The Doctors who still haven’t recovered from a likely bioweapon

Coronavirus is both the rock and the hard place

There are costs to stopping it, and costs to letting it go. There are businesses that won’t recover, and also people that won’t.

There is much more to pandemic decisions than just “deaths per capita”. One more aspect  of the wicked dilemma are “long haulers” or the condition called “long Covid” (which is defined as being ill for 3 months or longer).

Thirty-nine UK doctors who caught Covid are still struggling 6 months later, and have written a joint letter for the British Medical Journal. These were mostly fit youngish people, and they didn’t get hospitalized. They had mild moderate cases of Covid. But many of them say that the after effects are worse than the initial infection. These include things like headaches, dizziness, the inability to walk 200 metres or more, breathlessness,  strange numb patches, new allergies, difficulty regulating body temperature, ongoing diarrhea. Many are unable to work.

The cause could be nerve damage, or an autoimmune disorder (or something else entirely). If the virus triggers an immune reaction against their own cells it may be difficult to undo or “grow out of”. Some nerve damage will repair. Some won’t.

The CCP’s reaction to their own bioweapon says something, and we know it’s not love or concern for Chinese people. The CCP strategy stays the same — Elimination at any cost. A week ago they locked down a border city near Myanmar after finding two new cases, and ordered tests for all 200,000 people. In the last 24 hours they have told businesses to stop ordering frozen foods from high risk countries.

A Goldilocks bioweapon?

David Evans points out “The military have long known that it is more effective to wound an enemy combatant than to kill them, because a wounded person requires more resources to be spent on them, rescuing them and hospitalizing them, often tying up another two or three people for months. Same principle with disease. The bioweapon that most weakens another society would be a highly contagious disease that merely subtly impairs.”

A contagion that had a moderate death rate, significant hospitalization rate, and sometimes a long recovery might be the “Goldilocks” ideal to cause division, dissent, confusion and damage in an adversary. The release of SARS-Cov-2 was probably an accident, but there was some kind of plan in mind when it was created. It might be handy to know what that was.

Covid, Long, sickness, doctors. Photo.

Some doctors still haven’t recovered six months later. Read it all, DailyMail, UK

 

The doctors still crippled by Covid-19 six months after they caught it:

None of these medics were hospitalised after catching coronavirus yet they’ve all been struck by ‘long Covid’ – raising alarming questions about its lasting effects

by Lucy Elkins for Daily Mail UK

The UK health toll (so far) is 440,000 known cases, 42,000 deaths and 60,000 “Long Covid”.

The number affected [by “Long Covd”] so far in this country has already exceeded 60,000, according to initial results from the UK Covid symptom study (being run by King’s College London, where people enter their symptoms via an app).

‘If [long Covid] affects 10 per cent of the population [as one study suggests] and we never get better — and go from being economically active to long-term inactive and unable to work — then even if you remove the human suffering element, it is something policy-makers need to take into account,’ Dr Jake Suett, 32, an anaesthetist who initiated the letter, told Good Health.

GP Tanya Northridge, 40,  said having Covid changed her life and said she could not walk more than 200 metres without feeling tired and dizzy. “I cannot do any upright exercise. Before this, I would be constantly on the go, and running three times a week — sometimes as far as eight miles …”

Sarah Burns, 41, is a GP in Southampton. “For two months earlier this year I experienced such intense fatigue that I was lying down on the sofa all day. The only way I could manage simple tasks, such as putting on a wash, was by resting in the middle.

To put this into perspective, not only was I previously managing a busy job as a GP, but I used to regularly run 10km …

Grace Dolman, 40, a hepatologist (liver specialist) caught it in March…. “My concentration and memory are still poor: I put milk in the cupboard. I’ve also developed pins and needles in my feet and fingers. This has destroyed my confidence. My words don’t come as easily, so even talking to friends is hard. I’m off sick until the end of October….”

