in the placebo group. These cases occurred at 3, 9, 37, and 48 days after vaccination. One case (onset at 3 days postvaccination) was reported as resolved with sequelae within three days after onset, and the other three were reported as continuing or resolving as of the November 14, 2020 data cut-off with ongoing durations of 10, 15, and 21 days, respectively. The observed frequency of reported Bell’s palsy in the vaccine group is consistent with the expected background rate in the general population, and there is no clear basis upon which to conclude a causal relationship at this time, but FDA will recommend surveillance for cases of Bell’s palsy with deployment of the vaccine into larger populations.

They say so.

The next point of interest were unsolicited AEs in the 65+ group.

Again, the importance is up to you. Not the government, not your doctor.

Besides all that, this: “Two serious cases of suspected but unconfirmed COVID-19 were reported, both in the vaccine group, and narratives were reviewed…Among 3410 total cases of suspected but unconfirmed COVID-19 in the overall study population, 1594 occurred in the vaccine group vs. 1816 in the placebo group.”

Data about effect of pregnancies is incomplete, thought I read elsewhere a handful of vaccinated women later became pregnant.

Finally, the study will continue for two years after injection to check for mid-term AEs. These are now unknown. Long term, i.e. 2+ years, adverse effects are also unknown. For instance, nobody knows how this vaccine could interact with a mutated virus.

EFFICACY

The experiment itself and disposition has a few important points, such as that it “excluded participants at high risk of SARSCoV-2 infection or with serological evidence of prior or current SARS-CoV-2 infection”. So the results only apply to those not at high risk.

Testing, if I understand it correctly, was not uniform, but driven by symptoms: “Efficacy is being assessed throughout a participant’s follow-up in the study through surveillance for potential cases of COVID-19. If, at any time, a participant develops acute respiratory illness, an illness visit occurs” then a PCR test was done—if this was after the second dose.

If that’s right, then mild infections will have gone unnoticed. This isn’t necessarily against the vaccine, because a mild infection is better than a serious one. But it will skew the efficacy numbers, perhaps by a lot.

Here’s the main efficacy table:

There are others by age, sex, and comorbidity that you can look up. The efficiency is high (I’d use a beta-binomial with 1 and 1, which would widen the intervals).

As I’ve said before, trial numbers in medical experiments always look better than real-life numbers, and I’d bet good money these numbers will shrink. I have no idea by how much. I’d be (pleasantly) surprised if in real life it was much north of 50%.

How? Easily: the people who jump at the chance of these trials might not look like, in a COVID causal sense, those in the general population. Recall it skews against serious infections. Plus, routine testing is increase, meaning the mild infections the study missed will be picked up.

Plus, just like that Danish mask study, this trial represents the ideal: the vaccines were likely handled with great care, the shots, too, and the follow ups, and so on. Real life is much messier.

Double plus, we don’t know how long the vaccine will last, even if it works.

No idea yet of the progress of those who got the doom even after being vaccinated. Too early. Interestingly—and you should have noticed this—there were only 2 deaths in the vaccine group and 4 in the placebo. Even though 9 people in the vaccine group and 169 people in the placebo group got it.

Too early for deaths to be noticed—or the doom isn’t that deadly? The deaths in the placebo group were not doom deaths.

There is another most remarkable thing. How many of these infections are false positives? Any false negatives?

We’ve seen lots of reports of PCR tests giving false positives around ~0.1-1%. That means we’d see around 20 to 200 or so positives in each group. That’s near the number of placebo positives. That’s if testing were routine—-which is wasn’t.

So either there are no false positives on this sensitive test as we normally see—-or these experimenters were exceedingly careful in the vaccine group at identifying positives, and maybe not so good in the placebo group. Could the data have been unblinded?

Feel free, as always, to dismiss my opinion. Also feel free to reject Pfizer’s and the FDA’s opinion, too.

CONCLUSION

There isn’t one. As I started, I end. Whether you take this vaccine should be up to you.

First, are you at risk of dying from the coronadoom? Not really; not if you’re young and healthy. If you’re old and not, then you have a higher risk, but there’s still at least a 10 times chance you’ll croak of something else.

