Chronology

February 2021 here…2020 here

This is a chronology not based on the date the information was published but based on the date  I received it.

It should be clear that I am not  in accord with the ideological aspects of the content of many of the articles I link to.

31/1/21:

Belgium, Brussels: heavy repression of anti-lockdown/curfew demo

Again, the anglophone media in particular, are attributing such demonstrations to nazis: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/31/hundreds-arrested-at-anti-lockdown-protests-in-brussels-budapest-and-vienna

This manipulation distorts the vast different ideas, ideologies and methods of organising of those participating in many of these demos. In Spain, apparently, nazis DO predominate, but tarring all these demos with the same brush is typical of liberal-leftism in the current climate, and as repulsive as the fascists’ claiming them for themselves, and clearly helps to reinforce divisions whilst obscuring what genuinely divides people.

This indymedia critique in French is, for the most part though not entirely, a valid attack on  the notion of Nazi-dominated demos

Rough translation:

“Messages to the leftists who shout out to the fascists

The leftists who say we shouldn’t relay what’s going on in the Netherlands are so out of touch that it actually looks like you’ve learned nothing from your mistakes.

Find out about what happened in Italy a few months ago before saying “fash, fash” in all directions, I don’t think that people from working-class neighborhoods in the Netherlands, all kinds of unemployed people and workers from all over the world, the often unpoliticized classes who followed the scandal of the allocations which made the whole government resign, or the exiles beaten up by the police, are comparable to the hooligans of Twente or the populist right even if there we find them on the same front…

It doesn’t mean accepting everything, just not giving up the ground let alone without analyzing it.

You are the same who insulted us as Poujadistes because we went to the roundabouts if only out of curiosity and treated the yellow vests  as fascists because of a handful of  infiltrators on the big demonstrations to come back to ingratiate themselves before us a few weeks later.

So no, I am not denying that the virus hurts, that we must be vigilant especially for those around us, you just have to go to a hospital to find out. Nurses have never been confronted with this in post-war Europe and out of respect for them in our hospitals, let’s be careful. Even less, do I deny that there is the influence of spheres with a dangerous political background and double talk, which is  all the more reason to propose something better.

On the other hand, not to take part at least against the repression linked to completely risky and liberticidal measures whereas for the moment they have not shown any effectiveness except for such exceptions like in China under drastic conditions (it is perhaps this that you want? otherwise it does not make sense) and especially with a looming  extreme crisis in the background misses the point. We impose inconsistent things that undermine our entire social life precipitating a very hard economic crisis which is  already having consequences: closures, general depression in France and that is just the beginning … all to no avail.

Another thing: it is unfortunately quite logical that people believe in anything and everything and be wary of everything given the absurdity of the mainstream media and the political class, not to mention the general incompetence of liberalism in the face of the virus. Challenging the established order is already a step, even if – yes,  it opens the  door  to anything and everything and therefore it gives a nihilistic feel that will probably not go far, it’s a question here above all about individual freedom and social anger.

If you do not support this, at least try to understand without class contempt  or siding with power and remember something: the world is not a tiny group of the far left, much less a safe space,  and we are not always right in our predictions or our analyses, especially from our keyboards.”

French interview in  mainstream media with  doctor-professor sacked for  criticising the government

The guy was sacked probably illegally – the courts will rule on this soon.

30/1/21:

Translation of criticism of current vaccine programme by French environmental virologist: Deus ex vaccina

French version here

This is far more accessible a criticism than the ones for the entry 26/1/21.

Report in French on why Vitamin D is essential for boosting the immune system and can definitely help prevent the worst effects of Covid

“Whilst for months policies focus on individual responsibility, prevention by simple and inexpensive means is completely absent from official speeches. In his statement on Friday, October 30, the Prime Minister called on everyone to slow the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. He strongly insisted on the urgent need to respect social distancing and to adhere with conviction to the rules established by the consultation committee. We have the right to ask ourselves: why is there not a word about prevention and the best choices to be made to strengthen our immune system?…we know the essential role it plays in resisting attacks from pathogenic viruses or bacteria. We have the right to ask ourselves: why is there not a word about prevention and the best choices to be made to strengthen our immune system? It is not disputed in this regard that certain deficiencies in essential elements of our body are detrimental to the optimal functioning of our immunity. This is the case for zinc, vitamin C and also vitamin D. With regard to vitamin D more particularly, we know that the deficiency concerns a large part of the population of our country, more particularly in winter. The explanation is that vitamin D is synthesized in the dermis by the action of ultraviolet (UV-B) rays from the sun. Food contributes, but not enough, to the vitamin D content of our body.…. Vitamin D plays a major role in the intestinal absorption of calcium and its fixation in the bones. But it also has other effects. It has a preventive action in the development of autoimmune diseases or with an autoimmune component (multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus) . In addition, in 2017, a meta-analysis of 25 studies involving 11,000 patients, published by the British Medical Journal  showed that vitamin D can effectively protect against acute respiratory diseases. Recently Irish researchers have found a statistically significant correlation between low vitamin D levels and deaths from Covid-19 in Europe. They suggest that optimizing vitamin D levels may reduce serious complications from COVID-19. They explain that vitamin D probably plays an important role in alleviating or even suppressing the inflammatory storm that characterizes acute respiratory distress syndrome and often results in the death of the patient. In April 2020, two doctors from Liège were already advising Belgian citizens to take vitamin D supplementation during lockdown, claiming its protective effect.   On May 22, 2020, the French National Academy of Medicine recommended , certainly in very measured terms, vitamin D supplementation, “which cannot be considered as a preventive or curative treatment for infection due to SARS-COV2, but could be considered as an adjunct to any form of therapy, mitigating the inflammatory storm “.  On the preventive role of vitamin D, a Danish study from 2010 highlighted the critical role it plays in the activation of T lymphocytes, which are essential in immune protection against viruses.  In conclusion, it seems well established that vitamin D supplementation deserves to be recommended to all our fellow citizens. …At a time when the calls for help from the medical profession and the nursing staff of hospitals are made more and more urgent, faced with the risk of congestion, it would be logical to make all our fellow citizens aware of the benefits of simple and inexpensive measures which stimulate their immune system.”

Cop in London fining people for getting their vitamin D for free, April 2020

And another translation of a text on the vaccines written in December, an uncorrected Google Translate which is still pretty comprehensible: Paul Lannoye

28/1/21:

Lebanon, Tripoli:  4th night of clashes against lockdown and curfews continue…Town Hall torched (video)

Libertarian anti-authoritarian solidarity with the government and the police for stopping these Trumpite individualists from contaminating themselves and each other!</sarcasm>.

See also “Lebanon – October 2019 – September 2020”

27/1/21:

Lebanon, Tripoli: clashes over Covid1984 restrictions continue (video and reports)

See also “Lebanon – October 2019 – September 2020”

What the state wants for kids (20 seconds in)  and how  (2 minutes in) they may react:

An aside, irrelevant to my use of the movie as a kind of joke hoping to make a connection of the use of masks for almost invariably asymptomatic sections of the population (youth) and the misery of dominant “education”. This is regardless of whether you believe masks work or not:

Let’s not take this movie at face value, given that its exchange value, its value for the commodity-spectacle,  was never questioned. As I wrote after seeing the film, back in 1982, when the riots of ’81 were fresh in the minds of many people in the UK:

“The Wall On The Screen Guarantees The Walls In Your Life

For Capital, it’s fine that kids buy records which chant, “We don’t want no education, we don’t want no thought control”. But, of course, the spectacle is not meant to be taken literally, but consumed at a distance, which is why, when they act such phrases out, by burning down some of the walls (of schools, even), throwing some of the bricks and refusing ‘thought control’, it’s not just Capital’s most overt representatives (politicians, screws, social workers, etc.) who rush to patch up the holes. That the film of the song of the actually lived reality, “Pink Floyd’s The Wall”, presents the riots as macho, racist and fascist-inspired, even to the point of subtly suggesting a comparison between the anti-hierarchical violence of the riots and the hierarchical violence of World War II, shows how the more sophisticated purveyors of culture are shit-scared of any real and direct attacks on the walls of the prison. They only articulate the rebellions and frustrations of their possible consumers in order to preserve their lucrative niche; a niche threatened by any genuine rebellion from those whose consumption habits they are financially and socially dependent on. When the film first went on release, Top Shop in London’s shopping concentration camp, Brent X, advertised school uniforms placed on sexy plastic models who stood in front of a polystyrene brick wall with the words “We don’t want no education” on it. The blatant nature of this contradiction reveals in a crude form the contradictions of all spectacular pseudo-rebellion, ‘rebellion’ which tolerates the commodity system whose misery engenders rebellion. Disgust with this world (in this case, school, the conditioning factory which prepares kids for the boredom-inducing sacrifices of the commodity system) is used to sell commodities (school uniforms) which can only reinforce this disgust.” – https://dialectical-delinquents.com/articles-chronologically-2/culture/the-end-of-music-as-we-know-it/

And whilst I’ve made reference once again to masks, the following, doubtless to be dismissed by counter arguments from other scientists or experts, are anti-mask documents:

https://archive.org/details/covid-censorship-at-research-gate-2/

https://vixra.org/abs/2006.0044

https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/masks-dont-work-covid-a-review-of-science-relevant-to-covide-19-social-policy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQyLFdoeUNk&feature=youtu.be

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343399832_Face_masks_lies_damn_lies_and_public_health_officials_A_growing_body_of_evidence

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2026913

26/1/21:

Rough translation of article by Dr. Gerard Delepine on dangers of Pfizer vaccine.

