Chronology
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.
28/2/21:
Israel: 1000s get together for banned Purim parties
“Police entered Mea Shearim to take down an effigy of a police officer that neighborhood residents had hung from a wire above a city street. Officers took it down and removed it from the neighborhood.”
25/2/21:
French state considering total or partial lockdowns/confinement in 20 more departments on top of sections of 2 already confined, and on top of 6pm-6am curfews everywhere (which have existed for about 6 weeks already)
A large collective of dissident (though totally reformist) French doctors list 10 points of criticism of government policy (translation): 10 indiscutable points
Israel: link to site run by doctors and non-medical people critical of the Coronaregime in the country
Not always very accurate – e.g it says covid “has a survival rate of over 99+%”, when it’s a bit less that 98% of those officially infected (though of course lots of people don’t know they’ve got it, and aren’t registered as having it so it’s hard to get an accurate figure). Also, like so many of these dissident doctors etc., they have little, if any, criticism of any other dissidents; regardless of their politics they are considered fine as long as they’re not for the current totalitarianism – united front ideology that is possibly typical of those in the medical profession. The trouble with such a from of collectivism is that it’s likely that amongst the dissidents there are those who also have unexpressed criticism of each other’s take on things which are not aired because they want to maintain a spectacle of unity in adversity. But debate is essential even if on basics people can agree.
24/2/21:
The US surpasses half a million deaths from Covid
It seems useful to compare these mortality figures with those in France:
US (as far as I’ve heard, very little state regulations and rather arbitrarily applied from state to state): 0.151% of the population.
France (6pm to 6am curfews, repeated lockdowns, some partial some total, some localised, sometimes everywhere; bars, restaurants, cinemas, theaters, music and sports venues closed; massive restrictions on beaches, etc; compulsory wearing of masks outdoors and in schools, shops, libraries etc.; constant fines and even arrests, etc.): 0.127% of the population….
The relatively small difference could be attributable to the wonderful effect of the restrictions in France, but I’d guess it’s more likely to be due to lots of other factors – possibly the differences in the general health of the population before Covid, including better food in France (not that the nutritional value of food anywhere is doing anything but getting worse).
A dissident Belgian doctor sacked for daring to criticise aspects of the state management of the crisis
“Pascal Sacré, resuscitator at the Grand Hôpital De Charleroi (GHDC), was fired on October 20, 2020 for “serious misconduct”, apparently because of the ideas he shared on the internet. He criticized the Belgian Covid-19 management , mainly for two aspects: the distorted use of PCR tests and their results [13mins 42 to 22mins 25] and the neoliberal management of hospitals which, for decades, has led to the current situation.”
Israel: medical license of vaccine opponent permanently revoked
T’s translation:
The medical license of vaccine opponent Dr. Aryeh Avni has been permanently revoked. Retired Judge Strasnov who made the decision: “I am sorry to determine, but the recipient is a charlatan” . Avni headed the “Rafa – Only Health” Party that wanted to run in the next Knesset elections and establish an “embracing and non-coercive health ministry”. He was documented as allegedly agreeing to forge vaccination books for a fee … The decision was made by retired judge Amnon Strasnov, to whom the Ministry of Health delegated its powers to decide on the matter. Avni is one of the main opponents of vaccines in Israel. Among other things, he was documented by Channel 13 when he allegedly agreed to forge vaccine booklets for his patients (he later said that he did so to show how a media channel deliberately hinders vaccine-resistant doctors). Avni called on the public to violate the Ministry of Health’s directives regarding the corona virus, and spoke sharply against other doctors. The arguments for revoking the license have focused on the last two issues. In the run-up to the upcoming elections, Avni founded the “Rafa – Only Health” party, which sought to tackle a platform of alternative medicine. The party proposed establishing a new Ministry of Health, “embracing and not forcing”, and at the same time reducing the existing Ministry of Health budget by a quarter, thanks to the focus on preventive medicine. Among the contestants on the list are doctors according to their statement, who are engaged in, among other things, etrology, energetic flushing and frequency medicine. Avni offers medical services in its own way through the “Dr. Avni, the right medicine” clinic. The decision of the retired judge Strashnov reads: “There is no doubt that in the harsh and blatant statements of the recipient in articles he published on the website, on Facebook and recently also on YouTube, against the inoculation for the corona virus – there is a real danger to public safety and health. The public of doctors and the heads of the Ministry of Health – who far exceed what is reasonable and permissible in the context of freedom of expression, which is an important and protected value in any democratic society – and you have a clear prescription for complete anarchy that the recipient is trying to cause, while boasting the title of a doctor. “I have not found any connection between the important value of freedom of expression, as the recipient claims, and the harsh and defamatory expressions he has taken – without any scientific or academic basis – and all from his fertile and unbridled imagination. …As for the punishment – the questions are asked, what did the esteemed doctor not hear about more than 5,000 corona patients who died, most of them elderly, who apparently did not hear or did not heed the recipient’s recommendation to ‘take vitamins’? The recipient did not hear anything about the severe side effects from which a considerable part of those recovering from corona also suffer? Did he not read the studies regarding the effectiveness of the vaccines and their success by more than 90%, or did these disappear from his eyes? Did he read any studies done on the subject of the corona or any scientific material?…Perhaps for the esteemed Dr. Avni the corona is a curiosity or ‘joke’,
as he puts it, but not for the thousands of patients, the dead and their relatives who have been afflicted with this terrible disease. I’m sorry to say, but the recipient is a charlatan, a clear corona denier …A very aggravating circumstance, in my view in this case, is the fact that while proceedings are being conducted against him in this case, he continues to spread his toxic and dangerous doctrine to the public, without any restraints and out of grave contempt for public health. The recipient is a repeat offender, in the full sense of the word, who is on trial before the disciplinary committee for the third time, while he belittles the Ministry of Health authorities, and does not even regret or improve his ways, as he repeatedly promised. This is a recipient who is like a ‘raging bull’, whose behavior poses a real danger to the public peace and health, when all the steps and warnings taken against him in the past – have not been helpful. Although I do not err in the illusion that the recipient will stop spreading his dangerous and perverted teachings, it is better for him to do so without being seen as an authority and without boasting of a doctorate in medicine.”
SF:
This Israeli doctor publicly said he’d forge vaccine passports. Without doubt, this was very silly on his part: if his intention had been serious he would (and certainly should) have kept this quiet. If it was just to make a name for himself as a martyr to social control, he succeeded but not very convincingly. It would have been more convincing if he’d seriously started to fake these passports. Some have condemned him for being corrupt. It may have been potentially corrupt if he’d tried to make a business out of it, but even then hardly something to totally condemn without nuance. Helping people avoid such social control seems admirable. Especially since it may well become mandatory for playing sport or whatever.
About the same issue, see also this report in English:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/covid-denying-antivaxxer-doctor-permanently-loses-medical-license/
“Vaccine HESITANCY and SKEPTICISM have become a growing concern in recent weeks as Israel’s world-leading inoculation campaign has slowed [my emphasis – T]. Dozens attended a protest in Tel Aviv last week against “coercion,” a label widely used by anti-vaxxers. The protest featured a number of people not wearing masks, as well as comparisons between Israel’s vaccination campaign and Nazi laws, with some wearing yellow Stars of David saying “not vaccinated” meant to resemble the ones that Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust.”
21/2/21:
Links to articles (many in French) sent by T [SF: I haven’t read most of these yet; and am not entirely sure of the nuances of one or two of the bits he quotes, partly because the way they’re put is a bit obscure] :
Here are some relatively good or interesting critiques and analyses of various aspects of the
crisis from the last 6 months or so that I didn’t have time to share with you. These critiques are mainly about the “scientific” and “health” aspects of the crisis, mostly from the Kairos site (whose main, but not only, flaw is its belief in a “good” or “true” form of democracy and government that our contemporary technological and neo-liberal era has strayed from). I’ll try to put them in reverse chronological order, from recent to oldest:
1) “COVID19 : Débunkage du narratif de propagande” [6th February 2021]
It’s a good debunking and critique of the main “objective” presuppositions of the crisis, such as the efficacy of lockdowns, the situation in hospitals, PCR tests… I like his final remarks (except the “undemocratic” part):
“In some hardly subversive minds there’s the idea that the class leader has power because she deserves it or has an ability to lead. There is nothing more false. The political system and the hierarchical power of authoritarian bodies in general, operate by mediocrity and cooptation. That is to say that the high-up leaders choose mediocre, but obedient and grateful, individuals for subordinate positions. In this context, people seeking to obtain positions of power and responsibility are seldom competent, honest or caring. These are people who rarely admit their mistakes, persist in their mistakes and have only their careerist ambition as a goal. Not to mention their adviser-technocrats, often with conflicts of interest, who have visions totally disconnected from reality and act more out of ideology than pragmatism. A hell of a cocktail! Therefore, in conclusion, it is urgent to put an end to this politico-media hysteria as well as counterproductive, undemocratic health measures, without any medical or scientific basis.”
*****
2. –“Mise en perspective des chiffres Covid” [4th December 2020]
and
–“Mise en perspective au sujet de l’augmentation des “cas” covid et des
hospitalisations” [2nd November 2020]
Two articles critical analyses of the official data
*****
3. “When Covid-19 Hit, Many Elderly Were Left to Die” [Aug. 8th, 2020]
An interesting article from the NY Times about the situation in Belgian nursing homes before and during the crisis, and how the elderly there were fucked before and during the crisis, by those “in control”.
*****
4. https://www.transparence-coronavirus.be/
A dissident health-professionals collective. Seems like they only write letters and petitions… at least these are the only things on this website
“… an inter-professional collective of Belgian carers (specialist doctors, general practitioners, pharmacists, nurses, physiotherapists, dentists, psychologists, midwives, nursing aides, naturopaths, etc.) concerned by the problematic management of the coronavirus, by the liberticide and disproportionate measures , the anxiety-provoking context and misinformation about the virus, its severity and about treatments and so-called miracle solutions to address the crisis (the vaccine race). “
*****
5. “Vaccins, brevets et biens communs à l’ère du Covid-19” [17 November 2020]
About “intellecutal property rights” in science and its impact on our health, in relation to the race for the vaccine.
*****
“La course aux milliards du Covid-19” [22 octobre 2020]
Video form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jHBIXOWz3E
About the behind-the-scenes of the race for the vaccine, the lobbies behind it, the relationship with the politicians who run the crisis….
*****
7. “Le Covid-19 et son (im)monde” [14th September 2020]
A general critique of numerous aspects by the editor-in-chief of Kairos.
“It is with the industrial age that new diseases appear. In the United States, progress in industrialization is accompanied by decline in the quality of food and therefore the deterioration of the state of the population’s health. “Man’s destructive intervention on the environment has intensified alongside the alleged progress of medicine; the poisoning of nature by the chemical industry went hand in hand with the alleged increasing effectiveness of drugs; modern malnutrition, with the advancement of dietary science “(53). As health deteriorates, the management of health problems is seen as a huge opportunity for profit. So if tobacco and junk food bring huge returns to businesses – and to the state through taxes – the health consequences they cause bring financial gains to pharmaceutical companies and privatized health sectors. To eliminate the cause would in fact be to produce two unthinkable effects for states nesting in a pernicious logic of a public system financed by destructive activities, and who do not want to modify their operation:
– – deprive oneself of income from the taxation of harmful products;
– deprive oneself of income from drugs and health services.