Their numbers are: 9/18,559 = 0.05% got the doom in the vaccine group, and 169/18,708 = 0.9% got the doom in the placebo group. Rather, were measured to have it after symptoms developed. Nobody in the roughly 40,000 people studied died of the doom.

For 19-55, it was 5/9897 = 0.05% in the vaccinated and 114/9955 = 1% in the placebo.

For 55+, it was 3/7500 = 0.04% in the vaccinated and 48/7543 = 0.6% in the placebo.

So it’s about the same for any age. The younger are slightly more likely to get the bug without the vaccine, but then they’re also more likely not to suffer from it, as other stats show.

My prediction, which you may dismiss, is that that ~0.05% rises, while the 0.9% (1% or 0.6%) won’t change much.

Suppose it doubles, which I believe to be the minimum increase. Then, if you’re 55+, it’s 0.1% versus 0.6%. My best guess is it will be closer to to 0.2% to 0.3% versus the higher number.

Is that 0.5% reduction enough for you, given the adverse events you might suffer? Is the test as sharp as they said in the experiment, seemingly with no error? If not, the differences between groups will be even smaller.

Do you trust them enough?

I can’t answer for you. You have to answer yourself. The government must not be allowed to decide for you.

Other ethical questions, such as whether the vaccine was derived using the bodies killed by Planned Parenthood, I leave out.

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Categories: Statistics

41 replies »

  1. Wonder how all of this compares with the flu shots we get every year? My guess is the Covid “vaccination will be thought of as just another flu shot. I have been getting flu shots every year but still get the flu from time to time. So, from my perspective on flu shots is that it might help and is probably not harmful. If there was any thought the Covid shot would be harmful most folks will be reluctant to get it. If that is the case there is a high probability it will become mandatory.

  2. Another new strain of COVID has been discovered, this time in England.
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2020/12/15/a-new-strain-of-covid-19-has-emerged-in-englandhere-is-what-it-could-mean-for-the-pandemic-and-vaccines/?sh=56a22ded70f6

    Remember, people: As of July, there were 5 known strains in the USA. In August, a new strain was discovered in the DFW area. Then the news mostly stopped reporting on this topic.

    Just last week, I heard a “medical professional” on the radio announce that the vaccination would be only effective for a period of from three to six months. There is a reason nobody bothered to make a vaccine for any cold (COVID/SARS is a cold) virus before. They simply mutate too quickly, into too many different forms, to make any vaccine effective.

    Look at it this way. Half of all Americans get a flu shot every year. And every year, on average about 60,000 Americans die of the flu.

  3. It would be an understatement to say this vaccine is as politicized as The Holy Mask. It was obviously untrustworthy before the election, and then the Biden steal changed it. Transformed it. Science.

    I don’t trust it. Not yet. Nor would anyone else have trusted it, until it became political.

    I think I can hold out for awhile, being retired. But I think it’s a given that our Leaders will attempt to force it on people, just like lockdowns.

  4. Meh. I’m over 60 and in reasonably good health, so maybe I’ll get the jab in a few months if I can fit it into my schedule. I’ll avoid the “quickie” clinics, as I’d rather have my doctor administer the vaccine. But getting an in-person appointment may be a challenge.

  5. No data re spontaneous miscarriage? Weren’t lab rabbits/rats given the vaccine before the humans? There’s talk about vaccine affecting “syncytin” which could impair placenta fxn.

    Where’s the rat data?

  6. This won’t be like the normal flu shot at all.

    You won’t be able to access your bank account or leave your house without an updated WuFlu jab.

  7. From my book Butchered by Healthcare regarding flu treatments and immunization:

    Influenza is self-limited to a few weeks and rarely causes a fatality or long-term disability. Treatment and prevention are part of the latest trend to profitably medicate less severe diseases.

    The corporations and their paid supporters claim Tamiflu, their flu treatment, decreases symptoms and prevents complications such as pneumonia. But the best estimate of benefit is that it may save a half-day of sickness per individual per dose when prescribed immediately after the start of symptoms. This is nearly impossible. The FDA’s longstanding opinion is that Tamiflu did not affect complications, hospital admissions, or survival. It prohibited the manufacturer from making these claims.