“…the societal argument: “we vaccinate ourselves to protect others” is … irrelevant, since it is far from being demonstrated that the vaccine is able to prevent or slow down viral transmission. In the current state of knowledge, the vaccination of older people with risk factors (population where an effective and safe vaccine could be useful) has not been properly evaluated, because the trials refuse to include this population at risk. ..Norway has just issued an alert on January 15 after the observation of 23 deaths possibly linked to the Pfizer vaccine in elderly people in nursing homes. Of those deaths, 13 were autopsied, with the results suggesting that common side effects may have contributed to serious reactions in frail elderly people…”

Rough English transcript of video by Christian Vélot, molecular geneticist, looking at the dangers of PfizerBioNTech, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Sputnik vaccines following explanation of  the complexities of viruses and vaccines

“…Another risk related to vaccines using a virus as a vector, like the Adenovirus, which is foreign to our body, is that it can trigger unwanted immune reactions than can disturb the desired vaccine response. The body, not knowing what it is dealing with, feels overwhelmed and can attack anything and everything. …With PfizerBioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Sputnik vaccines there’s a risk of viral recombination, where viruses of the same kind share/exchange genetic material (which is the reason that normally RNA cannot be inserted int DNA and vice versa). So the question is of 2 RNA viruses or 2 DNA viruses . Recombination (exchange of genetic material) is most common amongst viruses of the same type/family, though not exclusively. It’s less frequent, but such recombination (not of same type or family) can make the virus either more dangerous or less dangerous – but unpredictably. Swine flu (H1N1) was a triple recombinant. For this to happen, a cell must be infected by 2 viruses at the same time – which is very unlikely. But this – the vaccinating genetic material and the infecting genetic material = a recombinant virus. The frequency is extremely low. 1 in 10 million to 1 in 100 million. For an individual the risk is so low as to be negligible. But at the level of the population of the whole world it’s a significant risk when you vaccinate a billion people. So 10 people could have this recombinant virus that intrudes into the DNA from the RNA – and thence infect others with a potentially more virulent virus. The consequences could be global! Since this is new and not been tried on a general global population it only makes sense to use the tried and tested vaccine methods. The Chinese at least used technology previously tester over years and years even if they didn’t complete phase 3 of the clinical trials before putting it on the market. 3 people in the same area and the same age can have very different symptoms. So add to that a new unpredictable virus with a new unpredictable vaccine method and….”

Pertinent comment from friend via email:

“…The public attitude to the Covid-mania is inherently miserable, depressing and dangerous in it’s current manifestations and its future consequences, which poses a much more real and direct threat to my life and the life of others’ than the actual disease (to life itself, not merely to the fact of being biologically alive), that public attitude being also the attitude of people in my immediate circle such as parents, family and friends. …It’s not just the restrictions etc. – it’s mainly the attitude of people and the deterioration of consciousness and our relation to reality. The deterioration of the attitude towards life and its meanings; towards what’s essential for oneself and others around you; towards knowledge in general and especially one’s own ability to know; the relation between knowledge (or rationality in general) and feeling; the attitude towards science as method vs. “Science” as institutional representation of knowledge; towards institutions in general; and how media- and politically-manipulated fear and illusion of managing and controlling is taking over all other possibilities of feeling, knowing and acting, and how this fear compensates for dealing with other kinds of fears that are denied expression and thus remain stronger than ever…”

Reproduction of discussion from “Leftist bollocks from the usual suspects”:

• Sam FantoSamotnaf says:

  January 4, 2021 at 7:23 am   (Edit)

  Thanks for that – in particular the reference to Hong Kong flu and how so-called libertarians may have, if present logic had existed then, called on people to stay at home. The Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968-69 killed between 1 and 4 million people globally. If the same miserable authoritarian  impositions had taken place then, I, amongst probably at the very least hundreds of thousands in the UK, would never have got involved in strike pickets, squatting, political street theater etc. and probably would have been thoroughly depressed if not suicidal (see this, about my  experiences in 1969: https://dialectical-delinquents.com/articles-chronologically-2/culture/1969-revolution-as-personal-and-as-theatre/). And that’s just the UK. But that was when the conditions of guaranteed survival seemed to be pretty much in tact and we wanted to find a way to have a sense of life above all. Nowadays survival is almost the only thing people think about. Life passes them by. Hence the massive rise in teenage suicides since the start of these horrendous authoritarian impositions.

  (Corrected/edited from previous error):
  The “Asian flu” of 1957-8 caused about the same amount of deaths globally as Covid so far: 1 – 4 million deaths over roughly a 10 month period globallly (though quite a lot less in most countries) as compared with 12 -13 months now, amongst a global population of 2.9 billion as compared with 7.8 billion now. Which would make it about 2.7 times more lethal than Covid so far proportionate to global population. Moreover, given that the Asian flu took place over a lesser period of time than current Covid deaths, it would, in tedious mathematical terms, technically make it something like 4 times more deadly than Covid, though this is hard to gauge, particularly given the variations of the Asian flu’s duration in different countries. Which is not to minimise Covid but to put it into perspective. So far, Covid-related deaths seem to be (though the figures are open to doubt, considering the politics of the various countries and the way they attribute such deaths to Covid, some overstating deaths, others understating them) about twice those of the flu epidemic of 2016-17, and we’re now into another year of the flu season, so we’d probably need till the beginning of March to make a fair comparison, considering that flu is concentrated to about 3 months of the year in the countries where the majority of people are infected by Covid.

  However, it doesn’t help the argument to refer to Lyme disease – it’s fatal only in a very small amount of cases. So the comparison is not valid really. Moreover, to refer to Covid as “benign” seems strange. Even flu is not “benign”. But undoubtedly the manipulated almost mass psychosis about Covid is produced by a massive exaggeration, the imposition of an excessive fear, whilst deaths from cancer produced by the nuclear industry, or globally the annual 8 million deaths of kids though malnutrition, insanitary living conditions and lack of basic medical help are ignored. But saying this is considered as being a “Covid denier”, as idiotic as being a climate change denier.

  It’s undoubtedly obvious that the rush to vaccinate against Covid is very dangerous – see, for instance, this: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/health/coronavirus-vaccines-britain.html
  Or this:
  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/28/scientists-fought-coronavirus-now-they-face-the-battle-against-disinformation#comment-146303151

  And this, which I wrote about the Oxford vaccine:

  Back in mid-September I wrote about this story – https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-oxford-vaccine-trial-put-on-hold-as-volunteer-suffers-suspected-serious-adverse-reaction-12066991 – that hit the headlines for 5 minutes before being buried under endless pictures of people not maintaining social distancing. It reported “The Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial is facing a “challenge”, the health secretary has admitted, after it was put on hold due to a suspected serious adverse reaction in one of its volunteers…The nature of the adverse reaction and when it happened are not currently known.” However, after 4 days the trials were resumed without any official indication of what had gone wrong. But the New York Times reported – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/health/coronavirus-astrazeneca-vaccine-safety.html – that the just mentioned volunteer in the UK trial had been diagnosed with transverse myelitis – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transverse_myelitis – : “Symptoms include weakness and numbness of the limbs, deficits in sensation and motor skills, dysfunctional urethral and anal sphincter activities, and dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system that can lead to episodes of high blood pressure….sensation to pain or light touch is impaired. Motor weakness…mainly affects the muscles that flex the legs and extend the arms…Back pain can occur at the level of any inflamed segment of the spinal cord…all four limbs may be affected and there is risk of respiratory failure …Lesions of the lower cervical region (C5–T1) will cause a combination of upper and lower motor neuron signs in the upper limbs, and exclusively upper motor neuron signs in the lower limbs. Cervical lesions account for about 20% of cases…A lesion of the lumbar segment, the lower part of the spinal cord (L1–S5) often produces a combination of upper and lower motor neuron signs in the lower limbs. Lumbar lesions account for about 10% of cases.”

  And a bit later a second coronavirus vaccine volunteer suffered the very same rare neurological condition – https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/09/21/second-coronavirus-vaccine-volunteer-suffers-rare-neurological-condition/ – “A 37-year-old woman suffered a rare neurological condition that left her struggling to walk…”
  Marvelous the way they say “the two cases were unlikely to be associated with the vaccine…” A rare disease amongst 2 people volunteering for the trial of the vaccine. Pure coincidence! Like the melting of the icecaps being just something that happens naturally every few thousand years – nothing to do with commodity-induced rich-man-made climate change, nothing to do with the car economy and capitalist industry in general.

  This article also says that only one third make a full or near full recovery from this ‘transverse myelitis’ “with most of their symptoms gone” after 2 years. Nothing to worry about then.

  This – https://www.michele-rivasi.eu/a-la-une/vaccins-ogm-cest-non – , from a Green EU politician, states that the European Union, on 10th July 2020, gave the go-ahead for the production of Genetically Modified vaccines without verifying, through experiments, any environmental or health safeguard!!! This means the whole world – or at least EU countries – have been explicitly transformed into involuntary guinea pigs. Not hard to recognise what might happen if GM vaccines are permitted without even standard trials which are not even a guarantee of much safety anyway (eg the hundred thousand or so people each year who die in the US from totally “safe” – ho ho – drugs, drugs that have passed these standard tests). And these scum complain Dr.Raoult’s specific mix of hydroxychloraquine and the antibiotic azithromycine has not been subjected to any “scientific” health experiments . Certainly further proof that this crisis is an opportunity for the maniacs who rule us to do things that they think they could not do before. Whilst anti-vaxxers can often be simplistic and dogmatic and selectively ignore some of the positive effects of vaccines (just as pro-vaxxers ignore the negative effects), there’s a fundamental basis for such fears. The problem of this Covid1984 epoch is that people fall into the most horrendous Manichean splits between pro-XYZ and anti-XYZ that represses all struggle for recognising what is true and what is false in such dogmatic positions, a divid e and rule that appears to be purely upo to individual choie when it shows above all how such choices are thoroughly colonised by the various manipulations of external authorities.

  And now there’s this: Scientists are working on vaccines that spread like a disease. What could possibly go wrong? – https://thebulletin.org/2020/09/scientists-are-working-on-vaccines-that-spread-like-a-disease-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Newsletter_09212020&utm_content=DisruptiveTechnology_SelfSpreadingVaccines_09182020

  “Self-spreading vaccines could indeed entail serious risks, and the prospect of using them raises challenging questions. Who decides, for instance, where and when a vaccine should be released? Once released, scientists will no longer be in control of the virus. It could mutate, as viruses naturally do. It may jump species. It will cross borders. There will be unexpected outcomes and unintended consequences. There always are. While it may turn out to be technically feasible to fight emerging infectious diseases like COVID-19, AIDS, Ebola, and Zika with self-spreading viruses, and while the benefits may be significant, how does one weigh those benefits against what may be even greater risks?”

