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[ Mod: John, people are expected to state their case and make their own arguments here, not just link to a YouTube video that happens to be unconnected to the comments above. If you want to introduce a new issue for debate, kindly start a new topic.
By the way, the podcaster’s surname is Campbell, not Murray. ]
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Good idea Mod, thanks.
Now seems to be a good time for a homage to the Heroes of Covid.
How do I go about setting up such a topic in the Forum please?
(And apologies for mixing up Dr John’s surname with that of our esteemed host. …it’s an age thing…)
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[ Mod: To create a new topic go to the Discussion Forum index page, scroll to the bottom, enter a specific title for the issue you address (e.g. “Who fact checks the fact checkers?”), and then add the text of your commentary, name and email address as normal. ]If I have misunderstood Oscar I apologise. On re-reading what he said I realise that he qualified his statement “If there really is something rotten, and I think there is, we have to silence the “Clarks” —skeptical and rational people— of the world.” with “And we must do it with evidence or, at least, with solid and convincing indications that, added together, make our working hypothesis viable.” I remain open to any argument that has valid and verifiable data to back it up. That includes the possibility that covid vaccines may be causing more harms than initially thought.
I’d have chosen a word such as “convince” rather than “silence”.
Nonetheless, Oscar has made the audacious statement “I maintain that the virus came from a laboratory. And I have tons of data to back it up.” We have discussed this conjecture in the other thread and I think it’s clear from reading that thread that I, Clark and others are open to the lab leak hypothesis. I don’t think it unreasonable of me to ask Oscar, as he has made such a claim, to present the “tons of” data he says he has.
Seen on the Twitters:
Watching antivaxxers congratulating themselves on stuff they don’t understand and got wrong is sort of fascinating.
ET, I also at first misinterpreted that remark of Oscar’s, which I found confusing, because his previous paragraph had said:
– “As a measure of the solvency of a source —and I say this with sincere affection :)— we can think: what would Clark say? If our imagined Clark dismantles the argument for us in a few lines, we have done a bad job.”
That was strong support for the way I’ve been arguing, so when I re-read the next paragraph I decided it must have been meant like this:
– “If there really is something rotten (and I think there is), IF we have to silence the “Clarks” of the world, IF we have to silence the skeptical and rational people of the world, [then our hypotheses about the rottenness must be wrong and we should look deeper and come up with better ones].
I absolutely agree with Oscar that there is much rotten in the world. So what Oscar seemed to be saying is that some people make up crap explanations and/or descriptions of the rottenness; explanations and descriptions that are easily disproved, and thus help the rottenness to hide, or remain hidden.
And that’s an argument I’ve been making for a long time, eg. it wasn’t lockdowns that were wrong, it was badly explained, late, weak, geographically indiscriminate and consequently hugely prolonged lockdowns, with no quarantine, no trace-test-isolate to hand over to, with protection and monetary support for better off salaried people but none for the poorer “key workers”.
Such dreadfully implemented lockdowns were not only wrong, they wrecked public faith in lockdown, caused massive resentment, and destroyed trust in the medical and scientific communities (who supported such lockdowns as “better than nothing”). In place of fast, fair, targeted, supported and consequently short and localised lockdowns, the government then attempted to impose vaccination, which fuelled anti-vax suspicions. Rotten, rotten, rotten to the core, like sending the infected back to care homes, so that hundreds of thousands died despite the lockdowns. It was all done so badly that it’s hard to believe it was just incompetence, which convinced many people that it must be a plot – a plot to kill people. So why not vaccines to kill people too?
And so a huge, angry argument with two major sides develops, with both sides missing the important points. And if another, nastier variant develops, society has learned little from the experience. What a tragedy.
ET, and anyone else concerned about the recently rising death rate (“excess deaths”):
Repeat COVID-19 infections increase risk of organ failure, death
Link – Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis
Excerpts:
– “Without ambiguity, our research showed that getting an infection a second, third or fourth time contributes to additional health risks in the acute phase, meaning the first 30 days after infection, and in the months beyond, meaning the long COVID phase.”
– Additionally, the study indicated that the risk seems to increase with each infection. “This means that even if you’ve had two COVID-19 infections, it’s better to avoid a third,” Al-Aly said. “And if you’ve had three infections, it’s best to avoid the fourth.”
