Regarding the steelmanning of mandates, the goalpost shifted to include "reducing severe disease = freeing up overburdened hospital resources". Tenuous at best and a major slippery slope, but many mandate supporters did not hesitate to go here once the transmission case became weak.
Bravo, Joomi! The timeline undeniably shows how health policies have been completely unmoored from any justifiable reasoning. This will be a useful reference for so many of us speaking out against nonsensical health policies. Speaking of nonsense, would you please briefly explain why Ct values of PCR tests as proxies for viral load are problematic?
The explanation is long- but the reality of the rtPCR is that 1-it was never designed to quantify anything - only to reproduce copies of a protein of research interest and 2 - is not capable of "finding" anything novel, since the machine must be primed with a sample which has been verified by secondary and reliable means, e.g. a cultured bacteria can be a primer for finding evidence of the same bacteria in samples taken from sick persons and 3- the CT numbers used for public health case counts seemed designed only to create an epidemic out of thin air: anything over 17-20 is like a scene out of the sorcerer's apprentice: water water everywhere, but no way to count bucket quantities nor to determine which bucket was the real one. And since we're talking about disconnected nucleotides and not organized proteins once they're washed with the process reagents, making tons of copies is never the same as making the protein sequence of interest. That reconstruction is done by computer program, set for a sequence *posited* by a computer program in absence of actual human samples of the SARS-COV-2. In truth, all viruses are not able to be directly cultured like bacteria- they are always considered isolated by virtue of a more dubious process and so the primers are created by software.
Two additional things are notable:
1- the Wuhan ground zero cases did not all present with the virus as per PCR and 2- we know from history that rtPCR can throw 100% false positive results. Dartmouth Medical can tell you all about their false pertussis panic of - I think - 2007? 2017?
In a recent interview, the former head of Pfizer vaxx r&d said that one of the reasons mRNA tech was preferred was that they believed you could boost with it over and over without people becoming sensitized to the platform components. So they planned for boosters from the start.
Waning efficacy (or none at all) was then a desired feature as a highly effective single dose would have meant forgoing the profit from repeated rounds of boosters. All that was necessary was to ensure that sales would continue to be made for new rounds of boosters despite real world evidence of failure. Fauci, Walensky and Biden were just presenting the marketing line to clinch the sales. After all, the CDC was getting their vaccine info from the PR firm for Pfizer.
Once we dispose of the idea that there was ever any concern about the actual efficacy of the product or potential harmful side effects, everything makes sense. The worse it worked, the easier it was to push for more rounds of boosters. As long as the negative side effects present themselves after some time delay, they are unlikely to harm sales. More covid cases makes great copy for the press as they prep people for each round of boosters. Negative efficacy after a reasonable delay is actually quite a profit driver!
This whole thing worked so well that there is never a reason to bring out an effective (or safe) vaccine ever again, if there even is such a thing.
"Prevention of infection is not a criterion for success for any of these vaccines. In fact, their endpoints all require confirmed infections and all those they will include in the analysis for success, the only difference being the severity of symptoms between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Measuring differences amongst only those infected by SARS-CoV-2 underscores the implicit conclusion that the vaccines are not expected to prevent infection, only modify symptoms of those infected."
Thank you Joomi! I really enjoy the thorough timeline with studies to match the policy time points to get a “what did we know and when did we know it?” to illustrate when scientists in public health who were actually supposed to be testing hypotheses could have (and needed to!!!!) act like scientist and adjust the message and policy. The UK Health Service Agency Covid-19 surveillance reports also show these same trends. The even more rapid drop in efficacy of boosters vs original 2-shot immunization course is pretty stunning.
"One could bring up the fact that vaccine efficacy against severe disease or death held up better than efficacy against infection or high viral loads. But arguably that was a private benefit, and the fact that vaccinated people could get infected and spread the virus meant that its public benefit was severely limited."
In countries with public healthcare systems (such as mine), this argument could be further steel-manned (and it was), in that it's also in the public interest that less people become a burden on the ("already overstretched") healthcare system by virtue of getting vaccinated against covid.
To push against that, blanket mandates (e.g. even for the young or the naturally immune) still didn't make much sense.
Yes I mention that in a footnote somewhere- I can understand that argument more at the beginning of the pandemic, but by fall of 2021 I doesn't make sense anymore because there's been plenty of time to ramp up hospital capacity...
As a tactical narrative, accepting the fraudulent early claims ('studies') as valid, in order to show decreasing efficacy, is not very useful. This is because it is open to the counterargument: "that just proves we need new boosters tuned to new variants."