Dr Jenny Judge, 48, is an NHS forensic psychiatrist who now has to carry an epipen for severe allergies. “As the weeks wore on, I developed inflamed and painful wrists, shoulders and knees, and severe swelling in my feet and hands. I could barely hold a cup of tea.”

Ian Frayling, 61, is a recently retired NHS genetic scientist. ” A few weeks ago, I went shopping for new shoes when I suddenly started to shake uncontrollably. I felt completely drained of any energy. It took all my effort just to get back to the car only half a mile away.” ...”I also get nausea, irritable bowel syndrome and hypoglycemia — where I can suddenly feel my blood sugar levels plummet, leaving me weak and trembling.

The other effect, unstated here, is that people within the medical profession will all know and discuss these sequelae.  For those who haven’t caught it, this risk will add to their decisions about early retirement, working conditions, willingness to be exposed, and the risk to their loved ones. Above and beyond the mortality and morbidity is the toll on the health system.

Other diseases, including influenza, leave long term sequelae and damage in a certain percent of the population. It’s the numbers that matter, and all the data is problematic. But decisions have to be made now.

The genetics says “Bioweapon”

REFERENCE

Jackie Wise (2020) Long covid: doctors call for research and surveillance to capture disease, BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3586 (Published 15 September 2020)    BMJ 2020;370:m3586

8.6 out of 10 based on 60 ratings

122 comments to The Doctors who still haven’t recovered from a likely bioweapon

  • #
    Another Ian

    “Good sign we’re onto something: the Chinese research database revoked access from whoever found the Chinese-language 2013 MSc and 2016 PhD theses confirming that in 2012 these was a SARS-like pneumonia outbreak in a mine from which WIV got RaTG13/4991 — closest SARS2 relative. https://t.co/JLV6nhtpex

    — Yuri Deigin (@ydeigin) September 27, 2020 ”

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/09/28/one-flu-out-of-the-wuhan-nest-17/#comments

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    • #
      Analitik

      these was a SARS-like pneumonia outbreak in a mine from which WIV got RaTG13/4991 — closest SARS2 relative.

      from which WIV CLAIMS to have got RaTG13/4991 — closest SARS2 relative

      RaTG13 is a fake, a gene sequence hastily concocted to provide plausible deniability against the gain of function experiments that the WIV indulged in

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  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Yup…and if you listen to the constant drum beat through the MSM, you hear what appears to be the case for a hot war against China constantly building.

    However, more good news :

    https://worldisraelnews.com/florida-doctors-claim-corona-cure-with-near-100-success-rate-potential-to-reopen-country/

    “ICAM is an acronym that stands for the various medications used in the treatment:
    “1) “I” – Immunosupport (Vitamin C and Zinc)
    “2) “C” – Corticosteroids to control inflammation
    “3) “A” – Anticoagulants to prevent blood clots, and
    “4) “M” – Macrolides to fight infection.

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    • #
      Peter C

      What are these Macrolides which fight infection?

      Could they be talking about hydroxychloroquine and Invermectin?

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Peter C asks:

        What are these Macrolides which fight infection?

        Could they be talking about hydroxychloroquine and Invermectin?

        List of Macrolides:

        1. E.E.S.-400
        Generic name: erythromycin
        2. Zmax (Pro)
        Generic name: azithromycin
        3. Dificid (Pro)
        Generic name: fidaxomicin
        4. Zithromax (Pro)
        Generic name: azithromycin
        Etc

        https://www.drugs.com/drug-class/macrolides.html

        The complement to HCQ and Zinc.

        Why is HCQ not identified (with Zinc) when taken early in the infection?

        40

        • #

          Yes, I looked at that yesterday. Interesting but “Near 100%” means 96.4. Case fatality rate is thus 3.6%. That’s probably excellent compared to other hospitalization CFR’s. It would be good to see the comparison.

          FWIW Australia’s CRF is 2.9% overall (including old young, at home and hospitalized.). Obviously true infection fatality rates are lower, but we need to compare apple with apples to get some sense of how useful this is.