    A 2014 Cochrane review concluded the drug was worthless. They included many studies not sponsored by industry. Two meta-analyses said risks were higher than the benefits. Within a day of getting the drug, panic attacks, delusions, convulsions, and even suicide have been reported. Complete information is scarce, however. Study data withheld by the manufacturer would reveal the entire truth, but so far, there have been no legal challenges to get it. Industry sources, including John Bell (Professor of Medicine at Oxford), stonewalled Cochrane’s requests for access to Roche’s unpublished Tamiflu studies. He was on the board of directors for Roche, and they paid him €322,450 in 2011.

    Well-referenced reviews in the Huff Post and the Atlantic report that Tamiflu does not decrease the chances of pneumonia or other severe illnesses. They also describe the obscene marketing—or rather mongering—by Hoffmann-La Roche and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Despite all this, the medication had $18 billion in sales (2017). The US, Britain, and other countries were somehow cajoled into stockpiling billions of dollars’ worth.

    The CDC itself is compromised by millions of dollars in pharmaceutical company donations. They claim, however: “Our planners and our content experts wish to disclose they have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products… [the] CDC does not accept commercial support.”

    The label scamiflu instead of Tamiflu went viral on the Internet. A UK National Health Service analysis (2014) agreed: “The modest benefits of Tamiflu… do not justify the increased adverse risks, let alone the money spent on them.” The WHO belatedly removed Tamiflu from their essential medications list in 2017.

    The flu vaccine, just like Tamiflu, supposedly prevents pneumonia and other serious problems for those who are old or sick. Cochrane had grave doubts about this, however. They reviewed 90 flu vaccination studies and considered less than 10 percent of them decent science. Industry primarily funded the trials. Cochrane said:
    “Inactivated vaccines can reduce the proportion of healthy adults (including pregnant women) who have influenza and influenza-like-illness, but their impact is modest. We are uncertain about the effects of inactivated vaccines on working days lost or severe complications of influenza during the flu season.”

    Despite this, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends the vaccine for nearly everyone and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends it for vulnerable groups. Many hospitals shame nurses who refuse to get vaccinated into wearing surgical face masks, and a few even get fired. This is a $4 billion industry worldwide, and $1.6 billion is spent in the US.

  8. One of the biggest issues here is that the test for covid in any of its variations can’t be trusted and so numbers as small as these don’t differentiate success from failure for the vaccine. In cases where the disease is non-obvious (i.e. there are no objectively verifiable symptoms) you can’t tell the placebo effect from the vaccine effect without large numbers of test cases and we don’t have those yet.

    So my bet is: 1 – these vaccines are no more effective, and no more dangerous, than regular flu shots; and, 2 – the choice on getting or not getting the shot will, for most, be more influenced by social perception than medical reality.

  9. Now that the FDA will allow hydroxychloroquine because “Orange Man Gone”, I think we can blow off anything they say in the future. Lies, lies and more lies.

    ALL vaccines and medications create more adverse events than the placebo. It’s a risk/reward assessment. There zero drugs and few herbal preparations that do not have side effects (the herbals just pretend these things don’t happen). That’s life.

    The vaccine is really not for the rational people. It’s for the Karens. It’s for the insane parents that wrap themselves and their kids in plastic before leaving the house (yes, that was reported with pictures). It’s for the Cowardly Lions. When you consider that the vaccine might make these people less vicious in public, it could be worth it.

    I personally would not take the vaccine due to my drug reactions and the insane speed it was developed with (again, all political). Plus, you still have to wear a mask and socially distance and there will be shut downs and maybe no school and….remind me again why we have a worthless vaccine. I’m starting to believe the conspiracy kooks that there’s a little “extra” in the vaccine. That I would even consider this is frightening, but the evidence is heading in that direction.

  10. Paul Murphy–agree. “So my bet is: 1 – these vaccines are no more effective, and no more dangerous, than regular flu shots; and, 2 – the choice on getting or not getting the shot will, for most, be more influenced by social perception than medical reality.”

    One implication: Democrats will strongly favor and consider safe and patriotic. Republicans will resist and consider it risky as well as an example of virtue signaling.