This would reduce diseases, but also profits, which was to say to Ruth Mulvey Harmer “that the World Health Organization finds an interest in the continued use of toxic pesticides in of its public health programs ”(54). Obviously, if what structurally harms us (air , water, and soil pollution, deforestation, systemic stress, the overconsumption of screens, …) does not disappear, it is because it contributes to economic growth. But if we don’t fight for them to disappear, it is also because we find objects that produce these nuisances more advantages than defects in our use of them, bearing in mind that nuisances are mainly suffered by people who very often forget their existence, as stated bluntly Véronique de Viguerie when she named her report “The oil companies kill to satisfy their customers… us! “ (55)
We revere science, we denigrate self-awareness and the remedies of grandmothers which have been proven for centuries. The effects of consensual groups always contain a hidden meaning, which is obviously hardly audible, since it reveals the myth of this new unity around a common theme. Paradoxically therefore, the unanimity around defense of health care indicates an overvaluation of hospitals that reveals a way of thinking that will perpetuate the bureaucratic domination of our lives. […] “Conspiracy theory!” is pulled out of the hat as soon as we say that Covid-19 and its management are a product of this world. A schism, already started, establishes itself among those who, even “on the left” – or especially on the left, sometimes … – are deeply convinced of being in a modern advanced world, taken in hand by a caring state, to which crisis events are only avoidable “accidents” of a system which, once we get rid of these, will have reached perfection; a schism will therefore be established between the latter and those who no longer believe in a protective state guaranteeing the common good. Misfortune, misery, disease and death are not, however, only the pangs of existence, but also the intrinsic condition of a disastrous system which made production-consumption a value.
In this sense, panic is timely for a capitalist system in complete disintegration. It is notably the occasion:
– to test the capacity for submission of populations on a large scale;
– to dramatically increase the profit of pharmaceutical multinationals pharmaceutical, with states taking on responsiblity for the expense of research but being deprived of the profits, in the usual logic of socialization of costs and privatization of profits;
– – that the multinationals, as they always do, instrumentalize states on an unprecedented scale. In fact, without these it’d be impossible to coordinate global screening and vaccination;
– definitively not having to deal with the opinion of a confined population, governments ally themselves as never before both with the private pharmaceutical industry, as well as constituting committees of experts from the business and bank sectors.»(56).
We must radically change our relationship to the world and to others, change society, furiously attack capitalism. If we finally understand that, we will get out of this collectively, and we will remove from their condition those who in fact die from our way of life. “
Received from a contact: more information about the “Die Welt” article mentioned in the entry for 8/2/21 below (link to a machine-translation of excerpts of covid 19 strategy paper):
Israel: Causing Death by Conservatism – Vitamin D and Covid
T. writes:
This article really talks about direct correlation between complications/sickness/death from corona and other flu-like viruses, and talks about how things like vitamin D can actually improve significantly the state of people sick with the virus, even in more severe stages, but mostly as preventive measure for strengthening the immune system, making the “need” for a vaccine and most of the restrictive methods redundant.
Quotes:
“Already at the start of the first wave, when I was working in the HMO’s
coronavirus directorate and receiving patients who tested positive, I
noticed that in many cases they had low levels of vitamin D,” says
Yevgeny Marzon, who is director of the Department of Managed Medicine at
Leumit and led the study.
“It was very obvious,” Dr. Marzon continues. “In order to verify this
intuition, we collected data from more than 7,000 people who were tested
for the coronavirus between February and April, and who also been tested
for vitamin D in the past year. The results, after taking into account
variables such as age, sex, socioeconomic level and underlying
illnesses, were unequivocal: People with low levels of vitamin D were at
heightened risk of being infected by the coronavirus, and the lower
their vitamin D level, the higher the probability that they would be
hospitalized – in other words, that they would develop more serious
symptoms. It looked as though higher levels [of vitamin D] could protect
people from becoming infected.”
Since then, similar articles have been published in a host of countries:
the United States, Germany, France, Italy, China, Iran, South Korea,
India, Britain, Switzerland and Israel. Time and again, a significant
connection was found between the level of vitamin D in the blood and a
susceptibility to infection by the coronavirus. Individuals with a
vitamin D deficiency are more disposed to be infected by the virus, and
in case of infection a low level of vitamin D increases the likelihood
of developing complications. The opposite is also true: Patients with
high levels of vitamin D tend to suffer less from serious symptoms and
to be less likely to die. In general, it can be said that there is a
linear connection: The seriousness of the disease correlates completely
with one’s level of vitamin D.
…
The large disparity between the results of the growing number of studies
and what’s happening on the ground is infuriating. Yes, one person will
have heard a vague recommendation on television, and someone else will
have encountered information about vitamin D’s importance elsewhere –
but the general feeling is that it’s some sort of rumor. Amid the chaos
that characterizes the pandemic’s management, the array of opinions and
assessments and the abundant wrangling and vested interests – no clear
voice is stating: Here’s a fruit that grows very low – pick it.
…
The involvement of vitamin D in the disease can explain, for example,
why dark-skinned people in the West are more vulnerable than
light-skinned people, both to infection with COVID-19 and to severe
symptoms. The density of melanin in dark skin inhibits the manufacture
of vitamin D, and if so, which could explain why, in the United States,
the principal sufferers from vitamin D deficiency are Blacks and
Hispanics, and why they are the major sufferers from the coronavirus. In
Israel, the population groups most vulnerable to vitamin D deficiency
are Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox – two populations that tend to wear
long clothing, and they are also the groups that have been most affected
by the pandemic. It can also be said, of course, that the high rate of
illness in those groups is due to their lower socioeconomic status, and
that the vitamin D levels are only an indicator, not a cause. Poor
nutrition, obesity, predisposition to diabetes, overcrowding – all these
can in and of themselves explain the incidence of the disease.
It’s possible that a new study by the Clalit HMO can shed a little more
light on the subject. This research project examined more than half a
million people from 200 Israeli locales, and as in earlier studies found
an impressive correlation between vitamin D deficiency and the risk of
contracting COVID-19. Places that were found to suffer from a deficiency
in the vitamin are the “red cities,” the locales where the infection
rate is especially high. Because these are all Arab and ultra-Orthodox
cities and towns, the phenomenon is usually attributed to a low
socioeconomic situation. However, the study also found large differences
between Arab men and women. The women tend to fall ill at a far higher
rate than the men, and the women’s vitamin D levels are also lower. A
possible explanation is that women in Arab society are more covered up
than men, and also tend to stay at home more and so are less exposed to
sunlight. This difference neutralizes to some degree the socioeconomic
factor (as these are men and women from the same population).
…
“For some years, patients with lung and viral diseases have been treated
with vitamin D, because they are known to have a deficiency of that
vitamin. So the idea of using it to treat the coronavirus is quite
natural,” Dr. Lev continues. “In its mild form, COVID-19 is a simple
viral lung disease, with which the regular cells of the immune system
cope well. Frequently, no symptoms at all develop. Only 1 percent to 5
percent – the rates are low in the summer – of all those who are
infected develop the disease in its serious form. That happens because
of a secondary response by the immune system, which sometimes lurches
out of control and starts to function in an exaggerated way – it has to
do with the hypercytokinemia [severe immune response] that people have
been talking about lately. It results in inflammation that causes
massive damage to the lungs and afterward multi-systemic damage.”
…
“Why isn’t vitamin D being administered to the general population and to
patients?” … Wilf: “There is a deluge of findings and evidence that
attest to the vitamin’s involvement in the pandemic, but the news spread
so slowly. It’s irresponsible. We are trying with all our might to
induce the decision makers – physicians, the Health Ministry, the
politicians – to break out of the conservative pattern of doing things
that characterizes their usual behavior, and to issue a call to the
people: ‘Take vitamin D, it can save lives.’ And to the hospitals:
‘Start treating patients with vitamin D.’
…
At the moment the picture is clear,” he says. “The probability that
vitamin D is effective is high, its potential benefit is vast and the
risk is very low – toxicity as a result of excess [ingestion] of vitamin
D is rare, especially if you monitor the patients. Perhaps in another
six months more comprehensive studies will be published, showing that
the treatment is not effective – in our estimation the likelihood of
that is low, but it’s definitely possible – in which case a different
decision will be the right one. As of now, every day in which patients
are not given vitamin D puts them at risk for no reason. I call it
‘causing death by conservatism.’”
20/2/21:
Endemic pandemic
“Another expert panel has weighed in with the distressing assessment that the coronavirus causing COVID-19 will circulate for years to come. Nature asked 100 infectious disease experts whether they thought the SARS-CoV-2 virus would become endemic and 90 percent think the answer is yes. …the most benign outlook for the new coronavirus is that it becomes endemic along with four human coronaviruses that circulate and cause the so-called “common cold.” When a daycare calls a parent in 2026 to report a case of sniffles, “there’s a chance the virus that killed more than 1.5 million people in 2020 alone will be the culprit” ..even now many cases of COVID-19 are mild or asymptomatic, but if the new virus behaves like the other endemic coronaviruses in the future, it likely won’t pose such a threat to older adults, either. With the four human coronaviruses, kids are usually exposed before age six…People’s immune defenses against endemic human coronaviruses like OC43—which some researchers think caused the deadly “Russian flu” pandemic of the late 19th Century—eventually weaken, leaving them vulnerable to reinfection. But OC43 now is one of the viruses that cause cold symptoms.”
But it’ll probably take a revolution to destroy the endemic and mostly irrational (in health terms) policies of the various states that are suffocating everyone other than the ruling class.
19/2/21:
Independent French media channel France Soir launches a petition against state threats of censorship because of its Covid coverage
This rather liberal channel (which, for instance produced the interview with Dr.Christian Perronne mentioned in an entry for 13/2/21 below) has been subjected to very serious pressure and attacks. France Soir is an alternative voice in this health crisis. Whereas other French media get state subsidies, this one gets nothing from the state . It has spoken of inconvenient truths before other French media outlets spoke of them (if they even did speak of them): on the lack of freedom of doctors to prescribe anything for Covid, the limits of PCR tests which have too many false positives, the risk of masks for fragile children (confirmed by the Italian State Council), the controversial role of the Wuhan P4 laboratory, the effectiveness of certain early-phase treatments such as vitamin D and Ivermectin validated by dozens of scientific studies, the damage caused by confinement and its low usefulness. On remdevizir they were the first media to denounce its toxic effects (confirmed by the WHO in November). As a consequence of much of this, You Tube censored them for 10 days, and Google and Facebook have greatly reduced their visibility. Wikipedia doesn’t pretend to offer anything other than a caricature of this site, claiming they’re conspiracy theorists, deriding them for supporting hydroxychloroquine, offering exclusively the dominant ideology about HCQ, and other stuff. A cabal of major media like France Info, 20 minutes, Le Monde and Liberation have all accused them of conspiracy. And on January 29th the Minister of Culture, Bachelot, asked that the official certificate which recognizes France Soir as a press organ be re-examined. L’Humanité (Communist Party media) received nearly 4 million in direct aid from the state in 2017 alone. The same year, Liberation received 3 million in direct aid. Le Monde and L’Opinion received 1 million each. In total, as revealed by Media Park, 7 billionaires and a bank alone pocket 49% of public aid. 6 million Euros directly finances public media outlets such as France Inter and France 5 which, by chance, have aggressively criticized alternative views such as those of Professor Raoult, and have consistently supported the government in this crisis. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Nevertheless, France Soir , like so much of the media and so many people also, particularly since the advent of Covid, does get things wrong and tends to excessively exaggerate (e.g they once said that 90% of PCR tests give a false positive, when it’s 40% – which, nevertheless doesn’t really make them any more useful).
Other information from the French TV: according to the politician Wonner, the Belgium government , whilst remaining silent about hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for Belgians (neither forbidding it nor providing it) recommended it to the Congo. Also, she said that in Lombardy in the north of Italy, a lot of doctors use HCQ and azythromicine. Macron has now included the highly dubious McKinsey and co. into its Strategic Council.
In French: a doctor in Guadeloupe says he’s developed a natural plant-based vaccine against Covid
There seem to be a lot of dubious things in this guy’s take on things, but please don’t hang me for putting a link to his stuff – as I say at the top of the page, “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.”