          The urgent case remains — the best thing we can do to get beyond this is to get all known useful drugs tested widely and transparently and early in the infection. (Plus with zinc. Etc).

          We wonder — again — why the obvious is so slow…

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          • #

            3.6% of those who go onto that regime I presume. So your “case fatality rate” is defining case is not standard.

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          • #
            William Astley

            I assumed this was just sloppy reporting and there is uncertainty as to how to calculate the true effective rate for the general population. The effectiveness for the general population (concept if correct) would be say reduce the death rate by a factor of four. 1% rather than say 3%. It appear 4% is too high. People need to die because of covid.

            I assumed the 96.4% is for patients that check-in to the hospital where the patients get the treatment.

            These would be obese people, diabetic people, old people, dark skin people. People who are scared of covid. People do not go to US hospitals if they can avoid it. Getting all of the bills paid is not easy. US hospitals/specialists charge for everything and insurance does not pay for anything.

            The treatment is simple and logical.

            This might explain how Israel has a covid death rate that is less than 1%. 2200 deaths, 235,465 cases which is a death rate of 0.9%. It would be expected that there would be a large number of Vit. D deficient people in Israel because of religious beliefs concerning bare skin.

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          • #
            William Astley

            This is interesting. And yes, I think covid was designed.

            3.5 percent of the severe covid patients (in this study of people who have severe covid symptoms) have mutations of genes involved in antiviral defense.

            And 0.35% of those who have severe covid and have mutations of genes that are involved in antiviral defense, create antibodies that attack the immune system of the patient, rather than attack the virus.

            Antibodies that attack the immune system sounds like a possible mechanism to explain weird non standard long term health problems. These rogue antibodies could continue to attack the immune system and cause problems.

            https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200924141529.htm

            At least 3.5 percent of study patients with severe COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, have mutations in genes involved in antiviral defense.
            And at least 10 percent of patients with severe disease create “auto-antibodies” that attack the immune system, instead of fighting the virus.

            The results, reported in two papers in the journal Science on September 24, 2020, identify some root causes of life-threatening COVID-19, says study leader Jean-Laurent Casanova, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at The Rockefeller University.

            Seeing these harmful antibodies in so many patients — 101 out of 987 — was “a stunning observation,” he says. “These two papers provide the first explanation for why COVID-19 can be so severe in some people, while most others infected by the same virus are okay.”

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          • #
            Lucky

            Plus to Jo’s post but I have reservations-

            – (At the risk of agreeing with Gee Aye), ‘case’ needs care to define, but I do not think CFR is meaningful however defined.

            – Further testing of the cures, especially the cheap and safe medications HCQ and Ivermectin, will not do anything. The opposition to them is nominally on the grounds of safety and of not working, but all the evidence needed to counter such argument is already in. The problem is political, lefty governments love lockdowns, all our governments love authority (the experts) and genuflect upwards. The authority is the TDA in Australia, and then the WHO. WHO is influenced by big pharma, Bill Gates and gets told what to do by China. None of these want us to have a cheap effective cure.

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            • #

              don’t be scared of agreeing with me. In this case I was seeking clarity which is hardly a partisan thing to do. Not everything, in fact remarkably little, is on the left-right spectrum.

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      • #
        truth

        Macrolides are the antibiotics of choice to treat bacterial pneumonia.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      They use zinc but no zinc ionophores?

      It’s usually the other way around when they have done trials designed to “prove” the zinc ionophore HCQ is ineffective. They have the ionophore but not the zinc. (Apart from it being used too late and/or in a toxic dose.)

      They both need each other.

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      • #
        truth

        As far as I’ve seen there’s been no credible explanation of the use of a toxic dose with no zinc in the Recovery Trial…and the fact that the medical community around the world just played follow-the-leader [in breach it may turn out…of their Hippocratic oath ] to deny thousands of people the chance to live…totally and dutifully on the strength of the claims of the Recovery Trial researchers.

        They jumped to attention and did as they were told with barely a murmur…like a bunch of cadet soldiers.