  And there’s this about vaccines in general:
  https://medium.com/@gautamtejasganeshan/is-there-an-intelligible-anti-vaxx-position-52c530b1d518

  Reply
  • Sam FantoSamotnaf says:

    January 17, 2021 at 7:22 pm   (Edit)

    Coward19 sent me an email in French asking me to translate his reply to me above:

    1.
    I’m not comparing Lyme disease with COVID, but the time taken for testing the vaccine: it’ll take another 4 years for the vaccine for a well-known disease possibly becoming accessible to the public, as opposed to one authorised after 10 months , based on a technique never used on humans, against a virus that appeared a year ago. It goes without saying that in the latter case scientists discovered the medium to long term side effects practically at the same time as the patients.

    2.
    COVID is benign in the sense that the outcome is almost always favorable. Even those over 80 have more than 4 chances out of 5 of surviving. We are therefore not facing Ebola, nor even Sars-Cov1. This virus has no chance of disrupting the structure of society itself. Whatever happens (except an increase in the virus’s toxicity but the reverse trend is at least as probable), 97-98% of the population will not be infected. Moreover, it is worth noting that in France nearly half the deaths are in a nursing home, i.e. where there’s a dynamic of contagion and a very specific population compared with the general population (also note Germany, a country with an older population than France, where there has been no excess mortality at all for 2020). Afterwards, I specify “as far as we know”, because on this there remains the question of the consequences (pulmonary, neurological, etc.) in the medium to long term.

    Anyway, thank you for your testimony on 68 [1]. Another era indeed, with a shorter life expectancy and no saturated intensive care units. People severely affected by the HK flu died in hospital, but no one could do much about it. We certainly had a more fatalistic approach to things (and/or more unconscious, the population being generally younger than today), and therefore there was nothing to dramatize. Which could explain the sparse media coverage of this epidemic at the time, as opposed to the great difference today, where it is a real daily soap opera. It is also true that we had other hopes, and certainly not this absurd and sad idea of ​​having to control nothing less than the whole planet “like a good father.” On this subject (I take this opportunity), does a film like Year 01 [2] seem to you to faithfully reflect the atmosphere of the time?

    [1] Which echoes those of Henri Simon and Max Vincent in France: https://www.echangesetmouvement.fr/2018/05/ce-fut-aussi-cela-mai-68/
    http://lherbentrelespaves.fr/index.php?post/2018/04/13/Mai-68
    (Exchanges and movement looks like it’s disappeared for the moment)

    [2] https://archive.org/details/lan01_202003

    Reply
    • Sam FantoSamotnaf says:

      January 17, 2021 at 7:33 pm   (Edit)

      Thanks for the clarifications.

      I totally agree with point 1. With reference to point 1: you can see the results in Spain – for example https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2021/01/15/huge-outbreak-in-benidorm-nursing-home-after-covid-jab/amp / and  https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2021/01/15/man-dies-of-covid-19-after-receiving-first-dose-of-pfizer-vaccine-in-spains-valencia-but-death-does-not-indicate-weakness-in-jab/

      Regarding point 2, I generally agree but I am not sure what you mean by “97-98% of the population will be okay”. If you mean “will not be infected”, I agree, but if you want to say “will not die”, it seems that you have massively minimized the absurdity. So far, roughly 1.2% of the world has been infected (i.e. 98.8% were not infected). Of this number, a little more than 2 million have died. Another way to say something like 1.2% of the world’s population has been infected, and only 0.000000257% of the world’s population has died. In other words, 99.99999973% have so far survived (or died for other reasons). So although I agree with your general point, I don’t know what you mean by “will be okay”.
      And I’m not sure about your last paragraph. Or maybe I have misunderstood. At least in the UK, the National Health Service was in a much better condition than it is today, at least in terms of beds (and other aspects). Perhaps you mean that people were more “fatalistic” towards death, but much less towards life – that is, people wanted to find life outside of work and consumerism. I do not associate consciousness with age as in your sentence “and / or more unconscious, the population is generally younger than today”. For me, age has nothing to do with “consciousness”. Or maybe you wanted to make a link between consciousness and life expectancy, but I don’t understand exactly what you wanted to say. I think the low media coverage may have been due, in part, to the fact that just over 10 years previously, the equivalent of more than twice as many people in the world had died from Asian flu than from Covid so far (i.e. in a population of about 40% of what it is now, about the same number of people have died). And the memory of WWll was still very present. Death was therefore not as separate from life as it is today – that is, people had a lot more social life than today, and as a result there were many more communities of struggle, discussion and critique of everyday life and resistance than there is now – almost everything is virtual and with this 6:00 p.m. curfew, confinement proposed for the weekends, life outside of the misery of work has been reduced to only those with whom we live trapped at home, and the Internet (Skype, WhatsApp is not three-dimensional life at all).

      I haven’t seen the movie you’re talking about. I’ll try to see it soon. But there is so much that I need to read and see, I am sometimes overwhelmed….

      Reply
      • Sam FantoSamotnaf says:

        January 26, 2021 at 3:19 am   (Edit)

        Coward19 sent me a French email, which I’ve translated:

        You say:
        “I totally agree with point 1. With reference to point 1: you can see the results in Spain – for example https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2021/01/15/huge-outbreak-in-benidorm-nursing-home-after-covid-jab/amp / and https://pledgetimes.com/man-dies-of-covid-19-after-receiving-first-dose-of-pfizer-vaccine-in-spains-valencia-but-death-does-not-indicate-weakness- in-jab-olive-press-news-spain / “

        C19:
        On this point, we should probably look more towards the conditions of administration, because the Pfizer vaccine does not contains a virus. It uses the body’s cells to generate the SARS-Cov2 spike, i.e. the key that allows it to enter the cells, not the virus itself. What is, however, feared with this method, are the autoimmune reactions where the body, not knowing what it is dealing with, feels overwhelmed and attacks anything and everything.
        On the other hand, it seems that the benefit for the very vulnerable is not so obvious: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-16/norway-vaccine-fatalities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29

        You say:
        “Regarding point 2, I generally agree but I am not sure what you mean by “97-98% of the population will be okay”. If you mean “will not be infected”, I agree, but if you want to say “will not die”, it seems that you have massively minimized the absurdity. So far, roughly 1.2% of the world has been infected (i.e. 98.8% were not infected). Of this number, a little more than 2 million have died. Another way to say something like 1.2% of the world’s population has been infected, and only 0.000000257% of the world’s population has died. In other words, 99.99999973% have so far survived (or died for other reasons). So although I agree with your general point, I don’t know what you mean by “will be okay”.”

        C19:
        I’m talking about the case fatality rate, which is the number of deaths compared to the number of infected. 1.2% of the world’s population is a huge random sample in absolute numbers, so we can extrapolate the degree of danger of the virus. For example a man over 80 has “only” an 85% chance of escaping death (a 40-year-old of the order of 99.9%). And it will be probably less than 2-3%, because 1) as the epidemic progresses, more and more people are immunized, which breaks the chains of contamination and will ensure that we will never have 100% of the population affected (in France, the most pessimistic speak of 400,000 deaths ~ 0.6%) and 2) many of those who are asymptomatic pass under the radar, not to mention 3) the management of severe cases is still progressing. Obviously, in absolute terms, it will cause a lot of deaths, millions, and this will be horrible to see, especially in countries like Italy or Japan with aged populations, but even in this extreme scenario, it does not not justify this apocalyptic atmosphere .

        You say:
        “And I’m not sure about your last paragraph. Or maybe I have misunderstood. At least in the UK, the National Health Service was in a much better condition than it is today, at least in terms of beds (and other aspects). Perhaps you mean that people were more “fatalistic” towards death, but much less towards life – that is, people wanted to find life outside of work and consumerism.”

        C19:
        I mean there just wasn’t the technology to keep people alive. Doctors were helpless [1]. Today, the media coverage focuses on the saturation of the hospital system, but paradoxically it is because we can do more for the patient that the system appears fragile.

        You say:
        “I do not associate consciousness with age as in your sentence “and / or more unconscious, the population is generally younger than today”. For me, age has nothing to do with “consciousness”. Or maybe you wanted to make a link between consciousness and life expectancy, but I don’t understand exactly what you wanted to say.”

        C19:
        Let’s say that at 20 years old, death is above all an old man’s thing, and that “old” at that age is 30 years. In good health. It is only when we get older that our mortality becomes concrete. Hence, even if you are told that there is a serious epidemic, without you being bombarded with images and numbers continuously like today, a priori it doesn’t really affect you.

        You say:
        “I think the low media coverage may have been due, in part, to the fact that just over 10 years previously, the equivalent of more than twice as many people in the world had died from Asian flu than from Covid so far (i.e. in a population of about 40% of what it is now, about the same number of people have died). And the memory of WWll was still very present.”

        C19:
        Exactly. People had seen a lot of other stuff, some incredible crap. We can add that a lot of people over 65 had experienced the Spanish Flu.

        You say:
        “Death was therefore not as separate from life as it is today – that is, people had a lot more social life than today, and as a result there were many more communities of struggle, discussion and critique of everyday life and resistance than there is now – almost everything is virtual and with this 6:00 p.m. curfew, confinement proposed for the weekends, life outside of the misery of work has been reduced to only those with whom we live trapped at home, and the Internet (Skype, WhatsApp is not three-dimensional life at all).”

        C19:
        Yes, the internet really “reunites us as separate” (but on the other hand, without it I would certainly never have heard of Debord). Yet the testimonies of ‘68 it also often give the wonderful impression that at last barriers between people had fallen and we could speak. I ask myself that it couldn’t have been as evident as all that.

        You say:
        “I haven’t seen the movie you’re talking about. I’ll try to see it soon. But there is so much that I need to read and see, I am sometimes overwhelmed….”