Israel: Vaccine passports and the doublespeak that follows them
“Cabinet ministers on Monday approved the reopening of stores, gyms, hotels, and other venues starting Sunday, in a major easing of sweeping lockdown measures meant to slow the spread of COVID-19. Street-front shops, malls, markets, museums, and libraries will be open
to all Israelis. But only those who have been vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 will be able to use gyms and pools, attend sporting and culture events, and stay at hotels. To be allowed to open Sunday, relevant businesses must undertake to scan for the pass and only accept those carrying it…. “At the same time, [Health Minister] Edelstein said, “There will be no forced vaccination in Israel; those who choose not to be vaccinated — it is their choice.” He added that there “won’t be any personal sanctions against those who do not vaccinate.”
Deputy Attorney General Raz Nizri said Thursday that under certain circumstances, employers can legally demand their workers get vaccinated, but stressed that the demand must be “justified.”
The ideology of choice, of democracy, Hobson’s choice: you can choose between a rock and a hard place, between the frying pan and the fire, between the devil and the deep blue sea, between Scylla and Charybdis, between heads the ruling society wins, tails you lose, between six of one and half a dozen of the other, between being damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Or else you can embark on the difficult path of choices that are not presented to you.
Another totalitarian development:
Ministry of Justice: “A teacher who refuses to be vaccinated will have to bear the state decree”
Interesting story about smallpox in Moscow 1960
Apparently the epidemiologists etc. are now considered heroes because they rapidly introduced anti-epidemic measures on a huge scale, isolated thousands of people who were considered to have possibly been infected, closed Moscow, and even returned trains with potential carriers of infection to Moscow. Then they quickly organized the importation of 10 million doses of the vaccine from other cities, mobilized all the resources of the country for the immediate vaccination of Muscovites. The Communist Party obeyed – for the first time in history — by doing what the epidemiologists said. They saved a huge city, only three people died. The vaccine was one that had been tried and tested for 150 years or so – not like the mRNA ones of today. And the method was targeted restrictions, not one-size-fits-all blanket lockdowns – only those who could have had contact with people who might have developed smallpox. And the quarantine followed typical methods of quarantining people that had been used for centuries – ie block a whole city but let those in the city carry on as normal (not that “as normal” in 1960 USSR was something to be recommended obviously), except those who may have got the smallpox. Now track and trace in China is obviously being used for ulterior motives and lockdowns generally are not at all targeted. But almost every class society has elements of “reason” in the way they deal with crises or potential crises even if these reasonable elements are fairly marginal (Khrushchev’s state obviously didn’t care about how many people died in the gulags), methods that a free society would probably develop fairly spontaneously and voluntarily insofar as no-one would be so narrowly egotistical as to want to either possibly die an unnecessary death or spread this possibility to other people. A critique of track and trace applies to this society but I imagine that if there were those who refused to abide by certain necessary restrictions in a free society (assuming we ever get there) that they’d be forced to abide by what the majority in that particular area demanded of them, just as in your house you and who you’re living with wouldn’t allow anybody – either amongst you or from outside – to endanger those living in it.
Only uncertainty is a sure thing – certainty is an illusion: epistemology of Covid research
This refers to scientific research . It’s not to say that there aren’t negative certainties – capitalism, the commodity economy, the state, hierarchical power and hierarchical relations must certainly be opposed because they are certainly destructive of life, sense, community and communication.
18/2/21:
Gabon, Libreville: riots follow cop kiling of 2 youths for going out after 6pm curfew, a curfew reinforced by the state using the pretext of the more contagious British variant to extend and continue the curfew that’s been there for almost a year, and make mask-wearing, hand-washing a social distanciation obligatory
Israel:
Various articles from Israel, Guinea Pig Capital of the world (it seems that there’s been virtually no news outside of Israeli Health Ministry propaganda over the last 2 weeks, and even the Ministry of Truth hasn’t supplied much “information”]:
4/2/21:
Covid-19: Israel sees new infections plummet following vaccinations
A couple of quotes:
“In the period before the protection took effect, over 7000 infections were recorded, with just under 700 cases of moderate to critical illness and 307 deaths. No time scale or age group for these figures was given.”
“the country is not vaccinating certified recovered covid-19 patients, although the Ministry of Health website does not provide information on how someone is certified to have recovered.”
I wonder what these gaps in information mean?
Also – speaking more generally – as a friend said, there’s not much discussion about global case numbers falling very rapidly in many parts of the world this year (India being a good example), far outpacing vaccination.
Re. India – according to a French Deputy (Wonner), in India people are given immune-boosting kits that include zinc and Vitamin D, which may well be the reason for the decline in Covid infections.
2/2/21:
Covid vaccine side effects in Israel match trials
“So far, 3.1 million people in Israel have received the first dose of the vaccine, and 1.87 million have received both doses. The side effects that have appeared are more or less as expected from the clinical trials by Pfizer, maker of the vaccine that most Israelis who have been vaccinated have received. The side effects have mostly been light and transient, but there have also been some more severe cases. 6,575 people reported some kind of side effect, including local effects at the site of the vaccination, after receiving the first dose of vaccine. 3,592 people have reported side effects following the second dose. Side effects were more common among young people than old people, and slightly more common among women than among men. One possible effect that caused concern in relation to the vaccine was an allergic reaction. 1.4 people in a million [SF: 1.4 x 3.1= 4.34. 0.34 of a person…?] suffered anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction, but not at the level of life-threatening anaphylactic shock. Another 2.9 in a million [SF: i.e. 9 ] experienced respiratory difficulties. All were treated with no long-term injury. None of these effects was reported after the second vaccine dose. Other reported allergic reactions are recognized as light reactions, such as swelling in the respiratory tracts, runny nose, redness, an accelerated pulse rate, tingling sensations, and so on. A further concern was over possible neurological effects. A total of 180 people out of all those vaccinated felt paresthesia (pins and needles) in various parts of the body after the first dose, and 69 after the second. 30 people suffered from partial or total facial nerve paralysis, but most of them have recovered. One person suffered facial nerve paralysis only after the second dose. It should be noted that facial nerve paralysis occurs among the population even without vaccination, and with similar frequency (15-30 cases per 100,000), but the phenomenon is being monitored because in both Pfizer and Moderna’s trials there were more instances in the trial group than in the control group. In addition, eleven people reported attacks of herpes (and another four after the second dose), eleven reported a metallic taste in the mouth (and another eight after the second dose), eleven reported convulsions (these people were not given the second dose), four reported a transient ischemic event (probably not caused by the vaccine, but there is no way of knowing), and two people reported having lost consciousness. Fewer side effects of all kinds were reported after the second dose. One reason could be that people who experienced the same reaction for a second time did not report it again. The main transient systemic effects were headaches, reported by 328.8 people in a million (it is likely that many more people experienced headaches but not with a severity that made them report them as a side effect), 93.2 in a million felt dizziness, 60 in a million suffered muscular aches, and 59 in a million reported a fever. Other less common effects were pains in the joints, nausea, stomachaches, tremors, sore throat, runny nose, and coughing. As mentioned, these are symptoms that appeared close in time to the vaccination, not necessarily because of the vaccination. As far as local effects are concerned, 883 people in a million reported pain at the site of the vaccination (many more people probably experienced pain but not at a level that would justify reporting it). 129.3 in a million reported swelling, and 124.6 in a million reported restricted movement in the days following vaccination. 22.8 in a million reported a change in skin color at the vaccination site, 11.5 in a million reported swollen lymph nodes. Other effects with a lower incidence were subcutaneous nodules, subcutaneous inflammation, rash, itch, and abscesses. Some of these effects were the result of the needle not being inserted properly, and were not from the vaccine itself. At any rate, they disappeared within a few days. After examining the data, the Ministry of Health has not seen fit to change its recommendations on which groups to vaccinate; the recommendation to become vaccinated applies to the vast majority of the population.”
It must be noted that this was after a relatively short period of time; longer term effects have yet to be reported. And though this was published the day after the following incident, it doesn’t mention it, presumably because there was no proof of a link between the vaccine and the illness (how many other incidents have been left out because of this lack of proof? and what would proof look like? are they, in most cases, even capable of proving direct links?):
01/2/21:
The doctors who treated him noted that without treatment, his condition could have worsened and led to heart failure. Referring to the case, Dr. Abdulhadi Peruji, a pre-emergency medical director who treated the young man, noted that it could not be determined with certainty that myocarditis developed as a secondary result of the vaccine, as coronary heart disease can also cause the disease. …This case may cause panic in the public, due to the fear that the corona vaccine may lead to myocarditis in other vaccinators as well. We checked with Prof. Yehuda Adler, a cardiology expert and dean of the School of Health Professions, the Academic Center for Law and Business in Ramat Gan and a corona consultant to municipalities, whether this might indeed be a possible response to the vaccine. “I do not know the details of the case in question, but as far as I understand it is a case of myocarditis, a few days after the second vaccination. First, it is not certain that the vaccine is the cause in this case. There may be that another viral infection or corona infection, are the ones that caused the inflammation – since five days is a short period of time for the vaccine to start working. However, it is not impossible that the inflammation was caused as a result of an immunological response to the vaccine itself”
15/1/21:
COVID-19 vaccine: 13 out of nearly 2 mil. Israelis suffer facial paralysis
“Some 13 people have experienced mild facial paralysis as an adverse after taking the COVID-19 vaccine, the Health Ministry reported, and estimates are that the number of cases could be higher. Health officials have raised questions about whether or not to administer the second dose to these individuals, but the Health Ministry is recommending that the second dose be given. “For at least 28 hours I walked around with it [facial paralysis],” one person who had the adverse effect told Ynet. “I can’t say it was completely gone afterwards, but other than that I had no other pains, except a minor pain where the injection was, but there was nothing beyond that.”As for receiving the second dose, he admits he is undecided, but says that “it is important to note that this is something rare, and I don’t want people to avoid getting vaccinated – it’s important.””I recently came across, for example, someone vaccinated who was dealing with paralysis, and decided not to give her a second dose,” Prof. Galia Rahav, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba Medical Center told Ynet. “It is true that it can be given according to the Health Ministry, but I did not feel comfortable with it.”She added that, “No one knows if this is connected to the vaccine or not. That’s why I would refrain from giving a second dose to someone who suffered from paralysis after the first dose.”The Health Ministry stated, however, that the second dose should of course be only provided if and when the paralysis passes”
“The Israel Medical Association today (Thursday) addressed an urgent letter to the Epidemiology Division of the Ministry of Health in which it demanded that the second dose of vaccine not be given to vaccinators who experienced the side effect of paralysis in their face [SF: ie contradicting the Health Ministry’s advice that the 2nd dose should be given once the paralysis has passed] . Dr. Zion Hagai, and the director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Shamir-Assaf Medical Center, Dr. Miriam Weinberger, demanded to receive the cumulative data on the side effect, claiming that the mechanism of development of paralysis [medical term: Patsialis] is not yet known. Another similar matter “We will have to vaccinate the children as well, otherwise we will not reach herd immunity” More than 29 million people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus worldwide – a drop in the number of vaccinated alongside a sharp increase in the number of new infections. A letter sent to the director of the Department of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Emilia Anis, reads: “We are trying to understand on what basis the recommendation to continue vaccinating with a second vaccine is also based on those who suffered from an allergic reaction or facial nerve paralysis. Concern has been expressed that since the mechanism of the development of paralysis is unknown, how can we be sure that it will not return or worsen? “. Earlier it was learned that 13 Israelis, as far as is known so far, who were vaccinated with the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine against the corona virus developed shortly afterwards the “Bell’s paralysis” – paralysis of the facial nerve also known as patialis. According to a report this morning (Thursday) by Adir Janko in Yedioth Ahronoth, doctors in the health system estimate that there have been more such cases in practice. It has also been reported that as a result, there are disagreements among doctors as to whether those vaccinated should receive the second dose of vaccine or temporarily avoid it. The position of the Ministry of Health is: “A vaccinator who suffers from paralysis can receive the second dose. In general, those who suffer from a new disease should delay receiving the vaccine until after recovery. The cause of the appearance of paralysis, in most cases, is unknown. Also in a study conducted by Pfizer prior to obtaining approval for the use of its vaccine, the phenomenon was documented among several vaccinated experimenters. The report quoted Dr. Miriam Weinberger, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Assaf Harofeh-Shamir: “We do not know what the mechanism of this paralysis is and whether it is related to the vaccine or not. Some experts are debating whether it is really right to give a second dose after Patsialis and on what basis the recommendation is based. Routine treatment for psoriasis is by steroids, but when steroids are given, it is not possible to give the second dose of vaccine on time and it should be delayed until the end of steroid treatment. In addition, we ask ourselves whether it is right to give a second dose if the patient has developed a complication of paralysis when we do not know what is the mechanism that caused it to appear. We are asking for more information and we will contact the Ministry of Health and Pfizer in this matter. ” Prof. Galia Rahav, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba Medical Center, added: “I believe that the conditions for recommending a second dose to those who have suffered this type of reaction have not yet matured. “According to the Ministry of Health, it can be given, but I did not feel comfortable with it. No one knows whether the complication is related to the vaccine or not. It is not yet clear whether this is really a more common complication.” In addition, last night (Wednesday) it was reported in the Channel 12 news that four people aged 80-70 and over in Israel who were vaccinated, all with complex background diseases – died after receiving the vaccine. Yesterday, according to the same report, a 75-year-old woman from Lod who suffered from many and complex background illnesses was found lifeless in her home for about two hours that she was vaccinated with the second dose. The Ministry of Health is investigating the incident as well as its three predecessors and no connection has yet been found between the death and the administration of the vaccine. About two weeks ago, a 75-year-old from Beit She’an died of a heart attack at his home, two hours after receiving the first vaccine dose for Corona at the HMO. The Ministry of Health investigated this incident and reported that it was known that the vaccinator had a history of previous heart attacks and it is estimated that there was no connection to the vaccine he received. Another case is of an 88-year-old from Jerusalem who was vaccinated and died two hours later. Hadassah Mount Scopus reports that he suffered from complex and severe long-term background illnesses.”
