Addled pandemic reflexes

We continue to use the increasingly controversial PCR test as an ‘absolute’ even to assert this relatively tame caseload – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara   Wednesday, 16 December 2020

If you were a ‘flat Earther’ and were presented with Copernican findings and later those of Galileo, the paradigm shift, even after the theological furore, would be some time in coming. Beliefs establish grooves, and finding our way to fresh grooves, even when evidence is clearly paving the way, isn’t always easy.

Ayurveda and vaccines 

It seems after the official prevailing narrative that we had sent COVID-19 scampering into the foothills of history once and for all, hasn’t quite held up, in sheer frustration and exasperation, there have been attempts to placate forces perhaps more encompassing than medical testimony. Deities have been addressed, personal sacrifices offered, and now a controversial Ayurvedic practitioner with an offering that had throngs in Kegalle flouting C-19 prudence to seek immunity.

I have no particular view of the merits of the treatment, as I have no information about it, and certainly when placebos are what we test ‘medicine’ against and clearly people are everyday ‘cured’ by placebos (though clearly less so than by sound medicine by some margin), it shows our understanding of immunity and health is far from complete. 

More baffling is the panicked surge to get this ‘treatment.’ It is hard not to empathise with Galileo pleading with people to stop debating and just to ‘look’ through the telescope. 

At considerably less than 1% population prevalence (30,613 cases as of 11 December, a far cry even from the 210,000 considered globally ‘low’) and with clearly ‘enchanted’ death certificates (whereby encephalitis, brain bleeds, multiple chronic illnesses, heart attacks and more with the mere PCR asserted ‘incidence’ of C-19 propels it to a ‘COVID mortality’ – even though our officials have said very few are really dying from the pathogen itself) that still has us, mercifully, at 152 deaths. 

To create such horror, such emotional tremors, such paralysis off such statistics, is baffling, and it is remarkable. By any credible, objective scale, for Sri Lanka, with 12,000 monthly deaths, literally ‘nothing’ is really happening.

And we continue to use the increasingly controversial PCR test as an ‘absolute’ even to assert this relatively tame caseload! More on this continuingly contentious debacle below.

Onto vaccines. The current Pfizer vaccine and its kin have been rushed through again based on an asserted ‘plague’ that does not have anything akin to plague lethality (50 million deaths were the case for the 1918 Spanish flu with one third of a much smaller population infected, two to four million deaths for the Asian and Hong Kong flus, much smaller population, and much more lethal for the young affecting many more life years as well as full-fledged lives).

So, it is uncertain what is driving the mania but the mania itself plus the ‘panic porn’ case numbers flashing (which aren’t even cases, but ‘positive test results’ from testing regimes that are increasingly being challenged in terms of medical integrity, artificially high amplification settings, inevitable false positives when prevalence gets lower as it has worldwide). But hey, why mess with a good horror story?

The Pfizer vaccine claims a 95% accuracy rating. When you look under the proverbial hood, you find there was a sample population of 44,000 people, half receiving the vaccine, and half getting a placebo. In being exposed to C-19, 170 actually got infected. That should have been the headline! 

However, of the 170, 162 were from the placebo group, and 8 from the vaccine group. Insofar as the vaccine ‘saved’ 154 from being infected, there is the alleged ‘95%’ efficacy – based on multi-variant outcome from less than 0.4% of those involved! Nor are we even told the basis for the 170 ‘diagnosis’.

There are other issues, animal trials which are core to vaccine development having been bypassed, we have four people in the US trial with ‘partial facial paralysis’ and warnings for anyone prone to allergic reactions (from results in the UK) to not receive the vaccine. As of now, we don’t know how the vaccine works, bordering on recommendations against taking it, for: people under 16, pregnant women or those intending to become pregnant, people with serious comorbidities, those taking other medications, and those with allergies…which is already a potentially wide exclusionary group.