        C19:
        It’s a film from a comic book by Gébé, itself created from ideas sent in by Charlie Hebdo readers. It’s kind of crazy, but it touches a lot of questions that we don’t even ask today any more, which we lack more than ever.*

        [1] This documentary is a bit superficial but it’s better than nothing:
         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT7qSGXyDWY

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqCsAfLr9N8

25/1/21:

Holland: 2nd night of riots against curfew, looting in Rotterdam

Eindhoven

“Riot police clashed with groups of protesters in Amsterdam as well as the port city of Rotterdam, where people smashed shop windows and ransacked their supplies.  The unrest also hit Amersfoort in the east, the small southern city of Geleen near Maastricht, The Hague and Den Bosch, police and news reports said. Geleen police said in an earlier tweet that they were dealing with “rioting youths who are throwing fireworks”. In Rotterdam, police used a water cannon after clashing with the protesters…Images on social media showed rioters looting a shop in Den Bosch and a press photographer being hit in the head in Haarlem, after an angry mob chased him off and threw a brick at him.”

T writes:

I’ve just watched several video reports of the riots in the Netherlands, in most of them they emphasise how “supporters of Pegida”, anti-Islam and other extreme right-wing groups “participated” in the demos and riots – clearly to create a very specific image among the public regarding resistance to the new biomedical totalitarianism – and in almost all of the riot scenes you clearly see dark-skinned people and other minorities, sometimes even in the same frame of the video where they say or write how this is a “right-wing” riot…

Not to deny that it’s very possible that right-wing or racist people participated, some probably did, but it’s pretty clearly not organized racist or right-wing riots at all. And to emphasise their participation as the most essential thing, right at the beginning of some of these reports, is a clear distraction and manipulation.

SF: Moreover, looting is not usually considered a right-wing tradition unless it’s of immigrant-owned shops. For Leftists the State has a positive value and the “defense” of the workers is equated with the defense of the all-powerful state, the provider of public services and of the general interest. Thus, in the eyes of France’s Stalinist rag l’Humanité, the State in this crisis is acting as a protector and taking measures to protect the population in general and workers in particular. So there is no question for this newspaper to admit the legitimacy or even the possibility of a spontaneous uprising against confinement or the curfew, given that the state is obviously protecting our health. The very idea that such measures would hamper the margin of freedom left to us is considered by it to be an extreme right-wing fantasy. This is why the newspaper  approves of the “liberal Prime Minister, Mark Rutte” when he ” denounces the idea of ​​a deprivation of liberty, agitated by the extreme right” and called on the army to put down these riots, whilst pretending that only the extreme right complained about restrictions on freedoms. Yet the far-right racist leader Geert Wilders, whilst being against “the restriction of citizens’ freedoms”, is also  against immigration,  blaming immigrants for  the riots. Wilders reduced the riots to immigrant “scum” (a term also used by the “liberal” finance minister, echoing Sarkozy’s attack on those living in the  banlieux back in 2005, which helped spark off the November riots of that year). With anti-fascists like this, who needs fascists? [taken in part from this]

Lebanon, Tripoli: clashes over lockdown and Covid fines

“The National News Agency (NNA) said security personnel had clashed with demonstrators angered at “the lockdown, fines against those who flout it and the suffocating economic crisis.” An AFP photographer saw demonstrators burn tyres and throw rocks, to which security forces responded with teargas and rubber bullets. NNA said some protesters had thrown rocks at the main government building, while the Lebanese Red Cross reported that more than 30 people were injured, six of them hospitalised. It was not immediately clear whether the protest was spontaneous or organised, but Tripoli has seen previous protests against the measures. The northern city is Lebanon’s poorest, and many residents live below the poverty line. Lockdown measures have been poorly observed in Tripoli, and security forces have repeatedly clamped down on offenders. Lebanon last week extended a total lockdown by two weeks to stem a rise in coronavirus cases and protect its collapsing health sector. The restrictions include a round-the-clock curfew with grocery shopping limited to home deliveries, aimed at reining in one of the steepest spikes in Covid-19 infections in the world. Cases skyrocketed after families gathered during the end-of-year holidays and authorities allowed revellers to gather in bars until 3:00 am, despite warnings from health professionals. The country of six million has seen over 280,000 cases and 2,404 deaths from the disease.”

Note: In fact, the population of Lebanon is 6,856,000. 2404 deaths represent something like 0.035% of the population. This is about 2½ times as much as the flu season for 2019-2020 (spread over 28 weeks) but, given that globally the epidemic of flu of 2017-18 was considerably worse (they wrongly predicted the flu virus mutation and so got the vaccine wrong), possibly about the same as that period (I found it impossible to get mortality figures for Lebanon).

24/1/21:

Holland: riots in 11 cities against lockdown restrictions

“A number of vehicles and businesses were burned and a Covid-19 testing facility in the city of Urk had been destroyed. Protests against a curfew to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the Netherlands have degenerated into clashes with police and looting in cities across the country, authorities and reports said. Police used water cannon and dogs in Amsterdam, public television NOS reported, after hundreds gathered to protest the curfew which is set to last until February 10 and is the country’s first since World War II. In the southern city of Eindhoven, police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of several hundred, regional television Omroep Brabant reported. At least 30 people were arrested there, according to police. A number of vehicles were burned and businesses at Eindhoven’s central train station were also looted” More here: “Rioters attacked police and set cars and bikes on …In the southern city of Eindhoven, protesters threw fireworks, looted supermarkets and smashed shop windows…In Eindhoven, golf balls and fireworks were hurled at police in full riot gear, who eventually used tear gas to clear the crowds. Burning bikes were built into barricades. In the eastern city of Enschede, rioters threw rocks at the windows of a hospital. A Covid-19 testing centre was also set alight on Saturday evening in the northern village of Urk.” Now obviously attacking  a hospital or a test centre is not something to be recommended – it’s indicative of the general nihilist absence of class consciousness that infects the world, expressive of the victory of dominant capitalist meaninglessness. But equally obviously dominant society  will  only focus on these aspects of the riots, when they fear looting and attacks on the cops far more (after all, it’s their policies that have led to the run-down of hospitals anyway, not that one should defend the whole of mainstream medicine that hospitals function with by any means).

Possible link between use of remdesivir (drug used against Covid up till November when W.H.O. deemed it useless and potentially dangerous) and British strain of virus…See this report on the use of remdesivir on a British patient

“Remdesivir was originally created and developed by Gilead Sciences in 2009, to treat hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).^[24][106] It did not work against hepatitis C or RSV,^[24][106] but was then repurposed and studied as a potential treatment for Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus infections” – here.

As I said in the entry for 11/1/21 below: “… medical authorities had validated remdesivir before the WHO declared it relatively dangerous on 20^th November. Last year the EU gave Gilead, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures remdesivir, a billion euros to combat Covid – at a cost of 2000 euros for a 5-day treatment for one person and had to stop ordering the stuff because it was not only ineffective but also had fairly  dangerous side effects. [An aside about Gilead: despite them declaring that remdesivir, a vaccine previously used for Ebola, was “safe” and “effective”, this company has financed something close to 80% of the trials for hydroxychloroquine that “proved” that  it was “unsafe”, some of these trials including azythromicine]. Gilead didn’t suffer financially at all because – either in 2018 or in 2010 (I’ve lost the date) – the EU decided that responsibility for lack of efficacy, for all side effects, or contraindications that had not been warned against, fell on the various states, with only Poland objecting. That is, compensation is paid out not by the companies but the states which are meant to verify whether a particular drug or piece of medical equipment etc., is safe or not (but in fact, they don’t do extra trials themselves, but only look at the various papers showing the companies’ research and on that basis decide whether the research meets their requirements of “scientific protocol” or not). In the US this has been the case since the 1980s. So as a result no individual is ever prosecuted – at worst the company itself has to pay compensation for deaths or whatever.“ In fact, the EU gave Gilead a billion euros before trial results were completed. Bizarrely, it seems that in December, several weeks after the W.H.O. issued its warning about remdesivir, the E.U continued to use it for Covid (though this seems to be contradicted by earlier statements from the EU in November…!!).“The EMA [ European Medicines Agency] recommends remdesivir in adults and adolescent patients” says the link to The Lancet report of December 17th, a report which at the same time links to the WHO report saying “remdesivir… had little or no effect on hospitalized patients with Covid-19, as indicated by overall mortality, initiation of ventilation, and duration of hospital stay.” Maybe the E.U. continued to justify remdesivir so they could  dump what they’d stockpiled  on the UK just weeks before it left the EU as punishment for Brexit. Though this sounds like a flippant joke, nowadays anything’s possible.

Israel: further clashes between orthodox Jews and cops in 3 towns

23/1/21:

France, Rennes: rave party defenders clash with cops as they demonstrate against new “global security” law

22/1/21:

T writes:

In Israel, there are stories from prisoners about threats of deteriorating their conditions if they don’t get vaccinated; another report about an association running night-stay shelters for homeless people who’s telling them “get the vaccine or go back on the street”; and soldiers offered different kind of perks if they get the vaccin (trips abroad etc.).

21/1/21:

Israel, Jerusalem: clashes between cops and ultra-orthodox

T. writes:

A day before this, one of Haaretz [Israeli left-liberal newspaper]
leading and “respectable” columnists wrote that the Haredim
(ultra-orthodox) pose a larger threat to the state of Israel than
Hezbollah and Iran, that the corona crisis in Israel is because of them,
that they violate the measures and that Israel needs a “secular
uprising”… In this column one could easily replace the word “Haredim”
with “Jews” or “Muslims” to get a classic xenophobic scapegoat manifest.
These “opinions” are quite common among the Israeli left and liberals,
but presenting them as an enemy of the state on the same level (and even
more dangerous) than Hezbollah is less common, but not surprising. Of
course most of the media and good citizens are outraged by the Haredim’s
behavior and demand more police repression.

I commented on Haaretz Facebook page with these words:

There isn’t any difference between talking about “the ultra-Orthodox”
and about “the Arabs”, “the Jews” or “the disabled.” Not only do people
like Uri Misgav continue to reduce an entire population of different and
unique people to a single dangerous entity – in the best of the
chauvinist racist tradition (a long-standing tradition on both the Right
and the Left), but they go so far as to think it makes them
brave/rebellious. Anyone who has a little common sense and emotion
understands straight away that these outwardly “brave” declarations are
indicative of a deep cowardice to face what really needs courage in
life, and try to make up for it.