It should be pointed out that trials of Pfizer’s vaccine did not include the over 70s or pregnant women.
10/01/2021:
A young man who was vaccinated against corona developed a rare inflammatory syndrome
“The 23-year-old suffered from multiple systemic inflammatory syndrome in response to a corona vaccine. Khaled Abu Sabitan from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem was vaccinated two and a half weeks ago and the next day he began to suffer from various symptoms. Within a short time, his condition deteriorated and he was taken to a clinic and then transferred
to Hadassah Ein Kerem. Prof. Dror Mevorach, director of the internal medicine department and director of the corona department at the hospital: “Khaled arrived in a very difficult situation, in real life danger. We diagnosed him with a multi-systemic inflammatory syndrome, a rare syndrome known so far only after coronary heart disease, and now for the first time it has appeared after vaccination.” “This is an immediate harm to some of the body’s systems: heart failure, kidney failure and the hemodynamic market,” said Prof. Mevorach. “The guy came to us with low blood pressure and was in mortal danger. The signs were obvious and we suspected the syndrome, which we confirmed in various tests we performed immediately.”
An interview with Abu Sabitan, a social worker at the Jerusalem municipality, revealed that less than 24 hours after the vaccination, he developed symptoms of fever, vomiting, swelling of the neck and general weakness. He was vaccinated as part of his role in a vaccination campaign for welfare workers in the city. Prof. Mevorach emphasized: “At this stage, after Khaled’s release from the hospital, we will continue to monitor his condition at Hadassah every week and ask him to wait upon receiving the second dose.”
7/1/21:
Everything they forgot to check and tell about the vaccine for corona
[SF: I have not included the references provided in the footnotes]
“Dr. Michal Haran, an expert in hematology and internal medicine, a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University School of Medicine, raises significant questions about the results of the Pfizer coronary research published by NEJM and points out the “holes” in the data on vaccine efficacy and safety…
The global pandemic, in all its aspects, has created an urgent need in the countries of the world for an effective and safe vaccine. Pfizer was the first to reach the finish line and summarize the results of a 2-3 phase trial within a few months. These results were presented to the FDA and received emergency approval. The decision was that despite the short time (the study was designed to last two years), there is enough information to decide with a reasonable degree of certainty that the efficacy significantly outweighs the risk. The material submitted to the FDA as well as its discussions were open to the general public. The results were also published in the prestigious medical journal New England Journal of Medicine. This combination of facts – the FDA’s stamp along with publication in such a leading newspaper – has made health authorities around the world feel confident about the vaccine. It is important to remember that this is a new technology that has not been used today in routine vaccines. …”This is the first time to the best of my knowledge where it has been openly stated that the study was planned, carried out and published by the pharmaceutical company, with the lead author being an employee of the pharmaceutical company” Reading the article published in NEJM reveals significant issues that are difficult to ignore and that can not help but raise significant question marks about the study. First, although for many years there has been an unhealthy relationship between physicians who publish results of clinical trials in leading journals and pharmaceutical companies (2), this is the first time to the best of my knowledge that the study was openly planned, conducted and published by the pharmaceutical company. … One of the topics that has received wide publicity is the effectiveness of the vaccine, of 95%. However, it is important to ask what is behind this number. Everyone agrees that the most important thing in eradicating the plague is to prevent infection. Well, it’s surprising to find that this has not been tested at all. Most surprisingly no test was done on the amount of people who have an active respiratory virus, not even a PCR test was done for the presence of the virus, although the main problem in this epidemic is infection by people who have no symptoms (3) and this is the main reason for masks, closures and frequent Tests. Instead, a very narrow end point was chosen for people who also have symptoms that are suitable for Corona and their PCR test is positive. This, without taking into account the level of accuracy of the test which can also vary from laboratory to laboratory.
The impressive figure for 95% efficiency is not an expression but a relative risk. Using the absolute risk index would reveal that this is an efficiency of 1% ” When you are not satisfied with the data in the article but go to examine the information in the report submitted to the FDA, it turns out that there was a large group of people with symptoms that fit Corona, when the difference between the groups was not very significant (about 1,800 in the placebo group compared to about 1,500 in the group This group was given the title suspected covid and even when two people who received the vaccine came to the hospital with chest X-ray findings, they were not reported to have coronary blues in a severe condition (since their PCR test was negative) nor as a grade side effect. 4 (as would be required in a person who has been hospitalized after receiving the vaccine). That is, the impressive 95% efficacy figure expresses nothing but relative risk, or in other words the ratio between the number of patients diagnosed (and we will mention again that these are people who had both symptoms and a positive PCR test) in the two groups. Using a more accurate absolute risk index would have revealed that it was an efficiency of 1% (see details in Peter Dushi’s article on BMJ’s blog). That is, the impressive 95% gives us no relevant information about the effect of the vaccine on the rate of infection (remember that this was the main goal of vaccine development in the first place, in order to achieve an effective herd vaccine in a short time) and presents very limited information on clinically significant indices such as Intensive Care – a simple calculation reveals that the vaccine should be given to 7,000 people to prevent one such event – or mortality.
Well, it can be argued that antibody formation in the general population is also important. But even with regard to this important figure, there is a worrying and conspicuous shortcoming. Surprisingly there is information about the immunological profile of only a very small number of volunteers in the first phase (5) and it should be remembered that this is a selective group of relatively healthy and young people. This information is important not only for evaluating efficacy (i.e., developing antibodies at the level required to confer protection) but no less important for possible vaccine risks. “It is known that mRNA may reach liver cells, so we would expect to have a liver function test, as well as other laboratory parameters (blood count with differentiator, kidney function, electrolytes, inflammatory indices, etc.). Neither in the article nor in the material submitted to the FDA is given Find the results of such tests ” These important indices were examined only in a selective population. Or in other words, we have no information as to whether a nursing senior living in a nursing home will have an immunological profile that ensures efficacy and safety. We also do not have such information about people with background diseases that are known to have an effect on the immune system. Vaccine safety, missing data and forgotten side effects Regarding the safety of the vaccine, one of the most notable data is the results of laboratory tests. This is particularly surprising in light of the fact that already in the selective group in the first phase, mild disturbances in the blood count were found (5). In addition, it is known that mRNA may reach liver cells, so we would expect there to be a test of liver function as well as other laboratory parameters (blood count with differentiator, kidney function, electrolytes, inflammation indices and more). Neither in the article nor in the material submitted to the FDA can such test results be found. It is also unclear how the authors of the article decide based on a follow-up period of about two months that “the safety of the vaccine is the same as the safety of other vaccines.” This is a new technology, which in contrast to existing vaccines to date involves the transfection of muscle cells by a genetic material. This technology has been tested to date in a very small number of participants and has so far not reached Phase 3. One of the dangers known and reported in the literature in such a situation is the development of severe autoimmune diseases (7) that cannot be ruled out in such a short follow-up period. Surprisingly, there is no reference at all to this problem in the article. The authors of the article recognize another significant danger which is vaccine mediated disease enhancement which is of great concern due to the fact that to date there has been no success in the development of vaccines against corona (including in pets) due to this problem. This is a very serious phenomenon because paradoxically, the person who is immunized develops a much more serious disease (with a very high risk of mortality) when he is exposed to the virus.
AIDS patients are more likely not to develop antibodies against the virus and are also at higher risk of developing autoimmune diseases or tumors of immune cells. Creating a misrepresentation of their inclusion in the study creates confidence about the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine ” This problem is particularly worrying when it comes to a population of young and healthy people whose risk of getting seriously ill if they become infected with corona is almost negligible. The authors of the article refer to this danger as a “theoretical” problem that they believe has been proven to be non-existent based on the study data, which included ten patients defined as having a serious illness, with only one reaching a respiratory condition and none dying from the disease. It is also unclear the difference between the number of AIDS patients reported in the article and the number of AIDS patients listed in the safety tables submitted to the U.S. Drug Administration (160 vs. 1). There is a great deal of significance to this issue because AIDS patients are at high risk in several respects. First, they have reverse transcriptase that can lead to the conversion of RNA into DNA and thus cause unwanted and unplanned genetic changes. It should be remembered that this is a synthetic RNA that has been engineered and it is difficult to predict what will happen if its base sequence undergoes incorporation into the DNA. In addition, these are patients who suffer from severe dysregulation of the immune system. That is, they are more likely not to develop antibodies against the virus and are also at higher risk for developing autoimmune diseases or tumors of immune cells. Creating a misrepresentation of their inclusion in the study creates confidence about the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. In conclusion, the way in which the data in the article was brought to the attention of the medical public creates a false sense of security regarding the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. This is extremely worrying because this article is not intended for experts in the field but for the general medical public, including those who are in senior positions in various health ministries around the world. In view of the importance of the matter, letters were also sent to the newspaper as well as to other parties to warn of this.”
17/2/21:
From here: “According to data from Pfizer , 0.6% of vaccinated subjects presented “serious adverse events” and 0.1% “life-threatening events”. So far, official statistics say that 2.22% of those who have Covid die. On that basis you could say that Covid is roughly 22 times more lethal than the potential effect of the vaccine on the 109 million people (roughly 1.4% of the world’s population) who officially have had Covid. However, 2.22% of 1.4% = 0.0311%. That is, so far just over 0.03% of the world’s population has died from Covid. On that basis Pfizer’s vaccine could potentially kill a bit over 3 times more people than Covid has killed for the moment, but Pfizer would have to vaccinate the whole world, and Covid would have to stop infecting people totally, for the comparison to be valid.