We should wish the vaccine well, but keep in mind we are talking about an untested ‘cure’ for something that 999 out of 1,000 globally recover from anyway! So, the manic panic seems mystifying to say the least!

Addled bits and bats

• Two C-19 vaccine companies have now additionally suffered major clinical setbacks. CLS has abruptly discontinued their program. Sanofi as well. This is actually ‘good news’ as it means a clinical trial process is underway. In sharp contrast is the White House where we read the FDC was ‘ordered’ to approve the Pfizer vaccine, which if true, is a chilling intrusion into and abuse of the oversight process.
  
   
• The US ‘excess deaths’ drum roll has been heightened by numerous imprecise media outlets. Though year to date CDC has always projected, increasing mortality, in part as population grows, for reasons not explained for 2020 they set a threshold 2.3% below 2019. So, for example, through week 46 (14 November, awaiting subsequent data), deaths are 9.3% above the 2020 threshold, but only 6.8% above the 2019 threshold, and if the 2020 threshold had been raised as has happened in years past, this would be at least halved, and some of the ‘excess’ is likely exacerbated by ‘lockdown’ impacts as well as collateral impact from deferred or denied medical care outside of COVID-19. If this holds, a 6.8% or more likely 3.4% actual difference is not breaking world news on an annualised basis.
  
   
• The US COVID ‘hotspots’ with resurgences and fresh medically sanctimonious shutdowns of personal liberties have stunningly high ‘mask compliance’ stats in their major metro areas which perplexes the orthodoxy: San Francisco, New York and DC at 97%, Miami and Philadelphia at 96%, Chicago at 95%. Florida has better results than all of them.
  
   
• Panic is being proliferated with blatant imprecision. Dr. Fauci, the ‘face’ of COVID response in the US indicated a 32-year-old close to him, the brother of his daughter’s girlfriend, died of COVID-19. Media splashed this painful news without the merest fact check. Upon review, this 32-year-old had numerous complications, including an ‘enlarged heart’ (no, NOT a Covid symptom!). He tested ‘negative’ for C-19 and passed away back in July! So, what relevance and meaning is there to Fauci’s declaration at this time? Kary Mullis, the founder of the PCR Test, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, had argued continuously that PCR is ‘not’ for diagnosis. In fact he was at loggerheads with Dr. Fauci who he accused of trying to magnify the retrovirus HIV using PCR to ‘prove’ it was the cause of AIDS. He offered debates to make the science of PCR clear, he was rebuffed.
  
   
• As the FDA guidance to have PCR amplification at 40 virtually ensures ‘false positives galore’ and ‘viral debris’ being trumpeted as a ‘live infection,’ Florida has now insisted every lab publish the Ct level (amplification) for each of their tests, which should not be higher as per expert consensus than 33 if seeking to identify real viral load or contagiousness.
• 100% False Positive Ratio found at Cambridge University last week. 1953 samples were received, 16 were reported as ‘void’. 9,453 actually contributed swabs. When returning for confirmatory tests, none were ‘true positives,’ 10 were ‘false positives’, 0 results outstanding. Certainly, a precarious viral testing basis on which to run a planet?
  
   
• Amazing results reported in recent Antigen trials for quick, fast (30 minutes), cheap testing that focuses on ‘contagiousness’ not ‘strands.’ Abbott PanBio Rapid Antigen Test: ZERO false positives reported (medical journal, Lancet, published study) for patients when Ct set sanely below 32, and 100% sensitive where CT set for 28 or below (which is the PCR testing equivalent for the most infectious). 50 cents to manufacture, sold for $7 in Germany. Ergo, urgently needs to be adopted as an alternative. As Harvard champion of these tests, Michael Mina says ‘If you’re still in the camp of thinking these tests are not accurate, it’s just not true. It is a misunderstanding from earlier studies that did not know how to evaluate these.’ The Lancet study again confirms 99% sensitivity for infectious virus and close to 100% specific.
  