Firm, whose largest shareholder is a donor to the Tory party, wins £350m vaccination contract

Colombia, Cali: neighbours call cops to suppress instagram rap party on pretext of being good citizens protecting the spread of Covid; 3 youths badly injured by the filth

20/1/21:

Switzerland: rumors of Pfizer vaccine causing death denied

“If there is one thing more dangerous than a bad virus, it is a bad vaccine” – Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director at W.H.O.

France: Five deaths after vaccine, no link proven

“In Europe, there have been 71 deaths reported following a Covid-19 vaccination – including from across the UK, Germany, Norway, and Denmark. Almost all were people aged 75 or over. The European Medicines Agency has so far said: “No death among these elderly people has been attributed to the [Pfizer/BioNTech] vaccination at this stage.” In total in France, 139 cases of severe or unexpected side-effects have been reported since the start of the vaccination campaign.”

Also in France, many sections of the mainstream media, repeating  sections of social media,  have claimed that Dr.Didier Raoult has retracted his claim that hydroxychloroquine with the antibiotic azithromycin is efficacious against Covid, this Big Lie being reported on the TV and radio by many “reputable” journaliars, hiding the  fact that he has refuted this falsification (see this and  this).

Spain, San Sebastien: clashes as cops close down street party for Covid1984 “reasons”

18/1/21:

France: report in mainstream media showing how the state is greatly overstating hospitalisation of Covid patients, probably to justify further lockdowns and curfews (curfew is now 6pm to 6am)

“Nice Matin… reports large discrepancies between the figures provided by Santé Publique France [Public Health France] and those recorded in the field of CHUs [University Hospital  Centres]. “We made this discovery after receiving letters from hospital doctors wondering about the discrepancies between the information disseminated by Nice-Matin about hospitalizations for Covid (from Santé Publique France) and the field observations”, confided the daily, this Saturday, January 16, recalling that these  figures from Santé Publique France , which have led to the taking of health measures such as lockdowns or curfews. “For example, on January 3, Santé Publique France counted 564 people hospitalized with a Covid-19 diagnosis in the Alpes-Maritimes department (including 69 in intensive care), when in reality “only” 233 patients in total (including 55 in intensive care) were   hospitalized that day in one or another establishment (private or public). How do we  interpret this difference of a factor of 2.5 between these two sources?,  Nice Matin asked. In November, the curves of Santé Publique France indicated a constant growth in hospitalizations for serious forms of the illness… while the doctors in the field noted stable or even decreasing curves. In fact, the figures from Santé Publique France count patients in follow-up care, including patients who have had Covid-19 but who are no longer contagious. “After 14 days, these patients should be out of the databases,” said a public health specialist to Nice Matin. “… patients with Covid-19 who leave the hospital after a stay in intensive care or in another service have not always left the databases. As Santé Publique France extracts this data, it is mathematically higher than reality. “…when patients arrive at the emergency room with a suspicion of Covid, they enter the SI-VIC base. If they turn out to be negative, they should be removed, which may not be done immediately. The charts of Public Health France also count patients who test positive when they are already hospitalized for other reasons and are therefore already treated elsewhere. France 3 also notes a difference in the figures for the number of patients in intensive care. “

Norway: the Pfizer vaccine is possibly responsible for the deaths of about 30 old people

“Norwegian health officials reported a small number of deaths among older people on Sunday who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and suffered side effects. While the Norwegian Medicines Agency is now investigating the deaths — estimated to be about 30 — the regulator and Australian authorities have been quick to play down any serious safety concerns. “This group of people who had these adverse effects, and unfortunately some died, were very, very old and frail,” Professor Brendan Murphy, secretary of the Department of Health… In the US, where more than 11 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, health authorities are beginning to see rare instances of severe (though treatable) allergic reactions to some of the COVID-19 vaccines. They’re also investigating the case of a doctor who developed an unusual blood disorder shortly after receiving the Pfizer jab, and later died. It’s not yet known whether the COVID jab is linked to his illness.”

Note the secretary of the Department of Health’s words “This group of people who had these adverse effects, and unfortunately some died, were very, very old and frail”. They were in their 80s. The King of Norway is 83.  If he’d died after being vaccinated, would the secretary of the Department of Health have simply said “This man  who had these adverse effects, and unfortunately  died, was very, very old and frail”? Maybe Pfizer should change its name to Pfizeuthanasier or even Pfizeuthanazier and nazier.

See also this and  this. “Norway expressed increasing concern about the safety of the Pfizer Inc. vaccine on elderly people with serious underlying health conditions after raising an estimate of the number who died after receiving inoculations to 29. The latest figure adds six to the number of known fatalities in Norway, and lowers the age group thought to be affected to 75 from 80. While it’s unclear exactly when the deaths occurred, Norway has given at least one dose to about 42,000 people and focused on those considered most at risk if they contract the virus, including the elderly. Until Friday, the vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech SE was the only one available in Norway, and “all deaths are thus linked to this vaccine,” the Norwegian Medicines Agency said…“Most people have experienced the expected side effects of the vaccine, such as nausea and vomiting, fever, local reactions at the injection site, and worsening of their underlying condition.” Official reports of allergic reactions have been rare as governments rush to roll out vaccines”.

Just received – Israel: bizarre story of bureaucratic obstacles put in the way of saving lives (back in April)

“Using plasma to treat viruses is well-established, but the
effectiveness of this method has yet to be proven for coronavirus. The
evidence compiled so far is preliminary and limited and comes mainly
from China. A study conducted in a hospital in Shenzhen indicated that
the condition of five patients in critical condition who were treated
with plasma improved quickly. Based on this, the US Food and Drug
Administration has decided to approve a similar experimental treatment
in the United States, currently underway in New York.The Israeli
Ministry of Health is aware of this treatment, and already, two weeks
ago, MDA (which oversees the blood bank) approached people who had
recovered and called on them to come to the bank and donate. Their
announcement read: “As part of the project, MDA will collect plasma
units from corona recoveries, which will be given to critical patients
via intravenous therapy. This is based on the premise that those who
have recovered from the disease develop special proteins against the
virus (antibodies) that are in their plasma. An infusion of those
donations will provide patients with a ‘passive vaccine’ that can help
them cope with the disease.” Those who have recovered were told they
could make contact 14 days after their full recovery and a special phone
number was assigned for the purpose.

This would suggest that the health authorities, in contrast perhaps to
their behavior since the beginning of the crisis, were acting quickly
and efficiently; but one look at the accumulating evidence and it turns
out that things are not as they seem.
[…]
According to MDA’s announcement, blood can be donated two weeks after
the second negative test, which in Turgeman’s case was April 6. The
blood bank insisted he donate only a week later. “I told the clerk that
it was to save people’s lives and she answered that these are the
Ministry of Health regulations. I don’t understand it. I am one of the
first to recover, I have a blood type that can be donated to everyone,
and yet, they scheduled me an appointment for as late as April 12 and
told me it was because of Passover.”And it is not just Passover that
pushed back Turgeman’s donation by almost a week. In a conversation with
the special call center for recovering patients who want to donate, we
heard several explanations that are hard to believe in a situation where
efforts are being made to save lives. For example, when we asked why the
families must search for donors by themselves, we were told that there
are around 600 recovered people, “but we only get the data after the
Ministry of Health has called people and asked for permission to hand
over the data and that takes a long time. Also, some people are not in
the health ministry’s file, and so to speed things up, we made a general
call to the public.” When we asked whether donations could be made
during Passover, we were told, “not on the holiday itself. But it is
possible on Friday and during Chol HaMoed.”Back to Turgeman. He
continued receiving appeals from the family of 37-year-old Doron Shoham
who lay ventilated and in a medically-induced coma. The knowledge that
Shoham’s family was making every effort to find a donation and save his
life and that he himself could make this donation wasn’t letting him
rest. Last Tuesday, more than two weeks after he was considered
recovered according to MDA’s criteria, he called the blood bank again
and explained the situation. He was told: “You are donating on April
12. Anyway, we don’t work at the weekend and during the holiday.” He
told us: “I explained that I’d been free from the virus since doing my
second test on March 23. I told her that I had received requests from
everywhere possible and that I really wanted to donate blood before that
date.” The blood bank refused to schedule an earlier date. Doron Shoham
died in hospital that same night.
[…]
Daniel Shemi: “I’ve been approached by many people even though it’s not
yet been two weeks since my last negative test. It really bothers me
that private people are contacting me. It seems really weird that people
have to look high and low for recovering people when the Ministry of
Health has a database of recovered people.”

17/1/21:

Report confirming that vitamin D helps build immunity to Covid

16/1/21:

Argentina,Maldonado: clashes between cops and illegal partygoers resisting Covid restrictions

“39 gatherings were found along the boulevard, one involving clashes. .. the municipal services had to intervene with the presence of the Police when recommendations for social distancing  and the use of masks were not respected. …The response was to attck the mobile forces who came there with bottles, insults and stones, for which they had to fire shots with non-lethal ammunition to restore order… “

15/1/21:

Spain, Benidorm: huge outbreak of Covid in nursing home AFTER Covid jab

“In a massive blow to Spain’s Pfizer vaccination plan, more than 65 residents and ten staff have tested positive for coronavirus at the Foietes nursing home in Benidorm just days after receiving the first Covid-19 vaccine. According to official sources, the residence previously hadn’t registered any cases for months, and most residents and staff had negative PCR tests shortly before the vaccine drive began on January 4.”

… Spain: Valencia: man dies of Covid after receiving first dose of Pfizer vaccine

“The retired Spaniard had received his first dose of the vaccine on December 29, along with the rest of the privately-run home. Within days of receiving the jab, the man ‘suffered an accident’ and was transferred to a hospital where a routine COVID-19 test detected the disease.The rest of the care home was tested and an outbreak was confirmed after several more residents and employees tested positive. The home had managed to not register a single case among its staff or residents throughout the whole pandemic. It comes after another home in Vinaros, also in Castellon, reported 21 coronavirus cases on Monday after all residents had been vaccinated on New Year’s Eve. On January 4, a general screening was carried out and all residents and workers tested negative. But after a resident presented symptoms, a new screening was carried out on January 9, revealing positive cases among 14 residents, five workers and two nuns. The first dose of the vaccine does not guarantee immunization, meaning you can still become infected and infect others until after you receive the second dose. While the first dose has suggested it can decrease the severity of symptoms in some cases, it is not guaranteed.”