16/2/21:
Israel: Google Translate + T.’s adjustments of an article about quarantine hotels that appeared on 14/02/2021
Petition to the High Court: The forced quarantine in hotels is tantamount to abduction and unlawful imprisonment
Lawyers claim in their petition that this is “detention without a factual and legal basis”, and say: “A person in detention must see a judge within 24 hours – the isolated stay in a small room for ten days without the possibility of leaving”.
“I was in the Metropolitan prison for five days,” says Iris, 56, from the center of the country, about her stay in an isolation lodge at the Metropolitan Hotel in Tel Aviv. “There was a pungent smell of urine, dirty bedding, a filthy shower, lots of dust I was allergic to and even blood stains on the curtains. When I complained about the smell of urine they sent me an air freshener.”
On January 25, the skies of Israel were closed and returnees from countries where there was a risk of infection with one of the mutations (Britain, Denmark and South Africa) were sent to quarantine in hotels. On February 7, the government decided to apply the obligation of quarantine in hotels to returnees from all countries of the world. Today, the Corona Cabinet approved in principle an outline according to which 2,000 people will be allowed to land in Israel every day, who will be sent for quarantine in hotels that will continue to be operated by the Home Front Command. At the cabinet meeting, the prime minister was asked to consider the possibility of considering a prison sentence for anyone who refuses to evacuate to a hotel upon his return from abroad, given the fact that many people who land refuse to board the buses to the quarantine hotels and police are required to intervene in evacuations.
It seems that the burden on the hotels with the opening of the outline will only exacerbate the problems that already exist in solving the isolation of hotels for returnees from abroad. “They are not equipped with cleaning and hygiene equipment, and people are not provided with soap or disinfectants and do not have the option of washing,” reads a letter sent as a pre-High Court by attorneys Batya Zacks, Yaron David, Shirley Hagadish and Rita Price. A petition to the High Court that will be filed in the coming days on their behalf claims that the forced quarantine in hotels is tantamount to abduction and unlawful imprisonment.
A situation has arisen in which the quarantined are detained, in practice, in a manifestly illegal detention, abducted by the administrative authority, without any factual and legal basis, contrary to all the rules of natural justice, and for this reason it is lawful to settle for domestic isolation instead of state isolation.” Written there.
What are you crying about?
By law, you must stay in solitary confinement for 14 days from the moment you return to Israel. The duration of quarantine can be shortened to 10 days, provided that a negative result is obtained in two corona tests. In addition, as stated on the website of the Home Front Command, which operates the quarantine hotels, passengers who hold a vaccinated certificate or a recovery certificate, which appear in the Ministry of Health systems, are expected to receive an exemption at the airport from staying in a quarantine hotel. If no exemption is given at the airport, it says, they will be transferred to a quarantine hotel and can apply to the Exceptions Committee for spending the quarantine at home.
Iris’ story suggests a gap between statements and actions. The day before returning to Israel from Dubai, she was found positive for Corona and transferred to a quarantine hotel in the Emirates. Ten days later, with a recovery certificate from the Emirati Ministry of Health and confirmation of two negative corona tests, Iris booked a place on a rescue flight from Dubai, confident she would be sent for quarantine at her home, where she lives alone.
“When I was informed at Ben Gurion Airport that I would go to a hotel, a Home Front Command representative said to me, ‘You were enjoying yourself there, what are you crying about?’ He also said ‘maybe your recovery certificate is fake’, instead of checking it out with the Emirates.”
While at the hotel, Iris submitted two applications to the Exceptions Committee of the Ministry of Health, requesting to be released for home quarantine while noting the fact that she was diagnosed with post-trauma and dealing with fibromyalgia. Despite the opinion from the family doctor her requests were denied. She received the message in a phone call to her hotel room and not in writing.
“I ran out of the medications I took with me to Dubai, after I stayed there ten days longer than expected. The insurance company sent generic medications that did not suit me and my mental state deteriorated. In the Metropolitan I got into situations where I cried, screamed, experienced post-traumatic seizures, and nothing interested the Home Front Command. I felt treated as a liar and a deceiver. Even when I was sent for a serological examination, it was said in the hotel’s announcement ‘Room 319 to go out’, the attitude was as if I was a number and not a person.”
“On Wednesday I felt like something was going to happen to me. I called the reception and no one answered for a quarter of an hour. I had the phone number of one of the soldiers, I called and woke him up. He realized my condition was bad and tried to get the soldiers at the hotel for me. I fainted. I woke up with tremors, with my tongue hanging out. The soldiers said that at the hospital they would put me back on my feet return me to the hotel, but the paramedic shouted at the hotel manager that I could not be left there in these conditions. That day I was released to my home quarantine. “
“I stayed here as a guarantee”
In a petition demanding the abolition of the automatic quarantine obligation one learns that complaints have been received about inedible food and people with allergies who have received food that endangers their lives, as well as complaints from parents of young children that the state forces to stay in quarantine in small hotel rooms without proper equipment.
Chai Izarski has been in a hotel for a week. He returned from Budapest with his wife Veronica, a one-year-old baby and a four-year-old girl. “When we were informed at Ben Gurion Airport that they would take us to a hotel, I asked the policewoman there if there was any equipment for the baby, we were assured that nothing would be missing.”
The family arrived by bus at the hotel in the middle of the night. “We waited an hour until the crib arrived, there was no baby dining chair and bath. In addition, there was no baby formula for him. I gave my credit card to the soldier who would go and buy us a baby formula and he came back with the wrong type.”
In the following days their son began to suffer from rash, vomiting and diarrhea. In addition, he was hit in the face by a dresser corner that is in a room that is not suitable for a continuous stay of children. “The Home Front Command recommended to the Ministry of Health Exceptions Committee for home quarantine for us, but the Ministry of Health rejected the request,” he says. “On Wednesday, we submitted another request to the Exceptions Committee. Finally, we were told that one of the parents could be released for home quarantine with the sick baby and that the other parent and the girl would remain quarantined in the hotel room. Needless to say, the four-year-old suffered more than all of us from a stay in a room that is hardly possible to move in. “
Following another appeal by the Home Front Command’s social worker to the Ministry of Health, it was agreed to release Chai’s wife for home quarantine along with the two children. Chai remains in quarantine at the hotel and is expected to be released on Wednesday. “I feel like they left me here as a guarantee,” he says, “but the point is that the baby has normal food at home and the girl has her own games and space.”
“The emergency regulations have created a situation here where there is one body within the Ministry of Health – the Exceptions Committee – which is the only one that determines and no one can appeal its decisions, and the decisions are hallucinatory at the root and there is no one to talk to,” he concludes.
The IDF spokesman said that “as for the Izarski couple, when they arrived at the hotel, soldiers from the hotel staff left late at night in order to provide them with equipment and food adapted for babies as quickly as possible.”
No judicial review
“There is a law according to which every person who is in custody must see a judge within 24 hours of his arrest,” says Adv. Yaron David, one of the submitters of the appeal. “In the situation that has arisen we see citizens who are obliged to stay in a small room without the possibility of leaving it for all this time, and the decision to place them there is not subject to any judicial review.”
Ariela and Yosef Guetta from Ashdod returned to Israel on Friday from France, after Yosef underwent knee surgery there. They are in a double room at the Dan Panorama Hotel with a six-month-old baby girl.
“We’ve been here three days and are going crazy,” says Ariella, “there is hardly room to move and my husband has to keep his knee active after the surgery. He has to put ice on it but the freezer in the room cannot contain the amounts of ice we need.”
“Our baby falls asleep every day at six in the evening. In order not to disturb her sleep we turn off the lights in the room and sit down to eat and pass the time in the shower. We can only talk there or on the balcony of the room. We applied to the Exceptions Committee yesterday. In those conditions, we initially hoped to move to a larger room, but the Home Front Command did not approve.”
After we requested a response from the Ministry of Health in the case of the Guetta family, the couple informed us that they had been approved to leave for home quarantine.
5000 Shekels and you can go home [SF: 5000 Shekels = 1,250 euros]
It turns out that not everyone who is obliged to quarantine in hotels stays in their room for ten days, and the authorities do not seem to be too excited about that either. Recently, a number of citizens left the hotels on their own, choosing to break the law and pay a fine of NIS 5,000 and not stay in solitary confinement in the motel.
“The soldiers cannot use force against us,” says Lilach, who returned to Israel last week on a rescue flight after spending a month in the United States caring for her sister. “I was at the Dan Panorama Hotel for three days after the corona test I did in the field came out negative. The conditions there were significantly better than those I see at other hotels, but I was in mental distress.
“On my second night in the hotel, I called the soldiers and said that I was having anxieties. They replied that the social worker of the hotel would call me on Sunday and that in the meantime I could contact Eran [emotional first aid hotline – T]. They wanted to help but they have nothing to give a person in distress.”
“I am a conformist, law-abiding woman, but I felt imprisoned for no wrong. In one of the quarantined message groups, someone wrote that she had left the hotel and returned home. I decided that to run away too.
“I took the suitcase, passed the Home Front Command soldiers and told them ‘do not try to stop me.’ I took a taxi and got home. I was also called by the police, asked to stay in quarantine and informed that I would be fined. A friend who was staying at another hotel tried to do the same and police officers who were in the area returned her to her room. The next day, she tried again and succeeded.”
“I understand the fear, anxiety and worry in the country about the import of the virus and the mutations,” says Lilach. “But the solution is not imprisonment in hotels. Some returnees will agree to be even with electronic bracelet and not spend ten days in the harsh conditions of isolation. We should show flexibility towards returnees from abroad and choose the right solution for their medical and personal conditions.”
The Ministry of Health stated: “The Corona Recovery Procedure stipulates that anyone who enters with documentation of recovery from abroad will be placed in quarantine until a serological test – this is how we work with all those returning from abroad in accordance with the procedure.”
As part of the government decision, it was decided that all returnees from abroad move to hotels. These are the criteria for exemption from quarantine in hotels: Israelis who are vaccinated or have recovered from the virus, people over 70, unaccompanied minors, supported and disabled with significant functional difficulty and wheelchairs, pregnant women beyond the 20th week, people accompanied by guardian, exceptional humanitarian cases – funeral.
Discretionary criteria: People who do not meet the criteria and have sufficient medical reference in the field will be examined by a representative of the Ministry of Health in the field status, people who do not meet the criteria and have no reference will be transferred to hotels through the Home Front Command. Each case will be examined on the merits and in the case of minors we will examine whether there is a guardian or supervisor with them who can provide an answer. The three cases were examined in accordance with these criteria and the references they attached.”
The IDF Spokesman’s response: “The quarantine and recovery center at the Alon headquarters has been operating and managing the Corona hotels in a professional and dedicated manner for the past 11 months. The Home Front Command’s reserve personnel work day and night, with professionalism and dedication, in order to give the best and optimal response to those staying in the Corona hotels. The hotels have social, psychological and medical factors that help and respond to any event if necessary. As for the families who come to the hotels, the size of the room given to the family staying in the hotel is adjusted to the amount of people in the family. Quarantined who are sent for medical treatment are then sent back to the hotel according to procedures. The responsibility for the medical care of those staying at the hotel lies with the HMOs, each for its insured in accordance with the policy established by the Ministry of Health. The Home Front Command will continue to act in a professional and extensive manner in the fight against the virus in the civilian space, for the health and well-being of the citizens of Israel.”
15/2/21:
Interview in French with Dr. Raoult
Some bits of what he said about France:
In 2020 there were less deaths of the under 65s than in 2019, but a bit more amongst those over 65.
The West of France is not much effected, whereas the East is very effected.
It has been known since 2018 that Remdesivir, the useless drug that has been produced by Gilead, is a drug that provokes mutations and variants (in an earlier interview he mentioned the possibility that Remdesivir was partly responsible for the English variant/mutation).