  11. The results, thus far, are negligible, and in line with other safe vaccines.

    The unknowns you mentioned WRT longer-term AE and efficacy are unknown (Duh.).

    And the do I/don’t I question is and should be, indeed, left to individual choice.

    No one healthy and under 40 should even consider it, unless they are in a high-risk profession.
    But if this is even partially successful at eliminating the risk of death to the most susceptible, it eliminates all argument in favor of all the draconian bullcrap measures instituted to date, permanently, and turns this into something far less than seasonal flu for anybody vaccinated, and a risk more akin to dying from lightning strike or rattlesnake bite.

    For now.

    Which is still a win.

  12. Just a random thought here – In Seattle, the drug users have overtaken parks and other places. Do you think the liberal leftists would use similar covid restrictions to round them up in the name of “saving one life”!!!!

    I doubt the courts would permit that, but yet the same courts seem to believe we possess no constitutional rights to the First Amendment in the face of this spamdemic.

  13. Briggs:

    I would like to have your opinion on another point, in connection with these published results. After having taken the vaccine only 1 or 2 % or even less got the diseas (I mean, those in the placebo groups): if this is a measure of the risk of catching the doom, that low, then what is the use of the vaccine? If it is worth then all of us should lock ourselves at home becaus the risk of having an accident when walking the streets is higher…
    By the way: the data re vaccine tests were collected in several parts of the world; but the “Danish study” on the use of masks has a similar result: with or without mask, the number of infected people at the end of one month of observations was in the same range. So, if this is a measure of the risk, with such a low risk why use masks?

    Or is there something wrong in my reasoning?

  14. Less than a year ago, the consensus was that mRNA technology was too dangerous for human use, with many pharmaceutical companies having abandoned mRNA research altogether, and no mRNA drugs had ever been approved for human use despite 3 decades of various research. Yet now we’re supposed to believe that in less than a year, for an allegedly “novel coronavirus,” two companies have come up with viable mRNA vaccines fit for immediate human use, and that we shouldn’t be concerned about long-term side effects of this technology being rushed through (such concerns are only for “conspiracy theorists” we’re told!), and the fact that these drug companies – given legal product liability immunity by governments – are effectively using government power and manufactured panic over a flu-like virus with an IFR in the .1-.2% range to suborn million into serving as guinea pigs in their drug experiment?

    The whole process, the whole system (government and otherwise), as with everything about Covid, stinks to high heavens.

    This coronavirus is simply not dangerous or deadly enough for the vast majority of people for it to be worth the risk of taking a highly experimental “vaccine” (really mRNA is not a true vaccine but a transfection agent) that doesn’t even keep you form getting it, but supposedly just lessens symptoms (though most people who come into contact with the virus have little to no symptoms to begin with!). I’ll just take some vitamin C & D and Zinc and trust my immune system for such a routine flu-like virus, rather than subject myself to this medical experimentation – the main purpose of which is to further enrich Big Pharma and the oligarchs, while aiding and abetting growing government tyranny as well.

  15. The FDA and Pfizer are LYING. They have always lied. They lie all the time. It is their modus operandi to lie. They have no incentive to tell the truth and every incentive to lie.

    The entire COVID scare is a lie. So is global warming. So are fair elections. So are every advertisement you have been bombarded with since the day you were born. So is every government pronouncement. In school, your teachers lied to you. Sorry to break the news.

    The complete absence of truth-telling by these characters throughout history is a very good reason to disbelieve anything and everything any government or corporation tells you.

    Admittedly, there are many instances of professional liars making contradictory and mutually exclusive claims so as to cover all bases. It is A, not B, and then in the next breath it is B, not A. In those cases at least one claim is a lie, though sometimes both. Pathological liars cannot help but lie. Even when the truth is plain and would be easy to state, they still lie.

    You can get a shot if you want to. You may be forced to get one. But it won’t provide you with health, because that is a lie. You can base your entire life on lies. Many people do. The truth will set you free, but is that something you really want? Can you handle the truth?