I can believe the vaccine trial results were fraudulent but I don't think all the studies showing lower viral load after vaccination were fraudulent (though I don't think the kind of response in the nose/lungs from the vaccines is the same as from infection. It's not as "good" of a response)
"I hope this era of lunacy gets reflected accurately in the history books. Hopefully this timeline makes it easier for that to happen." I hope so too, but since there are still millions of people thinking that the right answer to the question "How many skyscrapers collapsed completely on 9/11?" is "2!", and that there are no Neo-Nazis in Ukraine (Omnibus spending bill of 2018, page 363, Section 8129 "None of the funds made available by this limitation on the duration of such Act may be used to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.", Ro Khana "I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the U.S. from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine."(https://thehill.com/policy/defense/380483-congress-bans-arms-to-controversial-ukrainian-militia-linked-to-neo-nazis/), long list of articles on Neo-Nazis in Ukraine in all kinds of media outlets including such as BBC, CNN, etc... https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/04/azovreplist.html), it is more likely, that this era of lunacy has just started.
Agree. I'll write more about the PCR tests specifically at some point. But even while playing along with how PCR tests are used it's still clear that health officials were nonsensical
I'm late to seeing this article but thank you for laying out such a clear timeline. I have a pending BC Human Rights Tribunal case against my employer and your work is invaluable to showing that prevention of transmission was a lie from the start.
Amazing timeline, thank you. 👍🏽👏 I remember those outbreaks and studies when Delta was emerging in the summer of 2021. Then Biden mandated the vaccine, it was nonsensical.
Thank you for assembling the studies and public pronouncements into this clear timeline. It brilliantly highlights Mr. Biden's absurd vaccine mandates for private employers in November of last year. It also makes me 100% dubious of everything Walensky says to the public.
More quickly dropping viral loads in the vaccinated post infection would be useful if we knew that one day soon SARS-COV-2 would vanish entirely. But, sadly we're beyond hope of that. The virus is long term endemic now. We're all going to encounter it multiple times. Reducing viral loads more quickly post infection doesn't do much for the population if we cannot get rid of it entirely.
The people who did this need to feel the pain. Anyone coerced to get the vaccine by threat of loss of employment or other restriction should be able to charge all of their health expenses that might (Probability > 10%) be covid or covid vaccine related to the entity that coerced them. Rough numbers for every 1000 vaccinated individuals there are 5.8 Severe Adverse Events, 3 excess deaths / year (so far) to save 1-2 lives that would otherwise be taken by Covid.
Regarding the steelmanning of mandates, the goalpost shifted to include "reducing severe disease = freeing up overburdened hospital resources". Tenuous at best and a major slippery slope, but many mandate supporters did not hesitate to go here once the transmission case became weak.
Big time kudos and thanks.. timelines are so helpful & this such a beautifully referenced resource!
Bravo, Joomi! The timeline undeniably shows how health policies have been completely unmoored from any justifiable reasoning. This will be a useful reference for so many of us speaking out against nonsensical health policies. Speaking of nonsense, would you please briefly explain why Ct values of PCR tests as proxies for viral load are problematic?
I think this deserves its own article. I'll try to write one up about that at some point.
The explanation is long- but the reality of the rtPCR is that 1-it was never designed to quantify anything - only to reproduce copies of a protein of research interest and 2 - is not capable of "finding" anything novel, since the machine must be primed with a sample which has been verified by secondary and reliable means, e.g. a cultured bacteria can be a primer for finding evidence of the same bacteria in samples taken from sick persons and 3- the CT numbers used for public health case counts seemed designed only to create an epidemic out of thin air: anything over 17-20 is like a scene out of the sorcerer's apprentice: water water everywhere, but no way to count bucket quantities nor to determine which bucket was the real one. And since we're talking about disconnected nucleotides and not organized proteins once they're washed with the process reagents, making tons of copies is never the same as making the protein sequence of interest. That reconstruction is done by computer program, set for a sequence *posited* by a computer program in absence of actual human samples of the SARS-COV-2. In truth, all viruses are not able to be directly cultured like bacteria- they are always considered isolated by virtue of a more dubious process and so the primers are created by software.
Two additional things are notable:
1- the Wuhan ground zero cases did not all present with the virus as per PCR and 2- we know from history that rtPCR can throw 100% false positive results. Dartmouth Medical can tell you all about their false pertussis panic of - I think - 2007? 2017?
In a recent interview, the former head of Pfizer vaxx r&d said that one of the reasons mRNA tech was preferred was that they believed you could boost with it over and over without people becoming sensitized to the platform components. So they planned for boosters from the start.
Waning efficacy (or none at all) was then a desired feature as a highly effective single dose would have meant forgoing the profit from repeated rounds of boosters. All that was necessary was to ensure that sales would continue to be made for new rounds of boosters despite real world evidence of failure. Fauci, Walensky and Biden were just presenting the marketing line to clinch the sales. After all, the CDC was getting their vaccine info from the PR firm for Pfizer.
Once we dispose of the idea that there was ever any concern about the actual efficacy of the product or potential harmful side effects, everything makes sense. The worse it worked, the easier it was to push for more rounds of boosters. As long as the negative side effects present themselves after some time delay, they are unlikely to harm sales. More covid cases makes great copy for the press as they prep people for each round of boosters. Negative efficacy after a reasonable delay is actually quite a profit driver!