Not sure whether this shows that testing is crap or that there’s something dangerous in the Pfizer vaccine.

Israel, Tel Aviv: homeless shelter threatens to make vaccination condition of staying in shelter

T’s translation:

“An association that operates a homeless shelter in Tel Aviv has
threatened those staying in the shelter that if they are not vaccinated
for Corona, they will be evicted from the place. The association: ‘We
are allowed to demand from every street dweller who wants to stay under
our roof to get vaccinated’

This week, a vaccination campaign was conducted for street dweller
staying in sheltered apartments in Tel Aviv on behalf of the Lasova
Association, which operates the apartments with the assistance of the
Ministry of Welfare and the municipality. The residents of the shelters
known as “little roofs”, claim that the association’s employees
threatened them that if they did not join the organized group that went
to the vaccination center and were vaccinated, they would be evicted
from the apartment and left without a place to live.

They shouted at me, ‘Get the vaccine and if not, go back on the
street,’” says one of the tenants. “When a friend of mine found out
about it and said everyone has to get vaccinated at six P.M., there was
an outrage at the home. People flew off the handle. Everyone was in a
storm of emotions. I don’t know anyone who agrees to this thing.”

Although this is a vaccine that has passed all the required regulatory
approvals, stipulating the residence in getting the vaccine is putting
pressure on people with no choice. In a conversation we had with one of
the tenants before the vaccination, he said that some of them left the
compound in an attempt to evade receiving the vaccine. “Some of them may
have an alternative, but there are certainly some who do not. This
apartment exists for people who cannot currently find a housing
solution,” he says. “A lot of them couldn’t find a place to live,
certainly not from one day to the next. They didn’t put a gun to our
head but they told us, ‘This apartment needs to be vaccinated. Anyone
who doesn’t get vaccinated can’t be here.’”

According to another tenant, the decision to abandon the shelter could
lead to a deterioration in their condition. “‘Some of the tenants are in
the process of rehabilitation,” he says. “Leaving the shelter back to
the street because of a refusal to be vaccinated can disrupt the
process, maybe even terminate it.”

“I was scared, so I got vaccinated”

Lasova operates 11 shelters known as “little roofs” for street dwellers
in cooperation and budget support from the Tel Aviv Municipality. The
“little roofs” are divided into different groups, including dwellers
with a background of alcohol and drug addiction, women, people with
disabilities, rehabilitated residents and street dwellers with no
background of addiction. In total, more than a hundred tenants live in
them.

The reasons why the residents of the home are not interested in
receiving the vaccine are varied. “They say they want to see how it goes
first,” says one of them. “Some say they are young and healthy and do
not need it.” Another tenant says he prefers other people to get the
vaccine before him. “I don’t see any point in it,” he explains. “I am a
young person, with no underlying illnesses.”

Tenants report that about a third of those staying at the home did not
receive the vaccine. “I do not know what this means for the continuation
of their stay in the association,” says one of the tenants. He said he
was vaccinated even though he did not want to, because he feared that
the threats would materialize and not allow him to stay in the
residence. “The principle of not getting vaccinated was not critical
enough for me,” he admits. “But the vaccine was unnecessary.”

“The vaccine is not only a matter for each individual, but also for the
health and well-being of those who live with him,” says Gilad Harish,
CEO and chairman of the Lasova association. “The dormitories are
relatively densely populated with dozens of street dwellers, whose
health and well-being must be ensured.

“These shelter are the only solution for the overnight stay of street
dwellers, and these street dwellers have no ability to choose. Now that
there is finally a safe and approved vaccine, we may demand from every
street dweller who wants to stay in the shelter to get vaccinated, and
prevent risk to the other residents.” In the same way, we do not accept
people with infectious diseases, violent people, and people who can not
live together peacefully and endanger the other tenants. At this stage,
we do not intend to keep vaccinating tenants away, but I do not rule it
out. The issue is under extensive scrutiny.”

The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality responded: “Contrary to the claim, the
Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and the association do not require the
residents of the shelters to be vaccinated and they may continue to stay
in the shelters even if they choose not to be vaccinated. However, the
municipality encourages its residents to get vaccinated, in accordance
with the guidelines of the Ministry of Health. It should be noted that
the Ministry of Welfare proposed to the welfare system to vaccinate
their patients. “Since the residents of the shelters are patients of the
welfare system, we were given the opportunity to vaccinate them if they
wanted to.””

T:

12/1/21:

US: reports of mass refusals of vaccinations among “frontline” workers

More here and here.

Just received – US: report on first 90 days of prisoner resistance to Covid (November 2020)

11/1/21:

Significant critique of current vaccination programme by French doctor; potentially insufficiently tested vaccines could create a super-virus worse than Covid

The following is what I have gleaned from  this French text, with some additional interpretations and information :

This blog looks at the current process  in France, but much of it applies to the rest of the world also. It looks at the process just in its own terms, i.e. from a conventional perspective that’s not at all critical of this society nor at all skeptical about other past vaccination programmes. It doesn’t question dominant ideas about what we mean by health – and so obviously ignores the fact that an essential aspect of  health, including mental health,  is to try to resist and attack this fundamentally sick society. Which, in a sense, makes his criticism of the current rush to vaccination all the more scary .

He says that with  a vaccine in general, early complications are usually the least serious, whilst  more serious, entrenched, problems can come later. The reason it usually take several years to develop what is considered a safe and efficacious vaccine is that the process of experimentation has to be long to be as safe and secure as possible, and even then problems, often serious problems, occur. Safety and the rush to get out a vaccine do not go together. The current process is a game of poker, full of risks – it’s a gamble whether it works and saves lives or it causes grave losses. And the loser is not just one or two individuals but also potentially the entire global population, with the possible emergence of a recombinant virus through the vaccination, a subject which is virtually  never discussed.

Hundreds of millions of vaccination doses have been ordered on the basis of a press release from laboratories, and organized vaccination campaigns, without knowing anything about either the benefit or the risk.

There’s been no comparative studies of the various vaccines now being used in different countries to find out first which is the safest and which is the most effective.

In France, the state and the media claim is that it has been validated by a commission of medical authorities responsible for studying whether it could be put on the market or not. This is a total lie. The product was bought and the campaign organized, before this commission even met to discuss it. The decision was not a medical one but a political one, and this commission did not issue a medical opinion, but endorsed a political decision already made.

It’s worth knowing that these medical authorities had validated remdesivir before the WHO declared it relatively dangerous on 20^th November. Last year the EU gave Gilead, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures remdesivir, a billion euros to combat Covid – at a cost of 2000 euros for a 5-day treatment for one person and had to stop ordering the stuff because it was not only ineffective but also had fairly  dangerous side effects. [An aside about Gilead: despite them declaring that remdesivir, a vaccin previously used for Ebola, was “safe” and “effective”, this company has financed something close to 80% of the trials for hydroxychloroquine that “proved” that  it was “unsafe”, some of these trials including azythromicine]. Gilead didn’t suffer financially at all because – either in 2018 or in 2010 (I’ve lost the date) – the EU decided that responsibility for lack of efficacy, for all side effects, or contraindications that had not been warned against, fell on the various states, with only Poland objecting. That is, compensation is paid out not by the companies but the states which are meant to verify whether a particular drug or piece of medical equipment etc., is safe or not (but in fact, they don’t do extra trials themselves, but only look at the various papers showing the companies’ research and on that basis decide whether the research meets their requirements of “scientific protocol” or not). In the US this has been the case since the 1980s. So as a result no individual is ever prosecuted – at worst the company itself has to pay compensation for deaths or whatever. Apparently Pfizer, the currently most well known of the companies producing an anti-Covid vaccine, regularly pays out billions in class action claims (which , moreover, are not easy things to pursue and can take several years even when they are pursued). In France compensation for catalepsy (a medical condition characterized by a trance or seizure with a loss of sensation and consciousness accompanied by rigidity of the body), originating from the anti-swine flu vaccine, was apparently very poorly compensated.

Re. the 2009-2010 swine flu “pandemic”.  Despite a relentless propaganda programme in the media (main news item for several weeks) pushing people to get vaccinated because of the terror of swine flu, less than 10% of the population took up this manipulated ‘need’ for a vaccine. The Minister of Health at the time, Rosalyne Bachelot, whose personal interests in the pharmaceutical industry were well-known, ordered 94 million vaccines from Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Baxter International at a cost of around 900 million euros to the state. Most of the vaccines were never used. As a result of the vaccine, there were 21 deaths, 4 anaphylactic shocks, 9 Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura cases, 6 multiple sclerosis cases, and 9 Guillain–Barré syndromes. The illness itself killed a bit over 600  people in France, considerably less than deaths from ordinary flu.

Back to the anti- covid vaccine and Dr. Gérard Maudrux’s blog:

“There used to be 3 types of vaccines. Those with an inactivated virus, low immunogenicity and low risk; those with a live attenuated virus, a little more efficient and more risky, and those comprising not a whole and manipulated virus, but a fragment, usually a protein.

The 2 Chinese vaccines on the market belong to the first category, the inactivated virus…it is a proven technique, widely used and without risk. Little effect in the worst case scenario… efficiency: 79.5%.

Now with Covid there are 2 new types of vaccines: DNA and mRNA vaccines.

RNA:

Like DNA, RNA is assembled as a chain of nucleotides, but unlike DNA, RNA is found in nature as a single strand folded onto itself, rather than a paired double strand. Cellular organisms use messenger RNA (mRNA) to convey genetic information (using the nitrogenous bases of guanine, uracil, adenine, and cytosine, denoted by the letters G, U, A, and C) that directs synthesis of specific proteins. Many viruses encode their genetic information using an RNA genome….