        Apart from the fact that the medical world ..especially its bureaucrats have been conditioned to denounce anything Trump has given any credit to…I think a reasonable person might wonder if the HCQ regime and the Recovery Trial were set up specifically to fail….because success of a reasonable HCQ+zinc regime would have weakened the case for their vaccine that many people around the world are already wary about.

        Think of the money lost if millions of people refused the vaccine with the thought that a viable treatment was available…and that it might be less risky to hedge their bets…take all the normal precautions and then seek treatment very quickly if infected.

        Before CAGW and therefore before post-normal science…back in the days when we had enormous trust in the science institutions…we would never have entertained such a dark notion….that scientists and political leaders would deliberately deprive citizens of lifesaving treatment…and a cheap one at that…for political and Big Finance reasons….but now…with the whole world awash with lies indoctrination and deliberately-induced mass hysteria…there’s not much that’s too extreme to consider.

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  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    For me, the CCP have declared war on the world.

    The CCP/WHO could have warned earlier, but conspired not to.

    And in Oz, we have elitist UN manchurian candidates for leaders.

    It cant end well for deplorables.

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    • #
      Binny Pegler

      The CCP have been at war with the West for 20 years. The Art of War ‘defeat the enemy with out a fight’
      Trump has forced their hand, and pushed them out into the open. In another 10 year they really would have won with out a fight.

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      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Only the West?

        There was a vicious conflict with Vietnam after the war between North and South Vietnam’s ended.

        Then the Dalai Llama was forced to leave when Tibet was annexed.

        More recently Pakistan has been engaged and the ugly intrusion into the South China sea has seen confrontation with several other nations.

        Their greed knows no boundaries.

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        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          Hopefully, those so easily offended Islamists will wake up to what their noble fellow believers, the Uighers, are suffering under the hand of the Godless CCP.

          But perhaps their courage runs out when faced by an implacable foe?

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        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          Plus their Belt and Roads initiative throughout the African nations, tying them up financially and politically to China.

          They have approximately 1 million muslims in prison for the crime of praying. They’ve destroyed thousands of churches of all denominations.

          They’ve gotten to a point where they feel safe about bullying their neighbours. They do have a long term strategy and they’ve been very successful so far.

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        • #
          el gordo

          ‘Their greed knows no boundaries.’

          Its not like that, these are geo-strategic matters, they are strengthening their borders. The South China Sea was once all theirs and they want it back, naive in the extreme.

          Remember your history, Britain intoxicated China with Indian opium and brought down a dynasty, now that is what I call greed.

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          • #
            Kalm Keith

            “Britain intoxicated China with Indian opium and brought down a dynasty”, now that’s a Geostrategic Matter.

            But I do agree that Colonialism has an arrogance to it that is unpleasant. A visit to Westminster Abbey in London was a huge shock to a naive believer.

            Having said that; China needs to fix itself before expanding any more; get out of the South China sea and get out of Tibet.

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            • #
              el gordo

              Democracy is not part of their political culture, which goes back 4000 years, so we shouldn’t expect too much on that front.

              The South China Sea, Taiwan and Tibet are festering sores for the moment, but in the fullness of time these issues will be resolved amicably.

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              • #
                Serp

                The gratuitous addition of “amicably” which in CCP-speak means “to the satisfaction of China” suggests you could be, perhaps unwittingly, a united front shill el gordo.

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              • #
                el gordo

                The mainland has no ambition to take Taiwan by force. Also the children of Tibet have gained an education and the people are relatively better off than they were.

                The minorities in the north-west are being persecuted and imprisoned, there is nothing we can do about that, but we can help the HK refugees settle in Australia.

                Political reality, our biggest trading partner needs to be handled carefully.

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              • #
                William Astley

                When you say ‘it’ will work itself out? What is OK and not OK, when working it out? This does not sound amiable to me.