  16. I’m 90.7, my wife 85.4 with comorbidities, so we’re in high risk groups. At this stage it seems there are so many unknowns that I’m not sure whether we should keep isolated (from family, Mass, stores) or get the vaccine. And there is the fact that both Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a cell line, HEK293, from an aborted baby. (Although this is only in testing, not development or production.)

  17. Eternal cell lines, aka cancerous tumor seeds. No thanks and I betcha my “immunization card” looks great.

  18. The AMA’s newly revised stance on HCQ is clear evidence this entire hysteria was an op.

    It is also possibly helpful in reducing the huge momentum that was clearly building behind the, “vax, tag, and track,” movement.

  19. As an aside, it seems the WHO is catching on to the too-high cycle-threshold problems with PCR tests.

    https://www.who.int/news/item/14-12-2020-who-information-notice-for-ivd-users

    ” The design principle of RT-PCR means that for patients with high levels of circulating virus (viral load), relatively few cycles will be needed to detect virus and so the Ct value will be low. Conversely, when specimens return a high Ct value, it means that many cycles were required to detect virus. In some circumstances, the distinction between background noise and actual presence of the target virus is difficult to ascertain. ”

    Is the pandemic just “background noise”?

  20. Re: negative effects in the placebo group.

    It is my understanding that the placebo is often NOT something like saline solution or distilled water, but is EVERYTHING IN THE VACCINE except the active ingredient purposed to induce a immune reaction.

    Thus, one is fully exposed to adjuvants, strerilants, preservatives etc present in the real thing. This has been the approach with vaccines and other injectables previously, as attempts by big pharma and conspirators CDC/FDA so on to soften the perception of danger with said injectables.

    Now, we do know that PCR is NOT a test, but a manufacturing technique, right? Kary Mullis, inventor of the process was most emphatic that it COULD NOT be regarded as a testing technique, and just as emphatic in at least one interview that fauci was a know-nothing fraud, years ago (2016)

  21. @PaulH I think its safe to say that it isn’t background noise. I pulled total mortality data for the U.S. by week and age group for the last 7 years. I subtracted each week’s total deaths from the mean of the previous seven years, adjusted for population from this year’s number. It’s quite clear that there have been a very large number, greater than 300,000, “excess deaths” through week 44 (I discarded the last three weeks for the reasons Dr. Briggs has mentioned) of 2020.

    I also separated the data into age groups and found, for the year 2020, through week 44, the following: in the 25-44 group, 30 “excess deaths”/100,000 population; for 45-64, 77 “excess deaths”/100,000 population; for 65-74, 251 “excess deaths” per 100,000 population; and for 75-84, 673 “excess deaths”/100,000 population. There was data for under 25 and 85 and above but I didn’t bother. As has been clear from the outset, the “elderly” population (scare quotes because I’m 66 and consider myself decades from being elderly) is much more likely to suffer “excess deaths” than the younger cohorts. Now, these numbers include all reported deaths, regardless of cause and so it’s certainly (well, almost certainly) the case that they aren’t all Covid-19 deaths. Still, the numbers are dispositive with respect to there being something much more significant than background noise.

  22. “Is the pandemic just ‘background noise?’”

    For the most part, since at least June at the latest. Purely a PCR test-induced pseudo-epidemic at this point. Entirely manufactured and manipulated by insane mass testing regime designed to keep people in lockdown/shutdown and permanently fearful and muzzled.

    Alleged excess deaths are statistically insignificant when compared overall annual mortality of previous years given the US and world populations, and many of those are not actually deaths from Covid but merely with, or are other respiratory illnesses thrown into catch-all categories like CLI, ILI, and PLI that media and others are all calling “Covid” now, or are “collateral” deaths caused by the overblown and insane reaction to Covid (such as missed diagnoses for things like cancer due to people not being able to get screenings and treatments for months. Deaths from heart attacks and strokes that could have been prevented with swift treatment, especially early on because people were made to feel going to the hospital or calling EMS was more dangerous because of Covid than sitting at home and just trying to ride out a probable stroke or heart attack. There have already been upticks in suicides, and we can expect many more as governments continue to pursue tyrannical and murderous policies whose only outcome is destroy what remains of many small businesses and the owners, workers, and families who rely on them). Every politician or other government official instituting or enforcing lockdowns/shutdowns is a perpetrator of crimes against humanity who deserves the absolute worst pain and punishment that can possibly be meted out – both here on earth and for all eternity.