The English variant is more contagious but not more dangerous.
40% of PCR tests are false positives, and a “test antigénique” gives 30% false negatives – i.e. such tests are useless. There are machines being developed that can give mostly accurate test results within 4 minutes., but they’re hardly used.
The French government refused 3 proposals for clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine from his hospital in Marseille.
Doctors have been forbidden by the state to give prescriptions for any kind of drugs, other than recommending people for vaccination. This includes hydroxychloroquine, used for over 60 years against malaria, and Ivermictin (this was also mentioned in the interview with Dr.Perronne; see entry for 13/2/21 below).
In relation to vaccines, he favoured the traditional one coming from China (though he failed to mention the fact that they only had 2 stages of clinical trials before giving it to people), though wasn’t particularly critical of the new mRNA vaccines
He also showed some of his conservative political attitudes in saying that confinement in the period March-May 2020 (which he supported) stopped riots, whereas continued restraints on normal life today may provoke riots. However, it’s not because of his crap politics (for instance he showed interest in Michel Onfray’s “Popular Front” magazine project, an anti-globalisation journal that includes mostly people on the Right, though with an occasional Leftist) that I find much of what he says interesting, but because of his medical knowledge and experience. As I’ve said before, Hitler and his scientists proved that smoking caused cancer long before it became an admitted fact in “democratic” countries – that doesn’t mean we should therefore be in favour of tobacco.
Re. what he says about the West of France:
I live in the South West, Occitanie. So far there have been 2925 deaths attributed to Covid in this region over what would roughly be the equivalent of 2 flu seasons. The deaths from flu in the winter of 2016-2017 were roughly 2300. In the period 2017-2018 they were 2550. Do the maths and compare the madness of the constraints (6pm to 6am curfew, for example, did not exist during those flu seasons).
13/2/21:
Interview with dissident doctor (subtitles in English) on situation in France
Lot of interesting things said here, though so far I’ve not verified them by looking at other sources :
1. Variants/mutations are not increasing the mortality rate (confirmed here, a French article which implicitly indicates how disappointed the experts are with this finding because it prevents them from justifying a further lockdown in France).
2. Doctors prevented from prescribing any drug cure (not just hydroxychloroquine – HCQ – but also Ivermectin, used in loads of countries throughout the world)
3.”Informed consent ” forms were only given to to be signed by those in nursing homes, not by those in hospitals.
4. The Recovery research into HCQ, the main basis for dismissing HCQ, was flawed in several respects –
a. Excessively high and potentially toxic levels of the drug were used in the research (apparently justified by the leader of this who referred to HCQ being used in such high doses against amoebas, when he’d obviously confused HCQ with hydroquindine).
b. There was no transparency – the final total results weren’t revealed.
c. The study was stopped when some researchers found that HCQ definitely had a beneficial effect.
Also says that in France the 3 professors who are the mainstay of televised scientific debates on Covid, TV’s main propagators of vaccines and of opposition to HCQ and Ivermectin, respectively receive 130,000 euros, 170,000 euros and 540,000 euros from the pharmaceutical labs and especially from Gilead, the lab that produced remdesivir, the drug that was dismissed as useless (and possibly dangerous) by the WHO back in November, after a billion euros had been paid to the company by the EU, a drug still used in the UK at least up until mid-December. Gilead also provided the money for the majority of other trials of HCQ, invariably saying it was useless.
Just received from Israel by email, some translated comments from the Israeli author Gabi Nitzan:
From the first month, all virus data was engineered using the most primitive and blatant technique available: when you want an increase in “morbidity,” you increase the number of tests per day, when you want a decrease, you test less. Whenever someone from within the system tried to raise a doubt or question, his metaphorical head was immediately beheaded. Remember MK Yifat Shasha Bitton from the Likud [SF: she was removed as head of the the Coronavirus Committee, ostensibly because she was absent too often, but in fact Netanyahu had wanted to get rid of her before this pretext because she questioned, and merely questioned, aspects of the lockdown; repeated but inconsistent absence had never before been used as a reason to sack someone from any government committee in Israel]. Did you hear what happened to Professor Eitan Friedman? [Apparently Friedman was fired/agreed to leave his post in Shebe hospital, probably due to his – rather soft – critique of lockdowns and the way the coronacrisis is managed. There was also a thing with the Israeli branch of the Helsinki Committee of which he’s the chairperson – they originally claimed the Pfizer-vaccine campaign is in fact a clinical trial on human beings, but after the noise around this declaration he softened his tone].
And how many “projectors” and professionals have already been replaced, each time the former subdued by the remnants of his conscience? Every additional day here is another crime against the citizens. Shin Bet surveillance on our phones, police officers violently arresting surfers at sea and handing-out fines to half a country that is still struggling to survive (only during the last lockdown over 50,000 fines were recorded, and the Minister of Police boasted that Israel is a world leader in this Olympic industry), police checkpoints turn what’s left of our lives into a hell entirely made of deliberate abuse, and a semi-military curfew is prolonged with the flick of one parliamentary sitting. Tens of thousands of families will not recover from these decrees for years. People commit suicide, children rot at home, families fall apart, souls crack. All throughout this time we see photos of senior government, police and health-ministry officials having a blast without masks and without distance, flattering rabbis and peeing from every springboard.
And the climax – the Israeli government secretly signs an agreement with a pharmaceutical corporation, which explicitly states that we will serve as a global test site, and the manufacturer will have no legal responsibility for damages and possible victims. Parts of the agreement are still blacked out, but it is enough to read what is explicitly written – that we are an experimental country; and there is an astronomical quota of shots that must be pushed to quickly meet the conditions. The secondhand car salesman also got us a great deal in exchange for our consent to be the world’s guinea pigs – buy a shot, pay for two. And suddenly pregnant women are pushed to offer a shoulder to jab on, and a moment later they are already storming on youth and soldiers (a population for whom the most dangerous phenomenon of the corona is a sneeze). No choice, Pfizer is waiting for her pound of flesh, prepare your babies.
At the same time, one of the most malicious inventions of this dark period emerged – the “green passport”. As in China – your rights are granted or denied depending on the level of compliance with the regime.
And meanwhile in Balfour [demonstrations named after the street where Netanyahu resides], corona is a bad word. There is only a stubborn handful who insist on demonstrating about it, and receive from most protesters a treatment that ranges from the cold shoulder to real hostility. Why? I identify two main reasons:
1. Because many of the protesters, vigilant people who have long been aware of the level of corruption and deception of the regime – question everything except the brainwashing of the plague. The fear of the “end of humanity” and the terrifying prophecies of thousands of corpses in the streets seeped inside.
2. So that the protest would not be identified with “science deniers”, “conspiracy theorists” and “flat-earth delusionals”. And so Balfour completely served the defendant’s [Netanyahu] goal – to label all critics as crazy and cast them out of society.
When did the protest turn against the dictatorship of the virus? Only when there was a threat against the the continuation of the demonstrations. This is how an unspoken agreement was made – we will continue to demonstrate, but we will not mention the mammoth in the room. Will you deprive our children of their childhood? We’ll shut up. Will vacationers be arrested at sea? Not our concern. Surveil our phones, hide your discussions from us, abuse us on the roads, destroy the culture, sell us to a drug company, punish conscientious doctors, close the airport (but keep crowded flights to Dubai and Uman), print Green Loyalty Certificates – that doesn’t concern us.
I’m not a science-denier, I love science. Science deals mainly with questions. Every attempt to answer a question paves the way for a thousand new questions and invites discussion, research and plurality of opinions. Science is not a chemical company with a dark and corrupt history, science is not the pharmaceutical lobby.
Calling those who object to the wholesale injection of a new substance into populations to which corona does not pose any threat “anti-vaxxers” is like calling those who are unwilling to base their diet on junk food “anti-food.”
Inside Israel’s War Room Combating COVID Vaccine Fake News
“Among Arab communities, where vaccination rates are still lower compared to the general population, there is also great concern about vaccination due to rumors and false information. The Health Ministry has launched a large street campaign in these communities, with the message: “Over one hundred million vaccinated people around the world can’t be wrong. Go get vaccinated.” Along with the campaign, Arab doctors have been recruited in order to further the spread of reliable information about the vaccine.”