                This sounds like Tibetans are being forced to work, kind of like slaves, for an industrial complex. Is that OK or not OK? What would it be like for say a young boy. Taken from his village, reeducated, and then sent to a Chinese work camp.

                https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/09/23/study-china-has-forced-500000-tibetans-into-labor-camps-this-year/

                A new study published on Tuesday by the Jamestown Foundation details how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forced over 500,000 Tibetans into military-style camps designed to train “rural surplus laborers” into industrial workers in the first half of this year. After completing their so-called “vocational training,” which includes political indoctrination, the Tibetans were transferred to work in factories across China, according to government quotas.

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              • #
                el gordo

                From our perspective the Han is on a par with the Nazis.

                https://www.ucanews.com/news/vatican-silent-as-tibetans-are-forced-into-concentration-camps/89673#

                There is nothing we can do about that, its an internal matter.

                15

              • #
                truth

                Do you have the ear of Xi , El Gordo…since you’re so confident of his benign intentions?

                Your apparent claim that Tibet is better off now has a familiar ring to it.

                It sounds like the Communists’ expansionary playbook…they always pretend to be ‘liberating’ the plebs in the countries they take by force….it’s why they often weaken such countries first…as they’re doing on every continent and with their ‘belt-and-road’ scam now.

                They lend enormous amounts to poor countries then take territory and infrastructure when the country inevitably defaults…or they demand compliance and adherence in their plan to weaken the whole world as they did with the WHO on COVID.

                With Taiwan they’ll probably whiteant it from within …make gutless Europe and a compromised ‘Democrat’-led US[ should the worst befall the US and the democratic world ]…induce them both to throw Taiwan under the bus for them…a disaster which our Wet Left LNP government and the Labor alternative would both meekly facilitate IMO.

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                I think you will find the Chinese will forcibly take back Taiwan…

                10

              • #
                Analitik

                moment, but in the fullness of time these issues will be resolved amicably.

                Or as put by Sir Humphrey Appleby, at the appropriate juncture, in due course, in the fullness of time.’

                20

          • #
            sophocles

            … the British wanted tea
            … China would only sell tea for bullion
            … China wouldn’t buy anything from the British
            … the British only had so much bullion
            … so the British sold China opium for bullion
            … the British could still buy tea

            Ain’t International trade wonderful?
            In the end, tea plants were smuggled out of China.
            The monopoly was broken …

            Ain’t International politics wunderful?

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        • #
          Ted O'Brien.

          During the Viet Nam war the Viet Cong were supported by the USSR, not by China. At times North Viet Nam was at war with China.

          20

          • #
            glen Michel

            The NVRA as well. Majorly.

            00

          • #
            Kalm Keith

            Supplies and equipment for the North Vietnamese were provided by Russia who sent the goods through China into North Vietnam .

            At the end of the “war” there were 200,000 Chinese helpers in North Vietnam who refused to leave.
            There was a very ugly clash between Vietnam and China that eventually settled the matter but Russia needed to be repaid. The war materiel was an expensive debt owed by the new Vietnam and in payment several tens of thousands of Vietnamese were sent to Russia to work and pay off that debt. I believe that they went by real, through Chyna, to Russia in the reverse direction taken by the initial armament shipments.
            Immediately after the war ended the school system in Vietnam taught Russian language for a number of years: the influence was that strong.
            Russian tourists have been a big part of Vietnam for a long time now but more recently MacDonalds and Kentucky Chicken have had a significant influence.

            There are even Korean versions of these American icons busy diversifying things.

            KK

            20

      • #
        el gordo

        The Art of War ‘defeat the enemy with out a fight’

        Yes indeed, through a capitalist free market. Premier Xi is on record as saying war is a waste of resources, so they have taken the course of least resistance. Australia is particularly vulnerable, they are our biggest trading partner and can turn the tap on and off at the slightest whim.

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      • #
        David Maddison

        The Chinese literally wrote the book on “The Art of War”. Why haven’t any gweilos 鬼佬 read it?