This whole thing worked so well that there is never a reason to bring out an effective (or safe) vaccine ever again, if there even is such a thing.
Discussion of the interview here:
https://flccc.substack.com/p/we-flew-the-airplane-while-we-were
In Sept. 2020, Forbes explained that the pending vaccines were not expected to prevent infection. That was not the criterion for success being tested.
https://sagehana.substack.com/p/reminder-in-september-2020-forbes
-----
"Prevention of infection is not a criterion for success for any of these vaccines. In fact, their endpoints all require confirmed infections and all those they will include in the analysis for success, the only difference being the severity of symptoms between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Measuring differences amongst only those infected by SARS-CoV-2 underscores the implicit conclusion that the vaccines are not expected to prevent infection, only modify symptoms of those infected."
Nicely done!
Thank you Joomi! I really enjoy the thorough timeline with studies to match the policy time points to get a “what did we know and when did we know it?” to illustrate when scientists in public health who were actually supposed to be testing hypotheses could have (and needed to!!!!) act like scientist and adjust the message and policy. The UK Health Service Agency Covid-19 surveillance reports also show these same trends. The even more rapid drop in efficacy of boosters vs original 2-shot immunization course is pretty stunning.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1115385/Vaccine_surveillance_report___week-44.pdf
Thank you for this excellent post Joomi! 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
"One could bring up the fact that vaccine efficacy against severe disease or death held up better than efficacy against infection or high viral loads. But arguably that was a private benefit, and the fact that vaccinated people could get infected and spread the virus meant that its public benefit was severely limited."
In countries with public healthcare systems (such as mine), this argument could be further steel-manned (and it was), in that it's also in the public interest that less people become a burden on the ("already overstretched") healthcare system by virtue of getting vaccinated against covid.
To push against that, blanket mandates (e.g. even for the young or the naturally immune) still didn't make much sense.
Yes I mention that in a footnote somewhere- I can understand that argument more at the beginning of the pandemic, but by fall of 2021 I doesn't make sense anymore because there's been plenty of time to ramp up hospital capacity...
I appreciate the references.
As a tactical narrative, accepting the fraudulent early claims ('studies') as valid, in order to show decreasing efficacy, is not very useful. This is because it is open to the counterargument: "that just proves we need new boosters tuned to new variants."
I can believe the vaccine trial results were fraudulent but I don't think all the studies showing lower viral load after vaccination were fraudulent (though I don't think the kind of response in the nose/lungs from the vaccines is the same as from infection. It's not as "good" of a response)
"I hope this era of lunacy gets reflected accurately in the history books. Hopefully this timeline makes it easier for that to happen." I hope so too, but since there are still millions of people thinking that the right answer to the question "How many skyscrapers collapsed completely on 9/11?" is "2!", and that there are no Neo-Nazis in Ukraine (Omnibus spending bill of 2018, page 363, Section 8129 "None of the funds made available by this limitation on the duration of such Act may be used to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.", Ro Khana "I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the U.S. from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine."(https://thehill.com/policy/defense/380483-congress-bans-arms-to-controversial-ukrainian-militia-linked-to-neo-nazis/), long list of articles on Neo-Nazis in Ukraine in all kinds of media outlets including such as BBC, CNN, etc... https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/04/azovreplist.html), it is more likely, that this era of lunacy has just started.
it's all a giant scam. PCR cannot detect infectiousness.
Agree. I'll write more about the PCR tests specifically at some point. But even while playing along with how PCR tests are used it's still clear that health officials were nonsensical
I'm late to seeing this article but thank you for laying out such a clear timeline. I have a pending BC Human Rights Tribunal case against my employer and your work is invaluable to showing that prevention of transmission was a lie from the start.
Amazing timeline, thank you. 👍🏽👏 I remember those outbreaks and studies when Delta was emerging in the summer of 2021. Then Biden mandated the vaccine, it was nonsensical.
Thank you for assembling the studies and public pronouncements into this clear timeline. It brilliantly highlights Mr. Biden's absurd vaccine mandates for private employers in November of last year. It also makes me 100% dubious of everything Walensky says to the public.
More quickly dropping viral loads in the vaccinated post infection would be useful if we knew that one day soon SARS-COV-2 would vanish entirely. But, sadly we're beyond hope of that. The virus is long term endemic now. We're all going to encounter it multiple times. Reducing viral loads more quickly post infection doesn't do much for the population if we cannot get rid of it entirely.
The people who did this need to feel the pain. Anyone coerced to get the vaccine by threat of loss of employment or other restriction should be able to charge all of their health expenses that might (Probability > 10%) be covid or covid vaccine related to the entity that coerced them. Rough numbers for every 1000 vaccinated individuals there are 5.8 Severe Adverse Events, 3 excess deaths / year (so far) to save 1-2 lives that would otherwise be taken by Covid.