Cyprus, Nicosia: clashes over Covid1984 restrictions and over corruption
12/2/21:
From an email by S.:
“We learned this much: That the suppression of women health workers and the rise to dominance of male professionals was not a “natural” process, resulting automatically from changes in medical science, nor was it the result of women’s failure to take on healing work. It was an active takeover by male professionals. And it was not science that enabled men to win out: The critical battles took place long before the development of modern scientific technology. The stakes of the struggle were high: Political and economic monopolization of medicine meant control over its institutional organizations, its theory and practice, its profits and prestige. And the stakes are even higher today, when total control of medicine means potential power to determine who will live and will die, who is fertile and who is sterile, who is “mad” and who sane… [and today, who can travel and who must stay in virtual house arrest, who can access basic social services and who can´t, who can work and who must join the surplus population, and so on… — S].…The question is not so much how women got “left out” of medicine and left with nursing, but how did these categories arise at all? …the real answer is not in this made-up drama of science versus ignorance and superstition. [My emphasis — particularly relevant concerning the way “conspiracy theory” is today used as a blanket slur to dismiss all critical thought — S] It’s part of the 19th century’s long story of class and sex struggles for power in all areas of life. When women had a place in medicine, it was in a people’s medicine. When that people’s medicine was destroyed, there was no place for women—except in the subservient role of nurses. The set of healers who became the medical profession was distinguished not so much by its associations with modern science as by its associations with the emerging American business establishment. With all due respect to Pasteur, Koch and the other great European medical researchers of the 19th century, it was the Carnegies and Rockefellers who intervened to secure the final victory of the American medical profession.…In terms of medical skills and theory, the so-called “regulars” [i.e. professionally qualified doctors] had nothing to recommend them over the lay practitioners. Their “formal training” meant little even by European standards of the time: Medical programs varied in length from a few months to two years; many medical schools had no clinical facilities; high school diplomas were not required for admission to medical schools. Not that serious academic training would have helped much anyway—there was no body of medical science to be trained in. Instead, the “regulars” were taught to treat most ills by “heroic” measures: massive bleeding, huge doses of laxatives, calomel (a laxative containing mercury) and, later, opium. (The European medical profession had little better to offer at this time either.) There is no doubt that these “cures” were often either fatal or more injurious than the original disease. In the judgement of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., himself a distinguished physician, ´if all the medicines used by the “regular” doctors in the US were thrown into the ocean, it would be so much the better for mankind and so much the worse for the fishes´. [We might question how much, besides the details, has really changed between now and then, in the light of the fact that according to Johns Hopkins University — a source liable to provide the most conservative estimates possible — more than 250 000 deaths a year are due to medical mistakes, making modern medicine the third biggest killer in the USA today… according to this fascinating review (https://chiro.org/LINKS/FULL/Death_By_Medicine.html), the true number could be as high as a million deaths a year (more than double the covid deaths — and this every single year), making it the biggest killer in the country… but what follows is where things get really interesting — S]The lay practitioners were undoubtedly safer and more effective than the “regulars.” They preferred mild herbal medications, dietary changes and hand-holding to heroic interventions. Maybe they didn’t know any more than the “regulars,” but at least they were less likely to do the patient harm. Left alone, they might well have displaced the “regular” doctors with even middle class consumers in time. But they didn’t know the right people. The “regulars,” with their close ties to the upper class, had legislative clout. By 1830, 13 states had passed medical licensing laws outlawing “irregular” practice and establishing the “regulars” as the only legal healers. It was a premature move. There was no popular support for the idea of medical professionalism, much less for the particular set of healers who claimed it. And there was no way to enforce the new laws: The trusted healers of the common people could not be just legislated out of practice. Worse still—for the “regulars”—this early grab for medical monopoly inspired mass indignation in the form of a radical, popular health movement which came close to smashing medical elitism in America once and for all.The Popular Health Movement of the 1830’s and 40’s is usually dismissed in conventional medical histories as the high-tide of quackery and medical cultism. In reality it was the medical front of a general social upheaval stirred up by feminist and working class movements. Women were the backbone of the Popular Health Movement. “Ladies Physiological Societies,” the equivalent of our know-your-body courses, sprang up everywhere… The emphasis was on preventive care, as opposed to the murderous “cures” practiced by the “regular” doctors… The Movement was a radical assault on medical elitism, and an affirmation of the traditional people’s medicine. “Every man his own doctor,” was the slogan of one wing of the Movement, and they made it very clear that they meant every woman too. The “regular,” licensed, doctors were attacked as members of the “parasitic, non-producing classes,” who survived only because of the upper class’ “lurid taste” for calomel and bleeding. Universities (where the elite of the “regular” doctors were trained) were denounced as places where students “learn to look upon labor as servile and demeaning” and to identify with the upper class. Working class radicals rallied to the cause, linking “King-craft, Priest-craft, Lawyercraft and Doctor-craft” as the four great evils of the time. In New York State, the Movement was represented in the legislature by a member of the Workingman’s Party, who took every opportunity to assail the “privileged doctors.” The “regular” doctors quickly found themselves outnumbered and cornered. From the leftwing of the Popular Health Movement came a total rejection of “doctoring” as a paid occupation—much less as an overpaid “profession.” …by the 1840’s, medical licensing laws had been repealed in almost all of the states. [my emphasis, to highlight the massive social traction this movement gained in its time — S]…To us, the most tantalizing aspects of the Movement are: (1) That it represented both class struggle and feminist struggle: Today, it’s stylish in some quarters to write off purely feminist issues as middle-class concerns. But in the Popular Health Movement we see a coming together of feminist and working-class energies… (2) The Popular Health Movement was not just a movement for more and better medical care, but for a radically different kind of health care: It was a substantive challenge to the prevailing medical dogma, practice and theory. Today we tend to confine our critiques to the organization of medical care, and assume that the scientific substratum of medicine is unassailable. We too should be developing the capability for the critical study of medical “science”…What can we learn from the past that will help us—in a Women’s Health Movement—today? These are some of our conclusions:♣ Men maintain their power in the health system through their monopoly of scientific knowledge. We are mystified by science, taught to believe that it is hopelessly beyond our grasp. In our frustration, we are sometimes tempted to reject science, rather than to challenge the men who hoard it. But medical science could be a liberating force, giving us real control over our own bodies and power in our lives as health workers. At this point in our history, every effort to take hold of and share medical knowledge is a critical part of the struggle— know-your-body courses and literature, self-help projects, counselling, women’s free clinics.♣ Professionalism in medicine is nothing more than the institutionalization of a male upper class monopoly. We must never confuse professionalism with expertise. Expertise is something to work for and to share; professionalism is—by definition—elitist and exclusive, sexist, racist and classist. In the American past, women who sought formal medical training were too ready to accept the professionalism that went with it. They made their gains in status—but only on the backs of their less privileged sisters—midwives, nurses and lay healers. Our goal today should never be to open up the exclusive medical profession to women, but to open up medicine—to all women.♣ This means that we must begin to break down the distinctions and barriers between women health workers and women consumers. We should build shared concerns: Consumers aware of women’s needs as workers, workers in touch with women’s needs as consumers. Women workers can play a leadership role in collective self-help and self-teaching projects, and in attacks on health institutions. But they need support and solidarity from a strong women’s consumer movement.♣ Our oppression as women health workers today is inextricably linked to our oppression as women. Nursing, our predominate role in the health system, is simply a workplace extension of our roles as wife and mother. The nurse is socialized to believe that rebellion violates not only her “professionalism,” but her very femininity. This means that the male medical elite has a very special stake in the maintenance of sexism in the society at large: Doctors are the bosses in an industry where the workers are primarily women. Sexism in the society at large insures that the female majority of the health workforce are “good” workers—docile and passive. Take away sexism and you take away one of the mainstays of the health hierarchy. What this means to us in practice is that in the health system there is no way to separate worker organizing from feminist organizing. To reach out to women health workers as workers is to reach out to them as women.
France: reports coming in of severe flu-like symptoms as side effect of AstraZeneca jab and high blood pressure from Pfizer-BioNTech
According to some TV coverage, such effects amongst healthcare workers (in particular in Rouen, Poitiers and Brest) are making many of them decide not to have the second dose.
10/2/21:
Israel to Spend Millions to Fight what it considers Fake COVID News as Vaccine Drive Slows
“The Health Ministry plans to spend millions of shekels over the next several weeks on encouraging younger Israelis to get vaccinated, in part with information campaigns to battle the rumors, disinformation and conspiracy theories about the vaccines on social media.
“Together with our efforts to increase vaccination rates in the 50-plus group, we have to pay attention to the 16-50 group,” says Haim Fernandes, the director of Leumit Health Care Services, one of Israel’s four HMOs. He says that in January, the 16-50 group accounted for half of all COVID-19 patients and 25% of those with severe illness. “There are appointments available, people aren’t running to sign up,” he says about opening the vaccine drive to the 19-35 age group. “It’s not the pace it was when it was [only] the 60-pluses. We can send another text message and call them but I estimate that in the end the big push will come from incentives such as the ‘green passport,’” Hernandes says.
Maccabi Health Care Services says 53% of members aged 16-18 and 38% aged 19-35 have received at least one dose or have scheduled an appointment. The network has the capacity to administer about 60,000 vaccinations per day, but is only giving around 20,000 now. “There are various motivations that cause people to get vaccinated,” says a Maccabi employee who requested anonymity. “If up to now everyone who was vaccinated wanted to be protected or to protect their family, now we have to talk about ‘What’s in it for me?’ If the green passport is in the works, it should be done quickly. When you take a 25-year-old guy who feels safe, the way to get him to take the vaccine is through the ticket that will get him into the soccer stadium,” the source says.
…the Health Ministry plans to launch an information campaign that will include not only providing science-based sources but also monitoring and even removing web pages spreading disinformation about the vaccines. The police have even been called in to deal with anti-vaxxers who schedule vaccine appointments they have no intention of going to for the purpose of forcing the centers to discard unused doses…
The chief nursing officer at Meuhedet Health Services, Mali Kusha, notes that vaccination rates among the network’s pregnant members dropped after the Health Ministry issued a recommendation, later withdrawn, implying that the vaccine was inadvisable during the first trimester….
The low overall vaccination rate in Israel’s Arab community – 19 percent, compared to 41 percent in the population at large – is cited repeatedly by health officials. For over-60s, the rate is 56 percent, compared to 85 percent among all Israelis in that age group. In Kseife, a Bedouin community in the south, the overall vaccination rate is just 3 percent, and 19 percent for people 60 and up. In Arara in the Negev (there is a community with the same name in the north), the respective figures are 5 percent and 22 percent. The rates are similar for other area communities.”
The main problem with many “anti-vaxxers’” attempts at criticism of the vaccination programmes is that they repeatedly say that the state is putting microchips into people’s bodies. Such bullshit distracts from and helps confuse the genuine reasons for refusing the current absolutely new vaccination technology (see any amount of articles about this below or in January) and helps dominant society dismiss all arguments, including the perfectly sane ones, against the vaccination as “conspiracy theory nutters” etc.
9/2/21:
Interview with a psychologist
SF note: obviously this, being an interview with a psychologist by a political philosopher, is limited by the specialisms of both and of the narrow history that the psychologist has developed as a result of his choosing to see and express things through psychology, as well as having a largely middle class lifestyle that minimises the misery of the first lockdown for those lower in the hierarchy. Nevertheless, it expresses and brings together many interesting aspects of the last year and of the potential future, even if it doesn’t bring class into the equation. Because of various criticisms, notably from a close friend but also elsewhere, I’ve taken down this interview but have put a link to the translation for those who want to read it.
Another report showing that the vaccines only suppress symptoms and do not stop either yourself being infected or you infecting others
UK: travellers from ‘red list’ countries will have to pay £1,750 for 10-day hotel quarantine More about this here.
“The health secretary said those placed in hotel quarantine will “need to remain in their rooms and of course will not be allowed to mix with other guests”. He added there would be “visible security in place to ensure compliance alongside necessary support”. Those who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel face fines of up to £10,000 while anyone who tries to conceal they had been in a country on the “red list” in the 10 days before returning to the UK will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years, Mr Hancock said. “People who flout these rules are putting us all at risk,” he told MPs.”
This is the same “Health” secretary who back in April 2020, just a few days after having had Covid, openly coughed and sneezed whilst opening a hospital without covering his mouth.
Eire: armed guards to be placed at quarantine hotels
The future arrives: “hotel of the future” (Marseille 2009)
8/2/21:
Germany: secret documents show how The Ministry of the Interior directly manipulated data on pandemic to justify repressive measurements
Translation:
“WELT AM SONNTAG was able to gain access to a voluminous correspondence: In the first peak phase of the pandemic, the services of Interior Minister Horst Seehofer influenced researchers. As a result, these provided results for a spectacular “secret document” from the ministry.
During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, the Federal Ministry of the Interior called in scientists from several research institutes and universities for political purposes. He instructed researchers from the Robert Koch Institute and other institutions to create a calculation model on the basis of which the authority of the Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer (CSU) wanted to justify severe measures in connection with the Coronavirus.
This is what emerges from an internal correspondence of more than 200 pages between the management of the Ministry of the Interior and the researchers, which WELT AM SONNTAG was able to obtain. A group of lawyers obtained the electronic correspondence in connection with a dispute with the Robert Koch Institute that lasted several months.
In the exchange of emails, for example, the Secretary of State at the Home Office , Markus Kerber, asks the researchers to develop a model on the basis of which “measures of a preventive and repressive nature” could be planned.
According to the correspondence, the researchers, in just four days, developed in close coordination with the ministry the content of a document, which was declared secret, and which was disseminated via various media in the following days.
In this document, a “disaster scenario” was calculated, according to which more than a million people in Germany could die of coronavirus if social life continued as before the pandemic”.
SF: With deaths so far in Germany, clearly these measures have saved over 900,000 lives (just as the pink, purple and black flag hanging outside my house has stopped an invasion of elephants in the small town where I live).
Plausible explanations for how/why the mutations and variants have come about: here (published in French, January 7th)
“The variant that poses the problem today is named N501Y, and is located in the RNA of the virus, modifying the spike protein, making entry into human cells easier. It is mainly present in England, as well as in South Africa, but also in Brazil since April. These 3 countries feel that they are out of control today. We may well follow. AstraZeneca’s vaccine has undergone phase 3 trials with 4 teams: 2 in England, 1 in South Africa, 1 in Brazil, which started officially on April 23 (and since August 31 in the USA). [..] Can the vaccine + SARS-Cov-2 infection produce a mutant by DNA mixture? That said, viruses mutate on their own without necessarily needing to be in a relationship, but this coupling helps to create little ones, and the coincidence is disturbing. We should look at the problem and get the answer quickly. “- from THE MISSING COUNCIL! (rough translation)
This hypothesis seems to be confirmed here.
“The United Kingdom made a mistake which favored the emergence of this new variation: they vaccinated massively while the epidemic was very active, and they delayed the second dose of the vaccine to 12 weeks”, notes the biologist Claude-Alexandre Gustave. This graph shows the evolution of the number of Covid-19 cases detected per day in the United Kingdom, since the start of the vaccination campaign on December 8. In almost two months, nearly 10 million injections were given in the UK, far more than any other European country, as the virus circulated actively, with nearly two consecutive weeks at over 50,000 cases recorded per day.