...These are experimental vaccines, because they are techniques never used in humans…so we know absolutely nothing about the possible long-term effects, which worries many people because they are treatments that affect the genes…so can there be a modification of our genes? This question is all the more relevant as these treatments have been developed thanks to research into gene therapy, precisely designed to modify diseased genes.

DNA vaccines …inject genetically modified viruses which don’t produce diseases but are responsible for “flu-like syndromes” into which the DNA sequences of SARS-Cov-2 are introduced. Messenger RNA vaccines directly inject a messenger RNA which will then be manufactured by our cells, against which we will then develop antibodies. …

…Can RNA fit into and modify our genes? Just to remind you, the DNA that makes up our genes is a double helix of nucleotides, RNA is a single helix of the same nucleotides (with different bonds). In theory no, the conversion is always DNA to RNA, the reverse is not normally possible with us. On the other hand, this …passage of RNA into DNA exists in nature and can integrate it into genes. This is the case with the HIV virus,. So the risk of integrating DNA vaccines is not zero. It exists in nature (and in humans), creating what are called chimeras. It was observed in a vaccine trial in children in 2002, resulting in 2 leukemias in 10 patients.

But the greatest risk seems elsewhere. You will find it very well described by Professor Velot, molecular geneticist at Paris-Saclay University and specialist in genetic engineering . Viruses often mix their genetic material together. If a viral RNA is injected into a healthy (or sick) carrier of a virus, another virus may be created by recombination (mixture of material). This recombination can give birth to something unharmful , but also to something dangerous, nastier than the SARS-Cov-2. This probability is very low statistically, but by no means zero. If it can happen in 1 in 10 million people, and you vaccinate 10,000 people, this risk is low, but if you vaccinate 500 million, 1 billion people, then the risk becomes real, and we can move from an individual risk, which happens for any vaccine, to a risk which would concern the entire planet which can then be contaminated by an incurable virus. And all this just to be ahead in the competition for the greatest boost to the pharmaceutical companies’ share values….

The French minister of health said on 7^th January: “We have not yet determined, in any country in the world, whether the vaccine protects against the risk of contamination”. By “the risk of contamination” he means the risk of infecting others.

A friend writes:

“I don’t know if you have noticed this paradox. One would have thought that our contemporaries were afraid of everything, that they were ready to accept  anything for their survival, that they did not want to take any risk and did not hesitate to shut themselves up and hide their children for that reason. Except that we were wrong: the same people who are terrified   of children and who wear a mask in the open air, when there is the least risk, are ready to be massively vaccinated, even  though the potential risks are much higher. Doublethink: the principle of precaution is alternately made sacred, asserted above all and yet contested, trampled on where one would have some justification. We bathe in illogicality and terror.

The only explanation for me is the reign of spectacular thought. If Covid is scary and yet a potentially  catastrophic therapy isn’t, it’s that the second has not been pointed out by the media and that the spectators, who do what they are told , are  therefore not afraid or, in any case, less than of Covid. The media,  power, by focusing attention on it, have succeeded in creating an absolute Evil, to which everything else appears to be secondary:  other diseases, freedoms, happiness, friendship, love, life … A lifeless life that looks like death.

The worst part of all this sinister farce is that  “revolutionaries” have also come to take their instructions from  power and the media and do what they are told. ” [translated from French]

***

Even the mere healthy suspicion about the safety of the vaccine is caricatured as “conspiracy theory”

“The main reason is fake news. They’re telling us that they want to wait and see what happens to the people who get inoculated,” said Fuad Abu Hamad, the director of the Clalit Health Services branch in Beit Safafa. “The rumors that two people died after receiving the vaccination didn’t help.”

In fact, two people DID DIE after getting inoculated – whether this is due to the vaccin or not – so these are not “rumors”.

Another astounding piece of Newspeak:

“Conspiracy theories that the “vaccine is not healthy or not safe are running around,” said the head of the East Jerusalem region of the Leumit Health Care Services HMO, Avi Asayag. “There are people who believe the vaccine will kill them within three years or will change their DNA. These things have taken hold in the Arab community. In recent days it has eased up a bit, and I hope we will succeed.””

On Monday, Leon said that the gap between vaccination rates in East Jerusalem and the western parts of the city will be reduced soon. “There is a lot of fake news on social media, but I took the  neighborhood leaders and they got vaccinated,” Leon said.”

Israel, Ashdod: 100s of orthodox Jewish youths clash with cops over lockdown

More here.

“Despite leading ultra-Orthodox figures calling to follow lockdown
procedures, radical groups have kept dozens of schools opened throughout
Israel. Eleven people were detained in the southern Israeli port city of Ashdod
on Monday afternoon, after hundreds of ultra-Orthodox clashed with
police officers attempting to close a religious school that was
operating in violation of lockdown regulations.

Police said three officers and two municipal inspectors had been injured
in the riots. Reinforcements were sent to the Meir Eini Yisrael school,
which is associated with the radical ultra-Orthodox group “Jerusalem
Faction.” Some protesters blocked a road at the scene, others boarded a
police car while driving and were nearly ran over. Rioters also threw
stones, sand and other objects at police officers.

The Bnei Torah movement, which is also linked to the Jerusalem Faction,
condemned the “criminal attempt” to close the yeshiva, claiming that it
could be run because it had a boarding school.

However, regulations stipulate that only boarding schools without
outside students are allowed to operate normally. Students in this
institution come and go from it every day.

Dozens of religious schools in some of Israel’s most radical
ultra-Orthodox communities remained open again on Monday, in
contravention of current lockdown restrictions and despite staggering
infection rates among Haredi schoolchildren.

The schools, which also operated on Sunday, are located mostly in the
ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhoods of Mea She’arim, Geula and the
Bukharan Quarter, hotbeds for extremist communities which do not
cooperate with the government, and in many cases, do not even accept
government funds. Other schools, primarily those of the “Jerusalem
Faction,” also opened their schools on Monday, in Bnei Brak and Modi’in
Ilit.

Unlike in previous lockdowns, the schools of the mainstream Haredi
community have remained closed this time around, upon the orders of
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the spiritual leader of the United Torah Judaism
party and leader of the non-Hasidic “Lithuanian” ultra-Orthodox
community.

Principals at many Haredi schools are now working to carry out the
instructions of ultra-Orthodox leaders that they find ways to keep
children busy and encourage them to study while staying at home, an
ultra-Orthodox school principal told Haaretz, adding that principals are
exchanging ideas to facilitate implementation.

Despite the about-face, the closure of certain Haredi religious schools
for elementary school-aged children is not likely to last much longer.
According to the principal, they can be expected to reopen within a few
days, at least in a limited format: “I anticipate that on Wednesday we
will reopen, it’s still not clear in what format and whether all the
students will return to class.”

Last week, Kanievsky approved the closure of schools for a few days,
including those for elementary school-aged boys, following a
conversation between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kanievsky’s
grandson, the rabbi’s chief aide. Prior to that conversation, he had
ordered that schools remain open even during the current lockdown.

The move marks a stark reversal from his policy since the coronavirus
pandemic began, which was to keep such schools open, despite regulations
requiring otherwise. Last March, Kanievsky said that canceling Torah
study would be more dangerous than the coronavirus.

Over the past month, infection rates among Haredi students have reached
new heights. In Jerusalem, some 400 students – mostly students at Haredi
schools – test positive for the coronavirus each day. Unlike in previous
waves of the pandemic, outbreaks have even been recorded in girls’
schools and high schools this time around.”

10/1/21:

Argentina, Neuquen: partygoers stone cops after they break up party under pretext of Covid1984

9/1/21:

Israel sets itself up as the world’s guinea pig for the vaccine

Excerpts:

The rapid rollout combined with the country’s vast medical database 
is
a gold mine that will serve doctors and scientists in the years to come

When it comes to the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations, Israel is leaving
the rest of the world in the dust, and that’s setting the country up to
become a giant laboratory for studying the vaccine’s effectiveness and
side effects.
[…]
“Israel has been producing and will continue to produce very unique
assets in the future,” said Jonathan Adiri, the CEO of Healthy.io and a
leading Israeli biomed entrepreneur. “The first is an operative asset –
we proved that we were able to inoculate a large number of people in a
short amount of time in the eye of a storm. We have a recipe for
efficient vaccination of the population and have learned a lot – that’s
data with tremendous value.”

Uri Shalit, an artificial-intelligence researcher at the Technion
technology institute, said that the information being gathered in Israel
will show how well the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine works when factors like
refrigeration and the way the vaccine is injected are less ideal than in
the controlled trials. Israel will also serve as a lab for researchers
to discover whether the vaccine just prevents disease or also prevents
contagion.

“I’m confident that the first articles coming out of Israel on the
vaccine’s effect will have tremendous value and that the entire world is
awaiting them,” Shalit said.

Another data asset is Israel’s diverse population containing a wide
range of religions and ethnicities.”

More here: “In effect, Israel will act as a large world testing laboratory, with the results from this huge research serving to set vaccination strategies in the rest of the world and also assisting the pharmaceutical companies in continuing R&D for coronavirus vaccinations and other treatments.”

Japan: resumé of attitudes and resistance to Covid restrictions throughout 2020

UK, London: cops crack down on small anti-lockdown protest

Denmark, Copenhagen: clashes with cops over Covid restrictions

“ Clashes erupted in Copenhagen between protesters, who lit fireworks and threw bottles, and police in riot gear. Four people were arrested in the capital, and five in Aalborg, also for improper use of fireworks. According to Rasmus Schultz, coordinating officer at the Copenhagen police, some of the demonstrators are part of “the constellation of hooligans”. …In semi-lockdown since mid-December, Denmark announced Tuesday to tighten its restrictions, asking its population to avoid social contact, to preserve its health system in the face of the multiplication of cases linked to the British mutant strain. As of January 6, meetings of more than five people have been banned, compared to ten previously – both at home and outside, and the distances between people have been reduced from one to two meters.”

7/1/21:

Senegal, Dakar: riots in 3 areas against Covid-inspired curfews

6/1/21:

Senegal: riots against curfew and confinement in several parts of Dakar and in 5 other parts of the country

Typically, these take the form of burning tires, throwing stones at cops, cops responding with teargas, etc.