  23. Dennis: ”Every politician or other government official instituting or enforcing lockdowns/shutdowns is a perpetrator of crimes against humanity who deserves the absolute worst pain and punishment that can possibly be meted out – both here on earth and for all eternity.”

    That’s some tasty home cooking. Let’s have seconds:

    ”Every politician or other government official instituting or enforcing lockdowns/shutdowns is a perpetrator of crimes against humanity who deserves the absolute worst pain and punishment that can possibly be meted out – both here on earth and for all eternity.”

    Man, you’re a good chef. Let’s have dessert:

    ”Every politician or other government official instituting or enforcing lockdowns/shutdowns is a perpetrator of crimes against humanity who deserves the absolute worst pain and punishment that can possibly be meted out – both here on earth and for all eternity.”

    Hoo-boy— that goes down easy. Let’s have a snifter of Old Grand Dad:

    ”Every politician or other government official instituting or enforcing lockdowns/shutdowns is a perpetrator of crimes against humanity who deserves the absolute worst pain and punishment that can possibly be meted out – both here on earth and for all eternity.”

    Hey, let’s have some cigars and port —

    ”Every politician or other government official instituting or enforcing lockdowns/shutdowns is a perpetrator of crimes against humanity who deserves the absolute worst pain and punishment that can possibly be meted out – both here on earth and for all eternity.”

    Oh yeah. Great evening Dennis, thanks.

  24. @Dennis There’s no doubt that both the level of testing and the criteria for declaring tested individuals to be “cases” is completely out of control, and it’s true that “excess deaths” peaked in mid-April with decreasing levels of peaks from the oldest through the youngest cohorts that I looked at. For all ages groups other than 25-64, there was a marked second peak in late August. And, most recently, for the 65-74 and 75-84 groups, there has been a third peak (albeit, not as large) in early November.

    What the media is declaring to be record levels of cases, hospitalizations, intensive care bed shortages, and deaths in the most recent two weeks can’t be evaluated yet due to the lag repeatedly mentioned by Dr. Briggs and that is obvious from the data. But you would need to provide evidence that the August and November peaks were, completely or primarily, due to the list of other causes you provided. As to “statistically insignificant,” I assume that you’re referring to Dr. Briggs’ assertion that, no matter your age, you’re 10 times more likely to die of something other than Covid-19 than from the virus, and that’s true. Whatever the cause though, it’s significant to the over 300,000 and those who loved them.

    With all of that said, I agree that shutdowns and lockdowns are much more destructive than constructive. Still, your (and Dean’s) extreme contention regarding crimes against humanity and eternal punishment is far, far over the top. While I agree that officials have ignored facts and far exceeded any reasonable interpretation of their legal authority, to infer that their only motivation is to keep people permanently fearful and muzzled is several bridges too far. I don’t like making assumptions about the internal mental processes of others, but, in many cases they are hypocritical and happy to exert powers that they don’t have. Even though I don’t LIKE making assumptions, were I to do so, I’d think that most of them think they “doing God’s work.”

  25. “Whatever the cause though, it’s significant to the over 300,000 and those who loved them.”

    The same could be said about all deaths any year from anything. That’s life. But in a country of 330 million, where 250k people die of a variety of things each month, a claimed 300k dead over the course of a year from one particular cause (which doesn’t even rank it among the top 10 causes of death for the year) is not particularly significant. Especially since there is reason to believe that the alleged numbers of people who truly died of Covid have been exaggerated, and many of those being lumped into that 300k “Covid deaths” would have died of their underlying conditions, old age, or other things, or a combo (perhaps ordinary flu, of which there about 60-80,000 every year, and which has magically disappeared from the counting this year), with or without Covid.