– Overall, the researchers found that people with COVID-19 reinfections were twice as likely to die and three times more likely to be hospitalized than those with no reinfection.
– Additionally, people with repeat infections were 3½ times more likely to develop lung problems, three times more likely to suffer heart conditions and 1.6 times more likely to experience brain conditions than patients who had been infected with the virus once.
– For this study, the researchers analyzed about 5.8 million de-identified medical records in a database maintained by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the nation’s largest integrated health-care system. Patients represented multiple ages, races and sexes.
– The findings are published Nov. 10 in Nature Medicine.
– – – – – – –
I strongly suspect that there is a dual effect occurring. The pandemic overloaded health services and they haven’t recovered; for instance, I made a GP appointment five weeks ago, and today was the first non-emergency appointment available. Consequently, all sorts of treatments are being delayed. The damage and additional illness caused by covid is adding to this backlog.
The above findings may also explain why the corporate media is giving this so little coverage; funded as it is by advertising, the CRAP media has a strong incentive to prevent public caution; it can’t go telling people that working and shopping are risks to their health whether they’re vaccinated or not. “Get vaccinated and get on with Businesses as Usual” is in the corporatocracy’s interests, just as it is with the climate and ecological crisis.
Yeah, the health service is screwed. I had a nerve conduction test done in February and waiting for an urgent follow up – letter today with appt in October 2025. TBF there’s only one consultant now – three have left since June and recruitment is refractory. Big problem given the neurogenic nature of infections – ‘brain fog’ doesn’t begin to describe the effects of replication in the mid and forebrain.
Jessica Wildfire has a good summary of the complications – the clear message is the greater the exposure, the greater the damage.
There’s also the release of unredacted Farrar/Fauci emails from the start of the pandemic and their discussion pre-Lancet letter. Maybe not surprising the latter has just retired yesterday and if it’s not obvious by now, there’s a good discussion with Charles Rixey & Kev McCairn on Twitch last night. Sobering stuff.
There’s also the Died Suddenly video released yesterday, which Google is trying its best to bury – but the intravascular fibrous coagulation is something UK pathologists have been flagging for several months now. Just about time to head for the hills with a tent and several bottles of decent malt whisky.
Sorry Clark and Shibboleth. I didn’t notice a new post until Shibboleth’s today.
The excess death rate, compared to five year averages, is continuing according to the latest ONS weekly deaths stats spotlight.
The covid stats seem to be decreasing overall in the UK and I don’t know what the cause for the excess deaths is. Covid in 2022 , no one wants to discuss it, hear about it or look at it. It’s off the agenda. Here and there, there are reports of, for example, the effectiveness of the bivalent vaccines. Realistically nobody cares anymore. That’s probably a good and a bad thing.
If I were to broach the subject of the continuing excess deaths as noted by ONS, in my family I will be summarily told to STFU and stop being a weirdo. So, hey-ho.I mentioned before, after the 1918 flu epidemic, there was a period where “encephalitis lethargica” was a thing. After a few years it subsided. Part of me wonders if this is a “natural” species reaction to a novel virus of whatever origin. I guess we’ll see.
Don’t think encephalitis lethargica is the same as what you describe as a reaction from your family to covid. I think they just don’t want to hear anymore about it – hear no, speak no, see no. We’re only three years in to this pandemic and could be facing many more. And there’s the possibility that we might never be rid of the virus – there’s just so much uncertainty especially given the zoonotic nature.
— SNIP —[ Mod: The remainder of this reply pertained to the lab leak hypothesis, so the ensuing exchange has been relocated to the more relevant discussion thread ‘Origins of SARS cov2‘. ]
Meanwhile, I have been doing J’s homework. Malone and McCullough have both published in the scientific literature on the subject of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19… a little bit, gaining few citations. Malone in particular hadn’t really published since 2016; just one paper in 2017, and then nothing until the pandemic.
I don’t know what contrarian claims McCullough has made, so I don’t know if such claims are reflected in his published papers.
Malone is cited by the covid denialists mostly for his exaggerated claim that he invented the PCR test, and that it is unsuitable for diagnosis.