5/1/21:

Israeli Cabinet Approves Stricter Lockdown, Closing Schools and Workplaces

“On traveling abroad, the ministers decided that only those who purchased an airline ticket before the new measures go into effect would be allowed to fly, but a special committee would be able to grant
approvals to fly in specific cases.  All incoming travelers will be put in a state-run quarantine facility,
and would be let out only after having tested negative for the coronavirus.” […] “Health Minister Yuli Edelstein described protests as an “epidemiological risk” during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, but said that any steps to limit protests will lead to media accusations of a “political lockdown, and some of the public will be persuaded of that.””

Brief report via email from T. in Israel:

The lockdown that started last week was not really enforced (very few road controls etc.). Some of this is due to intentional low-level enforcement by some mayors/municipality-heads as they object to Netanyahu’s destruction of their municipalities’ economies and are probably trying to gain support from the small-business owners/workers of their constituencies. I broke the lockdown about four times, going from place to place far beyond the 1 kilometer limit and not for work/health reasons, without the slightest problem (I had a document from the kibbutz’s  clinic just in case).

Starting from Sunday there will be a “real” lockdown, probably with heavy policing etc., and of course they have managed to twist reality so as people around me are saying “well, of course, if they had made this last lockdown a real one, then there wouldn’t have been a rise in deaths/contagions etc, and there would have been no need for another lockdown”, or “it’s all because of the ultra orthodox and the Arabs who don’t submit to the restrictions”, etc.

I try to point out to people … how the present reality – 2nd and 3rd waves that are even worse than the first one – was more-or-less accurately predicted by “dissident” scientists/experts: from the get-go some of them said that the positive effects of such lockdowns could only result in a temporary decrease in deaths/contagions, which will rise again on an even larger scale when we “reopen”, and that this is a terrible way to treat such viruses/pandemics. But then again, if you don’t put people in lockdown again and again, how will they be convinced of the necessity of an unreliable vaccination from companies who have lied and bribed their way to the top, with direct ties to people who direct this farce from the regulatory and political side?

As for the vaccine, there are also reports of many Israelis who live abroad coming to Israel especially to get vaccinated, as well as a report from today of 7 nurses contracting Covid19 in a vaccination center in Safed (a mostly orthodox city in the north), after masses of people were called to vaccinate quickly  before a shipment of vaccin doses would go bad and unusable – a current phenomenon these days, that gives the chance for people who are not on the priority list to get the vaccin….

The mixing of vaccins from different companies for the first and  second shot is now officially done in Belgium as well as Israel. The “experts” claim it’s the same technology and there’s no reason to worry etc. [See UK opts for unknown gamble of mix-and-match vaccines]

On the problems of testing for the virus: positive is not invariably positive

4/1/21:

Valid riposte to all those who slag off criticism of government controls as “Covid deniers” or “Conspiraloons”

Anti-conspiracy ideology has become as much an obstacle to contesting this world as conspiracy ideology. “Conspiraloons” is  a leftist,  liberal and even neoliberal government method of parodying and caricaturing critics. Such distortions are often replicated by a supposedly “anti-authoritarian” scene dominated by unconditional respect for mainstream “science”. All of them thus create a toxic atmosphere  that automatically represses,  censors and self-censors in advance any nuanced but fundamental critique as unscientific or loony-cum-conspiracist. Any little deviation from mainstream “logic” nowadays, to any critique of the vaccinations programme or of masks or of other aspects of this crisis are manipulatively linked to  the miserable ideological form of such criticisms  by the Right. Nowadays much of the so-called “libertarian” milieu adopts a classic amalgam technique, previously associated with Stalnism and other brands of Leninism,  by attributing  a “guilt-by-asoociation” to critiques that have nothing to do with the so-called “libertarian” Right.

Just needed to point out that the Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968-69 killed between 1 and 4 million people globally. If the same miserable authoritarian  impositions had taken place then, I, amongst probably  hundreds of thousands in the UK, would never have got involved in strike pickets, squatting, political street theater etc. and probably would have been thoroughly depressed if not suicidal (see this, about my  experiences in 1969). But that was when the conditions of guaranteed survival were pretty much in tact and we wanted to find a way to have a sense of life above all. Nowadays survival is almost the only thing people think about. Life passes them by.

3/1/21:

Israeli officials concerned by low vaccination rate among Arab-Israelis

“Public health expert Dr. Bishara Basharat, who directs a national
nonprofit which promotes Arab health, agreed that some in the Arab
community were reluctant to be vaccinated, a phenomenon he called
“concerning.” … Arab Israelis constitute a disproportionately large
number of Israel’s health care workers, especially nurses and
pharmacists: a 2017 study found that around 40% of nursing students were
Arab Israelis, even though they constitute around 21% of the population.

To combat mistrust of the vaccine, Basharat recommended an aggressive
awareness campaign among Arab family doctors.”

“Arab citizens trust their family doctors, the ones in their hometowns,
whom they go to consult with on a regular basis. Once they are
vaccinated, people will start to be convinced,” Basharat said.”

See also this:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-vaccination-rate-for-israeli-arabs-is-low-health-ministry-says-1.9406004

“In contrast, the ministry says the response to the vaccination campaign
in Haredi communities has been high, especially after leading rabbis
voiced support and were photographed getting the vaccine.”

T writes:

About a week ago I also saw a report on TV that said that only 4% of the Arab population want to be vaccinated.

Israel becomes a world leader in vaccinating against Covid-1984

“Israel’s heavily digitized, community-based health system — all citizens, by law, must register with one of the country’s four H.M.O.s — and its centralized government have proved adept at orchestrating a national inoculation campaign, according to Israeli health experts.

With a population of nine million, Israel’s relatively small size has played a role as well, said Professor Balicer, who is also the chief innovation officer for Clalit, the largest of the country’s four H.M.O.s.

An aggressive procurement effort helped set the stage.

The health minister, Yuli Edelstein, said in an interview on Friday that Israel had entered into negotiations with drugmakers as an “early bird,” and that the companies were interested in supplying Israel because of its H.M.O.s’ reputation for efficiency and gathering reliable data.

“We are leading the world race thanks to our early preparations,” he said.”

…and also becomes the first country in the world to have “vaccination passports”

“Israel will be the first country to issue a “green passport” to residents who have received the COVID-19 vaccine. The passport will lift some restrictions, including mandatory quarantine following exposure to an infected person, and offer access to cultural events and restaurants, according to Israel’s Ministry of Health. A green passport will be issued by the ministry two weeks after the second of the required two vaccine shots is received by the individual. “This passport will show that a person is vaccinated and will give a number of advantages such as not needing to quarantine, entry to all kinds of culture events, restaurants, and so on,” the Ministry of Health’s Director-General Chezy Levy told Israel’s Channel 12.”

Support for all the standard methods of state & capital’s suppression of the crowd under the pretext of Covid1984 by our  favourite “anti-state communist” crowd control psychologist

See this and this for  earlier critiques of this creep. And this for links to most  references to the 9-year old scandal.

2/1/12:

Holland, La Haye: demo festival against Covid1984 restrictions

Homes of Democrat speaker and Republican Senate leader tagged over mean refusal to give rent relief or other forms of increased relief for the poor caused by  Covid1984

“…on Saturday morning the majority leader’s home in Louisville was spray-painted with slogans including “Weres [sic] my money?” and “Mitch kills the poor”…In California, Pelosi’s home was graced by a pig’s head, red paint and messages including “cancel rent” and “We want everything”…”

Following very long rave party, filth issue fines to over 1600 people for failure to respect Covid laws, including curfew

As T. said, re. the prosecution (not just fines) for student partygoers in Bruges on Christmas Day:

Who would have thought that the Beastie Boys’ song “Fight for your right to party” will have such a different reality than intended… Let alone Public Enemy’s “Party for your right to fight”…

SF: You don’t have to be an ideologist of partygoing (for a critique of parties, see “partying is such sweet sorrow”) to see that the rulers use of the pretext of Covid to stifle even further the will to live is taking on the most unprecedented form  in history, at least in “advanced” countries. A form of Taliban-lite.

1/1/21:

Emotionally powerful  expression of disgust and and anger with the government by a nurse in Seine-St-Denis (in French)

UK opts for unknown gamble of mix-and-match vaccines

“Britain has quietly updated its vaccination playbook to allow for a mix-and-match vaccine regimen. If a second dose of the vaccine a patient originally received isn’t available, or if the manufacturer of the first shot isn’t known, another vaccine may be substituted, health officials said. The new guidance contradicts guidelines in the United States, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that the authorized Covid-19 vaccines “are not interchangeable,” and that “the safety and efficacy of a mixed-product series have not been evaluated. Both doses of the series should be completed with the same product.” Some scientists say Britain is gambling with its new guidance. “There are no data on this idea whatsoever,” said John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University. Officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess.””

More on this. “Every effort should be made to give them the same vaccine, but where this is not possible it is better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all.” they say, but without even a pretense of following that eternal ode to objecivity “scientific protocol”, who knows if it’s better or worse?

Received: Dismantling-the-Virus-Theory

T writes

I didn’t do further research and didn’t totally understand the entirety
of the theory, so I can’t validate this text …. But parts of it
at least raise interesting questions for further research.

This part I found interesting:

“Before it could be established that the “bacterial viruses” cannot kill
natural bacteria, but they are instead helping them to live and that
bacteria themselves emerge from such structures, these “phages” were
already used as models for the alleged human and animal viruses. It was
assumed that the human and animal viruses looked like the “phages”, were
allegedly killing cells and thereby causing diseases, while at the same
time producing new disease poisons and in this way transmitting the
diseases. To date, many new or apparently new diseases have been
attributed to viruses if their origin is unknown or not acknowledged.
This reflex found an apparent confirmation in the discovery of the
“bacterial viruses”.

It is important to note that the theories of fight and infection were
accepted and highly praised by a majority of the specialists only if and
when the countries or regions where they lived were also suffering from
war and adversity. In times of peace, other concepts dominated the world
of science. It is very important to note that the theory of infection –
starting from Germany – has only been globalized through the Third
Reich, when the Jewish researchers, most of which had opposed and
refuted the politically exploited theories of infection, were removed
from their positions.”