Evolution of the number of new cases of Covid-19 detected.
“Vaccinating massively while the epidemic is active will inevitably lead to the selection of immune escape mutants capable of resisting the vaccine”, adds the biologist. The risk of “generating mutations” was known as a risk about which the National Center for Information and Knowledge on the Coronavirus of Israel had alerted, which stressed that mass vaccination could “lead to ‘evolutionary pressure’ on the virus and generate mutations”.”
If the mutation 484K is due to vaccination why would the 501Y mutation which made the English variant appear not be due to clinical tests for Remdesevir or for the AstraZeneca vaccine? I have no answer of course, but the hypothesis seems plausible.
UK: bosses could force workers to become part of vaccination guinea pig programme
Chile Santiago: police station torched after cops kill guy arrested for not wearing a mask
7/2/21:
Worth looking at for those who speak French: this video of dissident French doctors, which says, amongst other things, that official state statistics have attributed 438 deaths in Europe as being probably due to anti-Covid vaccines (not seen the whole of it myself, but it was recommended).
4/2/21:
France, Lyon: youths chuck bottles and stones at cops fining someone for non-respect of curfew
Belgium, Liege: report on night-time demos against Covidiotic curfews
Just received: article attacking government decree forcing doctors to submit to the government’s medical/scientific council
“On December 24, a symbolic day if ever there was one, he [Jean Castex, the French PM] attacked freedom of expression for doctors by publishing a decree amending Article R. 4127-19-1 of the public health code in order to prohibit doctors expressing opinions divergent from the official doxa (the one endorsed by the council of the College of Physicians) [doxa in French means a collection of opinions received without discussion, opinions that seem obvious]. It will remain to be seen what is the doxa of the council of the order, which has no scientific or medical function, and theoretically only has to settle ethical issues between doctors and between practitioners and / or patients…
-The effectiveness of chloroquine administered early is becoming more and more evident every day despite fake studies that try to make believe otherwise. Malaria-endemic countries whose populations take chloroquine every day suffer infinitely less from Covid than we do (mortality 15 to 100 times lower). India, which is the country with the largest number of infections in the world (more than 10 million) but which has used HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] widely, and even in prevention for caregivers and those most at risk, has eight times less deaths per million inhabitants than us (113 / M vs 948 / M), Russia 3 times less…
– Wearing a mask outdoors does not protect those who wear them. The only randomized prospective study published (DanMasq19 study) on the subject by Danish doctors who wanted to demonstrate its usefulness, nevertheless showed that it provided no statistically significant protection.
– In asymptomatic people, current PCR tests, when they are positive, cannot confirm infection or contagiousness. Rather than ruining social security by misleading tests, it would have been much more effective to isolate the sick (those who suffer, who cough …)…“
Report on deaths related to new forms of vaccine
3/2/21:
Text translated from this, published on December 23rd:
Good evening, band of lonely hearts,
I write to you in the grip of gloom and maybe one day of joy when, re-reading these lines, I will find myself ridiculous. Nonetheless, the feeling of an urgent need to share a collective hug and shoulders to cry on is very real right now. The lack of perspective and the all-too glaring slide into a world where physical distance, interaction with more screens than people and muzzles become the norm plunges me into a worrying depressive lethargy. I have a neighbor who is going mad, consumed with the anguish of self-confinement. A barely pubescent and obese neighbor who wears pants with ripped bottoms and smells of grime. That’s what I see on the scale of my life. What does that mean on the scale of a city?
As an artist, I usually see the beauty in what surrounds me … I can’t do it anymore. I see misery, eyes protrude from masks looking at you like a porcelain dog. I saw a school bus in which there were small children and some were masked and were looking at me out the window. I felt like crying. Freedom costs € 250. I’m ready to lose my savings. This is the only small revolt I can manage to maintain for now.
I feel lonely and yet I’m sure there are others thinking at home, saying “Curfew! We agreed to a curfew!?”, as if a virus were more virulent after 10 p.m.… Then we reassure ourselves by telling ourselves that elsewhere it is worse… We are forbidden to meet. Why are we not more organized? Me first. I have ideas, I can’t find the strength to implement them. I’m running out of acolytes. I should shout a “who wants to play with me?”, like when I was a kid.
I read a line in a book that I’ve rewritten so as to fit with our situation: “We don’t want a world where the certainty of not dying of Covid is exchanged for the risk of dying of despair“
Everyone in solidarity with everyone-for-himself. When a renowned virologist comes up with an already existing drug with which he has had good results, he is called a charlatan, but we are promised that a brand new vaccine, when it arrives, will do wonders! Until then, let the sick people stay sick and locked in their homes until it passes or it gets really bad so they can be put on a ventilator, and then they can cope with the after effects!
The old, infantilized, do not decide for themselves what their last days will be like, a loneliness imposed on the pretext of a longer life expectancy. Survival. My nan has always feared loneliness more than death. But the worst thing is to die alone. Because the choice of their death isn’t left to them either, they will die alone or surrounded by masked spacesuits. I take my nan in my arms at her request and with my greatest pleasure, but I am a health terrorist… I will not go to see her if I am sick, just as before I would not have done so with a nasty sore throat or a bout of flu, but I could have already spun germs many times before during a time of fragility, and poof! she would have died; before I wouldn’t have been made to feel guilty for it, today I do. Officially, it’s better not to spend months with her than to enjoy the time that we have left, the length of which we do not know.
If in April, the message of the posters in town were: “Let us take our distance so that later we can hug each other”, today we have already switched to the safe service ad far from each other and from happiness so as to be able to hide the piece of parsley stuck between your teeth and not to have to hesitate to eat garlic thanks to the mask, yay! (We had never praised these merits about the burqa, but let’s move on).
They are even convincing us that a truly obedient people like that of China has succeeded in getting rid of the virus thanks to the good participation of its citizens, by failing to say that they live under a totalitarian regime and that it’s been quite a while since they’ve no longer had the right to question anything. If you agree to be tracked and controlled, you will live virus-free and you can go to a nightclub; on the other hand, if you don’t listen when you are ordered to stay at home, you will be severely punished.
What will be the consequences of all this? Teleworking, wearing a constant mask, cash disappearing without warning, replaced by “contactless” payment, which is equal to the new relationship between humans “without contact”, keeping a distance of 1.5 meters, but with your mask… I don’t understand what you’re saying, so you’d have to get closer, but then we no longer respect the imposed social distancing, so in the end we no longer speak to each other … Well, yes, behind a screen (have you seen Wall-e? – humans who can’t walk, who just eat, their eyes riveted on their screens?).
What will be the consequences of the repeated recitation on radio and television of the increasing number of cases (well, those tested positive)? What about Netflix to fill the void? Will the behavioral, physical, sociological and psychological consequences engendered by the management of this health crisis really weigh less in the balance than the damage caused by Covid? Is this question not asked in public debate – are we just saving ourselves the surprise for later by claiming that this is the most important thing above all? And what is most important?
Tinder is still active and the prostitutes are still working – will the need for physical contact also become a one-click consumption? What about the need for a simple hug relayed to a paid sex exchange? Will we touch naked and masked bodies? Will our physical exchanges no longer have a face? Or will we impose a standard relationship model: a husband, a wife, married, share a conjugal bed and having a maximum of two children to have a number that fits well in a bubble and guaranteed relationships “without external microbes, yuck!”.
The countries which suffer from great poverty, from famine, do not care about Covid. Do we have to come to this? When people have to choose between earning money to eat and the risk of catching Covid, will they defy the prohibitions? And is that when a minimum wage will be introduced for everyone? Once it is too late – like the hospitals that have been left to decay for years? And what should we give up or what should we accept in return? A compulsory vaccine? A permanent listing of all the people we have dated? A trace, of the virus of course, not of people, (even if the virus is carried by people), but that begs the question in a democracy where one of the last private things we have left is disease? And if it’s not mandatory, will we be denied access to certain places, as is the case now if we do not have a mask? No entry to the stores if you’re not a little green stickman on a smartphone app?
Why do I feel that asking all these questions is inappropriate, if not forbidden in a democracy where the right to freedom of expression is defended? Where is the debate? The nuances? Divergent opinions? Why we have the impression that we are walking on eggshells and that we are going to take a flurry of insults when we want to expose that we have the feeling that our freedom has been forgotten for an indefinite time (soon it will be a whole year) and worry about losing it for good? Why, in a democracy, are we afraid to express that we are more worried about the measures imposed on us and their repercussions in the short and long term, on our physical and moral health and on the divisions they create within the population, than of Covid itself? Why, if I express all this, am I playing a heartless person who wants to kill his neighbor with hugs and kisses?
Julie
Translation of part of this (from 31 December 2020):
Publicity Campaign
A small clarification on the effectiveness rates of vaccines posted with
great publicity: 90, 95, 98%. I have the impression that we are abusing
public opinion, and our leaders (easy). Indeed, conventional vaccines,
which are less effective, raise the question of a second injection to
strengthen immunity, for example Astra Zeneca claims an effectiveness
rate of 70%, but which could reach 100% with two doses. However, RNA
vaccines immediately offer 2 injections. Is it to hide insufficient
efficiency? Wouldn’t they be more effective than those that show 60 to
80%? From what I’ve read on each one, it seems obvious to me, and this
display is a deception, it’s a publicity battle.
Moreover, no one knows what the terms of protection will be. We even give
the protocol to vaccinate those who have already had Covid, which is
to say the confidence we have in this period of immunity. So multiplying
the doses by 2, renewing every 6 or 12 months, is to multiply the risks
[the possible dangers from the new vaccines] by 4.
A Bad “Good and Only” Solution
We have staked everything on a single product whose positive or negative
effects we do not know beyond 2 months, knowing that it may have some.
We have ignored, despised, hid the other possibilities of struggle, we
have been wrong about many things for months, result: the French no
longer have any trust, more than 60% do not adhere to official doctrine. This is
enough to cover the elders (with more suggested than informed consent),
which will probably decrease mortality in this population, but
insufficient for herd immunity, yet everything has been bet on the
vaccine and that immunity. It won’t work.
There is also the problem of transfers. We have already seen the great
ease of mutation of Sars-Cov-2, more than 1000 mutations described,
fortunately not in a bad sense, except for the latest which is more contagious but
not more nasty, but everything is possible and feared. Laboratories and
authorities are trying to reassure on this point, but they know it very
well, this virus, like all influenza coronaviruses, is a permanent
mutant, and all vaccines will therefore be regularly obsolete like those
for winter flu.
After these disturbing remarks on these genetic vaccines, to make the
balance, never refusing adversarial debate, the only one which
advances towards the truth, here is a clear synthesis, of a learned
society, the Society of infectious pathology, aimed at reassuring
the population about the vaccine. Allow me also to underline what brings
us together, and what opposes us, each will form their own opinion,
everything is on the table: very reassuring, yes, but let us note
however that the mutations that can make the current vaccines
ineffective are not denied. , that the appearance of autoimmune
diseases is not denied, with a laconic “not observed” (after 2
months), while contesting those concerning those of neighboring proteins
that may be targeted (syncytin). The possibility of complications
after 6 months is ignored, ignoring that it sometimes takes years
to demonstrate them (see the thousands of narcolepsy from the H1N1
vaccine, and the hundreds of children who have died from Dengvaxia), and
finally, the existence of viral recombinations is not developed.
The bet might be a winner, but what if it isn’t? What consequences if it
loses? Especially when there are other alternatives, either immediate
medication (see what’s happening in nursing homes that treat), or
vaccines? In conclusion I will repeat the introduction of my colleague
quoted above, quoting Dr Ryan, Executive Director at WHO: “If there is
one thing more dangerous than a bad virus, it is a bad vaccine”.”
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