Malone’s latter claim is irrelevant because PCR isn’t used for the diagnosis of covid. (1) There’s no need, as covid has clear and consistent symptoms, and (2) it’d be pointless, because infection with SARS-CoV-2 can be mild or even completely asymptomatic, and it’s pointless treating people with mild or no symptoms. Especially when hospitals are overloaded with people who are critically ill with covid.
Health workers do use PCR tests to decide which ward to put patients on, to prevent cross-infection, but this is not diagnosis. And health authorities use PCR tests for population sampling, to predict demand for hospital care, but this isn’t diagnosis either.
All this is obvious given a moment’s thought, but these denialists apparently can’t even manage that.
Anyway, after that diversion (which shouldn’t even have been necessary), Malone doesn’t seem to have published anything regarding his claim about the supposed unsuitability of “his” PCR tests; he apparently saves that bombshell for the real medical experts, who are to be found, of course, at the Rumble video hosting platform. Nature and the Lancet, eat your little hearts out!
Mullis, now deceased, is the guy who “invented” the PCR technique. It’s quotes from him, in a discussion surrounding HIV many years ago, that people try to use to say the inventor of PCR test said it could not be used in testing for viruses. He denied the existence of HIV, he denied that a virus was the cause of AIDS and denied the usefulness of “his” PCR method in detecting HIV. Just to be absolutely clear he was, and remains, completely wrong on all his HIV statements. What he said then about HIV was complete nonsense and as far as it pertains to covid remains complete nonsense. If you search you’ll find the actual video where he said these things. That’s not to detract from his brilliant insight in using the PCR technique first though. Things have moved on from then.
Malone is the guy who likes to think he invented mRNA vaccines.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/concerns-about-the-contents-of-the-covid-vaccines/page/4/
In that post is the original co-authored study on which he bases his claim.PCR testing is used all the time in medicine across the planet especially useful in sexually transmissible disease testing.
Ok, linking individual posts doesn’t work. Page 4 (last page) of that thread, my post September 27, 2022 at 01:17 88903.
ET, thanks for the clarification. Apologies for my confusion but there’s a limit to how much attention I will give to such nonsense; these are all just bullshitters whose names begin with M so far as I’m concerned.
Regarding your link; you have to type a title for your link, highlight it, click the “Link” button at the top of the comment form, and paste in the link to the specific comment. Either that or type in the corresponding a-tag manually. If you just post a bare URL to a comment on this site, the forum software truncates it and gives it the title of the forum it’s in. Yeah; it’s a pain 🙂
ET’s link about Mullis and Mallone.
Now that you point it out Clark, I should have remembered from a previous post about the change in the forum’s link handling.
“Don’t think encephalitis lethargica is the same as what you describe as a reaction from your family to covid”
That wasn’t what I meant Shibboleth.
Encephalitus Lethargica was a definite medical condition after the 1918-1920 pandemic and killed up to 500,000 people and after a few years it went away. My conjecture was that after a large pandemic with a novel virus there may be some human biological reaction caused by I-don’t-know-what that subsides after a time. Perhaps the excess deaths are the covid pandemic’s encephalitis lethargica.
It’s too early to speculate about excess deaths – the pandemic is far from over and the virus is still evolving. Should its virulence increase – as H1N1 did in its third wave – then we’re still in the foothills. Many of the excess deaths currently are the result of delayed diagnosis and Rx of other conditions – and they way the health service is being degraded, this will only get much worse. I had nerve conduction tests done in March this year and was due a follow-up review 6/12 in September. No word. My Mum died with MND in 2008 and I’ve developed similar symptoms in my right leg, so was considered a priority. My new review date in April 2025 as neurology lost two consultants this summer! It’s the same for most specialisms – cardiology and oncology particularly. There are going to be some unpleasant decisions to be made in the next few years – even if Covid somehow magically disappeared.
Shibboleth, very sorry to hear about that delay; I hope you stay well.
Are you Shibbolethink at Wikipedia? I’m Clark42 there. I happened to notice the name and just wondered; I haven’t reviewed that editor’s editing or anything, it’s just an unusual handle.
Sorry, just seen this. No, I rarely visit Wiki.
Placeholder for reply to Tony Opmoc’s question on the Five Hiroshima’s thread…
Shibboleth, thanks. Sorry; I didn’t see your reply at the time.