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    • #
      Mal

      The response by western civilisation to the virus has been at enormous economic consequences
      If this is an attack by China, bringing out new viruses every couple of years will completely overwhelm the Western civilised world without a shot being fired
      Its time the woke movement woke up
      Also all the other leftist movements, such as cancel culture,rebellion extinction,climate change etc
      How often does sosciety have to go through repeats of failed ideologies leaving us vulnerable to take over by those with sinister motives

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      • #
        truth

        I agree .

        I agree Mal.
        Before we know for sure what many researchers now suspect….and I think some …and not just Chinese scientists…actually know…..ie that this is a lab-engineered gain-of-function virus…before we’re anywhere near over this disaster… we could be faced with much worse.

        It’s been said that this couldn’t be an intentional release because bio-warfare would require a much more widely-lethal virus.

        But it could be that this was an accidental premature release of a deadlier virus not yet ‘perfected’…or it could be a deliberate dry run and another action according to the expansionary Communist playbook …to first weaken then ‘liberate’…then enslave…remembering that the Chinese leaders wanted to be seen as rescuing the world with their dodgy PPE and test kits….and their captive WHO.

        We will definitely be weakened for the next few years and the question is whether the world will have the will and the guts to get together and force the Chinese dictatorship to agree to allow the Wuhan lab to be investigated and monitored …or shut down….and that prospect’s not looking good.

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  • #
    Geoff Croker

    Change the pH (Covid unrolls), roll in the zinc. The rest is about damage done or being done.

    Will work for most viruses.

    Lots of similar treatments.

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    • #
      Peter C

      So much could have been done differently, and still needs to be done differently. The hydroxychloroquine prophylactic trial may never be completed. Same for other treatments. HCQ is still banned.
      There is zero interest among our Health Departments for introducing cheap and quick Covid paper tests. It defies belief but it is true.

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      • #
        David Maddison

        Peter C, the only reason they are against HCQ as per the Zelenko protocol, is because that is what Trump’s experts suggested.

        Every government trial of HCQ has been deliberately sabotaged by either no zinc; administration when the patient is already seriously ill (when it is only intended for use immediately upon suspicion of infection even before test results are back) or they have given HCQ in extremely toxic doses.

        I am unaware of any government trial that has tested the Zelenko protocol exactly as he described it.

        The Australian Government also lies by saying HCQ is dangerous. I have that in a letter from the minister’s office. Jo, I will send you a copy if you like, send me an email.

        A success for HCQ would be seen as a success for Trump and the Left would rather kill people than let that happen.

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        • #

          Yes, but No. Don’t underestimate the grip of the Multibillion-Big-Pharma.

          To be sure, the left hates the Trump solution. But it’s not just HCQ being suppressed, and it’s not just happening in America.

          Big Pharma have bet billions on a vaccine solution. There are over 160 in development. The last thing they want is an antiviral solution with an out-of-patent drug be it HCQ, Ivermectin, Bromhexine, Melatonin, Vitamin D, Zinc etc etc etc. If the vaccine gets used mainly in Africa, or only for “at risk” people, it’s not a cash-cow. Watch them, if the vaccine is only 50% effective, what’s the bet they will still want everyone to take it to protect the vulnerable. If the vaccine were 100% effective that would be a financial disadvantage to Big Pharma.

          The hypothesis that fits all the facts is that Big Pharma has too much influence on the Swamp, or the Deep State, or elected Reps, or to some extent, even on honest medico’s who were not taught much about the power of nutritional cheap solutions in Medical School, and who work in a system where it is riskier to recommend FDA-unapproved “untrested” food supplements rather than weakly useful pharmaceutical drugs which were tested in dubious not-quite-the-right-placebo trials.

          Why are vitamins, minerals and food supplements largely inadequately tested? Or – in the case of Vitamin D, when there are extraordinary results — why are they not promoted widely by the Medical Swamp? Vitamin D is linked to significant all-cause-mortality improvements and has been for 20 years. Many in the West remain deficient. If an expensive drug ever had that kind of result it would be front page headline material, mandatory testing, subsidized.