   
• Austrian lawmaker, Michael Schnedlitz, a member of Austria’s National Council in a fiery speech on ‘medical tyranny’ administered a test on Coca-Cola which tested positive for C-19. Critics are disputing how he administered the test. That it has devolved to this level of discussion though, says enough.
  
   
• The Portuguese High Court as earlier reported has ruled that a PCR test is insufficient to demonstrate the presence of the ‘disease’ COVID-19 as opposed to the presence of ‘genetic material’ from SARS-CoV-2 which is not the same thing. Ergo, encroachment on people’s liberty on the basis of such ‘testing’ has been banned by them. Their rationale and reasoning, available online, are well worth the time.

 Pandemics present and past

WHO indicates, as referenced above, that both the Asian flu of 1957 and the Hong Kong flu of 1968 led to a global tally of around four million deaths each. These were less concentrated in the West, and so being sanguine came easier to media elites. Said ‘flus’ therefore targeted the young and so, as mentioned, were truly seismic, but only the branded ‘coronadoom’ has given rise to such unmitigated, relentless panic.

Whereas the 1918 Spanish flu had a devastating kill rate of between 1 to 2.8% of the entire world (!!), mask wearing was flirted with, then discarded as it didn’t help, no pervasive lockdowns were in evidence, people were ‘exposed’ to the healing impact of the outdoors and, yes, keeping some healthy distance from the ill. The first paper on the epidemic ‘uselessness’ of everyday cloth masks was penned all the way back in 1918 and has never been logically or scientifically refuted since. Nor however, it seems referenced properly!

At today’s trajectory through to next summer, by a combination of natural processes and perhaps judicious vaccination (we pray), the ‘panic’ may finally have been milked for all even the most extremely credulous can donate to it. If say, two million deaths are ‘ascribed’ to C-19 by then, with today’s population, that would be .0026% by comparison (Asian Flu even was about .03% to .1%). Painful, but not unprecedented.

In those earlier pandemics, 0-4-year olds died in larger numbers than over 60s consistently. Median age for COVID-19 deaths is 80.

And unlike today, no mask mandates, no threats to destroy livelihoods and starve those unwilling to be vaccinated, relatively little panic, no frigging penal lockdowns. Ergo, nothing in the numbers, or the ‘fact’ of the presence of a pandemic, requires us to cower in terror and destroy all the foundations of our economic and social vitality. The world actually achieved things and prospered during the last bouts.

This time, over 60% of business closures in the US are forecasted to be permanent, over 97,000 businesses catalogued as being ‘lost’ on no overwhelming evidence, no national debate, no attempt to mitigate…’ ordered’ bankruptcy, hard not to call it tyranny.

African American SME businesses have suffered even more acutely, nearly ‘half’ have been wiped out, based on a report in Forbes.

US unemployment hit 14.7% and highways have been jammed with thousands awaiting their turn at food banks. This is not caused ‘by’ COVID; it is caused by our response to it, our political and collective ineptitude.

According to the Financial Times in the UK, nearly 5% of the UK population went hungry in the first three weeks of ‘lockdown.’

Nearly 22% of Canadians experienced high anxiety (4X increase since ‘lockdowns’), depression doubled to 13%, and globally there has been a surge of opioid overdose and teen suicides.

We have done so much better as a human family when we’ve had to face so much worse. Forgot the damn paranoid ‘positive test’ flashing and look at local communities. Let’s allow ourselves to actually take in the pain, loss, anger, injustice, fear, sense of being deceived and divided. 

Time for Lanka at least to move on from the madness and lead!

So, time to pave 2021

Let us first stop calibrating everything via COVID.  This obnoxious pathogen is neither anywhere close to the primary source of mortality nor risk of mortality even if it went flooding through a society (Sweden has definitively shown that), and all the jurisdictions with multiple shutdowns and mask mandates are far from the global exemplars. Yes, to hygiene, yes to prudent distancing, yes to lots of fresh air and sunshine (not being locked inside), Vitamin D from sunshine and otherwise, symptom monitoring, hopefully soon proper access to Rapid Antigen testing when we have a cluster or a surge.