Tony, apologies in advance if this post lacks sparkle; I’m really feeling too tired for writing but this is the last chance I’ll get before heading to London for Extinction Rebellion’s “The Big One”.
Firstly, if you remember from those discussions you referred to, I was never an advocate for mass vaccination as the primary response to the pandemic. From what I found online, various attempts had been made to develop vaccines against coronaviruses for herds of livestock, but none had proven worthwhile. It seems that infection by coronaviruses doesn’t induce long-term immunity, and pretty obviously, if a virus doesn’t induce immunity then neither will a vaccine that mimics part of it.
My preferred strategy was suppression or even elimination of the virus by properly targeted quarantine. Many small island states achieved this, and Australia and China among others did very well too. But due to mass infection in other countries the virus got into animal populations condemning that strategy to failure.
Big Pharma and most governments promoted the vaccines as a way to stop the virus spreading, and on this fallacy introduced oppressive policies ranging from guilt-tripping the unvaccinated, to “vaccine passports” as a requirement for attending public venues, to outright vaccine mandates. All of these were immoral, and as I said above, I never expected vaccination to stop the spread.
However, the vaccines clearly did reduce the severity of the illness; that became obvious in the statistics towards the end of the second English lockdown.
I wasn’t keen to accept a vaccination whose long term effects couldn’t be known but the UK government’s insane “herd immunity” policy left me the choice of getting infected without vaccination or with it – by a virus whose long term effects were as unknowable as the vaccinations’. And there are strong common-sense reasons to expect a vaccine to be less dangerous than the virus it vaccinates against; a vaccine mimics only a small part of the virus, so that’s a lot of risk and potential harm eliminated straight away. And most vaccines including the covid vaccines can’t reproduce within the body, so any potential damage would be far more limited.
So I got vaccinated. First a dose and a booster of AstraZeneca, subsequent boosters being Pfizer. And I haven’t suddenly dropped dead for unexplained reasons, and neither has anyone else I know. However, through someone I met in 2013 I have heard of one unfortunate elderly chap who went into a coma due to blood clots after an AstraZeneca jab and never recovered.
On the other hand, two elderly people I knew personally did die from covid, plus a close friend’s elderly mother, and people I know personally reported another 27 deaths to me, 20 of them in a care home where a friend was working through the second lockdown. I also know a number of people with long term effects that started when they got infected.
In April 2022 I got covid. It made me quite ill for a few days but I didn’t need hospital. After that I kept thinking I’d fully recovered, but each time I exerted myself for an hour or so I found myself fatigued and feeling ill again, and had to go to bed. This went on for about three weeks.
Between Christmas and March this year I’ve had four viruses; I’ve never before had so many in such a short period. The third felt a lot like covid; the lateral flow test came up negative, but I don’t trust those things anyway.
I’m not keen on getting jabbed for the rest of my life and I don’t think it will remain advantageous, but at present the excess death rate is higher among the unvaccinated (see links in the comment that follows), so I’ll continue to accept jabs when they’re offered until that’s no longer the case.
– ONS have today updated their analysis of mortality rates in England based on vaccination status.
– Key result is that whether we consider all-cause deaths or deaths with COVID, the age-standardised mortality rate is higher for unvaccinated people.
– Chart 1 – All causes of death
COVID19actuary on Twitter – Link
– Feb 21 – And here is the ratio of unvaccinated mortality rates to ever vaccinated rates – all above 100% i.e. higher death rate among the unvaccinated.
Unvaccinated mortality rates are around double the ever-vaccinated rate for ages 50 to 79:
Adele Groyer on Twitter – link
Office of National Statistics – link
Note the latest week data:
– “The analysis of mortality by age is fascinating but grim reading. Death rates are relatively high for all ages but especially high for young adults. Death rates at age 20-44 are as bad as the second wave in 2021.”
So excess death anomaly is greatest currently in 20-44 which is an age range that did not get a booster and is least vaccinated overall in adult range. There is no current anomalous death surge in the older age groups especially those who got latest booster.
Here a German report from Germany´s so far first and only public hearing on the Covid crisis.
In case someone is interested.
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=103513 – English translationIt took place in the regional parliament of the state of Brandenburg, Sept. 1st. 2023.
It is amazing that in fact there were some vital questions touching topics that were simply not allowed to be discussed.