    I think you’re being too kind about the alleged motivations of many politicians (to say nothing of people like Gates and his and other billionaire “Philanthropy” buddies trying to “Reset” the world to suit their agenda, Big Pharma, WHO, CDC, officials like Fauci with financial conflicts of interests up the wazoo, etc.) especially now if not at first in March-April when much was still unknown. So yes, I believe the actions of politicians and health officials is downright criminal at this point, because we have more than enough data now, 10 months into this nonsense (though it’s been obvious for many months) to prove their initial responses were wrongheaded and more destructive in many ways than the virus itself, and yet they keep doubling-down on those insanely socially (in all senses – mental health, liberty, education, culture, etc.), financially, and economically destructive policies.

    People get sick, people die, that’s life. But the ongoing demand from politicians and supposed health policy “experts” that everyone else be prevented from living normal lives, from leaving the house without a muzzle on, from dining out, going to concerts, simply interacting in general (unless you’re at an approved “mostly peaceful” protest riot), etc., because some people somewhere might be more vulnerable than some others to a particular flu-like virus, is utter madness. If one feels particularly paranoid or vulnerable, by all means stay home, wear a muzzle if it makes you feel better, or take a highly experimental mRNA vaccine with unknown long-term effects – but they need to stop demanding that normal life come to a halt and all life everyone else in the world act like paranoid hypochondriacs afraid to breather in the open air because of a virus 99.9% of people survive contact with.

    “Even though I don’t LIKE making assumptions, were I to do so, I’d think that most of them think they “doing God’s work.” – If so, that is perhaps the most dangerous and hubristic delusion any politician – especially modern politicians chosen by glorified popularity contests – can make about his policies.

  26. The FDA and Pfizer are LYING

    Dear Uncle Mike. Pizer (and other Big Pharm firms) are FDA.

  27. @ bigly,

    “Now, we do know that PCR is NOT a test, but a manufacturing technique, right?”

    Wrong. You’re repeating a false claim. I quote from FullFact.org:

    “He [Kary Mullis] didn’t say PCR testing couldn’t be used for testing for any diseases, as some social media posts claim. Confusion seems to have arisen from quotes of his in a 1996 article about HIV and AIDS. In this, neither the author of the article, nor Dr Mullis said PCR testing does not work or only identifies the DNA or RNA of the person being tested.

    The author actually quotes Dr Mullis as saying “Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron” within the context of testing viral load (the amount of virus present) in people with HIV. This doesn’t mean he thought PCR testing didn’t work at all, but that there are limitations in detecting the specific levels of a virus from a sample using PCR testing.

    Fact checkers at Australian Associated Press say that when the quotes about PCR testing picking up the DNA of the person being tested first appeared online, they were “not attributed to Dr Mullis but to an online commenter called “VirusGuy””.”

  28. @ Sheri,

    “The vaccine is really not for the rational people. It’s for the Karens.”

    And they say Americans can’t do irony.

  29. swordfishtrombone

    Lol! FAct-checkas!

    Put your microscope on the first sentence – “He [Kary Mullis] didn’t say PCR testing couldn’t be used for testing for any diseases, as some social media posts claim. ”

    So the fact-check is as usual addressing a straw-man, not the actual arguments being made that PCR tests are shit for discovering viruses. Especially when you have to over-cycle them to absurd degrees.

    There’s a sucker born every minute, and these ones subscribe to the social media-approved fact checkas, cashing in on their gullibility every minute with helpful grants from the pharmaceutical industry, as disclosed on their funding pages.

    Little wonder they fail to read between the liens and fall for every carefully worded statements by political hacks and public relations departments.

  30. @ Johno,

    “So the fact-check is as usual addressing a straw-man, …”

    No, it’s addressing the exact claim made by @ bigly.

  31. @swordfishtrombone

    You could GO TO THE SOURCE instead of a third party “fact checker”; that is if you WERE TRULY INTERESTED in ascertaining veracity.

    PCR is a manufacturing technique – that is precisely WHY it is used; to MANUFACTURE false claims of infection when none exist. It seems that the WHO has dialed back permissible manufacturing cycles to stave off recognition that PCR IS NOT A VALID TESTING TECHNIQUE, and never was.

    Pleased to set you straight.

  32. >Data about effect of pregnancies is incomplete, thought I read elsewhere a handful of vaccinated women later became pregnant.

    Hmmmmmm

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