But that’s it. 99%+ recovery rate globally below 70. Above 70 folded in about, 95-96% recovery rates if not better, outside of nursing home or superspreader environments. So, that’s what we’re quaking over getting wrong? 

We were at Good Market, and slowly they’re getting more traffic, and these entrepreneurs with local sourcing are seeking to survive. And we ran into entrepreneurs from Jaffna, who pointed out that locals there are terrified if foreigners arrive, or even those from Colombo, as they have a shortage of ventilators in their ICU units. 

At lunch, the lady seating us said she tried to go with friends to Galle, and hotels cautiously asked, ‘Are you from Colombo?’ This is due to gibberish being put out by medically anointed special interest groups about the ‘Western Province’ carrying contamination to the rest of the island. And then we hear, there ‘may’ be additional restrictions over Christmas, because after all, other holidays and festivals had to be done indoors earlier in the year, so why not this one? And if Church services are allowed, why not have only one family member attend, and be a ‘spiritual shopper’ for bounties and blessings for the whole family! 

So, allow me to please to conclude by having a mild outburst at so much confusion, so closely compacted.

 

• Go to Good Market! Be careful, check temperature, keep your distance, all the prudent guidelines. But if those guidelines can’t keep us safe in an outdoor market, with plenty of space, then we don’t have functioning ‘guidelines’ and should get fresh ones! Actually, the guidelines are fine, we seem to think they are just a superstitious talisman, and the ‘COVID devil’ will still come and ‘bite us’ violating every known principle of transmissibility. And even if it somehow does, those 99% odds are in our favour remember?
  
   
• Re-educate the public to welcome everyone! Let everyone follow the guidelines! They are designed so those infected can interact with the rest of us, without spreading an illness, or being afflicted. But Jaffna needs visitors, so does Galle, and there are careful, well, healthy citizens and travellers, who have revenue to share, and in the context shared above, are no threat to anyone. 
  
   
• By the way, ventilators caused more deaths than saved lives, physicians now use them as a last resort. We now know they are too harsh, and oxygen masks are far better except in extreme cases. We have to also ensure our treatments have kept pace with our latest global experience here.
  
   
• The Western Province has barely, by any global standards, ‘cases’, some ‘positive test results’ with little actual illness or mortality. Saying ‘most’ come from here is simply because the Brandix cluster collided with fish market superspreader network, otherwise misleading rhetoric. No ongoing cluster multiplication or community exponential growth has been observed in any of the Provinces. 
  
   
• Suggesting what should happen this festive season based on what was construed ‘necessary’ last time is absurd, almost akin to saying, ‘If we were closed last Easter, why be open next Easter?’ We do not have a still growing trajectory of unknown cases, there has been progress, this would be tantamount to perpetuating as a default ‘norm’ the constriction of our freedoms.

The idea that one person go to the Church service is a bizarre infringement on one of the most sacred enterprises of the year. This is not some reluctant ‘duty’ for many but a joyous celebration. Perhaps we can all join in the rejoicing in our own way rather than demand they make sacrifices that are no longer necessary, while truly regretting what others had to forego.

Perhaps a middling chance of infection, middling compared rationally to everyday life risks, is something people wish to take on, applying these protective guidelines, rather than jettisoning their lives.

Another economic downgrade, S&P this time, and we want to shut down Christmas, and destroy more revenue for already-stricken hospitality providers and businesses, paid for by whom? And by what right? 

The 152 deaths that clearly are most not ‘from’ COVID (which are all truly respiratory related, otherwise C-19 is a bystander or ‘maybe’ a secondary contributor as influenza or pneumonia can be)? Come on folks, time for a measure of perspective, balance and sanity.

Let’s let businesses up out of this yoke, let people engage and be free. And let’s trust again the immune systems gifted to us by nature for far more serious challenges, as well as our medical guidelines designed to let us act and interact and still keep COVID at bay.