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          • #
            Geoff Croker

            Agreed. Nothing to do with Trump. Anyone who goes against big Pharma is going to find a difficult path ahead. Government controls us with regulations. Those that control the regulators, control us.

            Allowing the US government to buy drugs from outside the US eg Mexico on a general basis is the first major step in lowering drug prices. This is what Trump is proposing. International tenders for supply of drugs. Australia is a trusted supplier of pure goods. This is our opportunity to become a huge supplier. Unfortunately, our own elites will prevent this.

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            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Precisely. Now by way of comparison, try pushing back against the Big Pharma guaranted narket of the vaccine paradigm… it is deeply entrenched in peoples minds and is s form of brainwashing.

              Bu way of example, try sending an un-vaccinated child to any school…you basically cant because they let the schools set what in effect is legally unenforcable, but if its school policy….well…too bad…just another example of having our choices taken away by underhanded processes….

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    • #
      Geoff Croker

      Damage can be assessed with an MRI. The MRI will also increase blood flow in minute vessels. Clotting of minute vessels will restrict oxygen movement and virus “damaged” patients will experience a lack of energy condition caused by lower oxygen levels in minute arteries. Hydration and high doses of vitamin D3 may be a treatment. Otherwise minute artery damage becomes chronic.

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  • #
    Peter C

    The other effect, unstated here, is that people within the medical profession will all know and discuss these sequelae. For those who haven’t caught it, this risk will add to their decisions about early retirement, working conditions, willingness to be exposed, and the risk to their loved ones. Above and beyond the mortality and morbidity is the toll on the health system.

    It seems dire, yet some motivated Health Care Workers will volunteer to go the the Congo etc and treat Ebola victims, knowing full well the risks. So I don’t think our Health Care system will collapse. I spoke to some HCWs yesterday and they are mostly looking forward to getting back to normal work.

    I can report some good news from St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne:
    ” Since commencing asymptomatic testing for our Health Care Workers in mid-August, we have completed 709 tests with only 2 staff members returning a positive test. What a wonderful testament to all of the staff not only to volunteer to be tested but it speaks volumes to their commitment to PPE compliance, the safety of themselves, patients and their fellow colleagues. Further to this we have had no HCW test positive to COVID in the month of September and no HCWs are currently furloughed.”

    What that means, as far as I can interpret, is that better PPE and procedures have cut the infection rate among professional health care workers to near zero. At last! It is not Rocket Science. What is required is strict attention to sensible protocols.

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Good news.

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    • #
      PTR

      Um ??? St. Vincents hospital was to run a trial using HCQ among staff who were at the time having numerous members becoming infected. It was discussed last month on this blog. Here is a link I have been readily able to find doing a search: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/st-vincents-melbourne-trials-trump-spruiked-malaria-drug-hydroxychloroquine/news-story/a57f024cfc40ace7cd2d1ce220c33d64
      This thread is suggesting that about 1/4 of all those infected have either died or suffered long term detrimental effects. Really? Any supportive evidence from other countries?

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      • #
        Peter C

        My information was from St Vincent’s Private Hospital which was several campuses in Melbourne. The public hospital may have different results.

        Covid Shield is a black hole (ie no information yet).
        https://www.covidshieldtrial.com.au/#!/

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      • #
        David Maddison

        I am at a loss to understand, yet again, why they are using a zinc ionophore without the supplemental zinc as required by the Zelenko protocol, even for his prophylaxis regime. Why bother using HCQ at all?

        It seems another trial being set up for failure. You don’t have to be clinically deficient in zinc to benefit from the extra zinc (50mg elemental zinc dose) in his protocol. As it happens clinical zinc defiency is rare in the West but presumaby the strong anti-viral effects of HCQ are experienced with zinc somewhat anove normal levels.

        However, known risk groups do tend to be zinc deficient but not due to an inadequate diet.

        Zinc supplementation improves the mucociliary clearance, strengthens the integrity of the epithelium, decreases viral replication, preserves antiviral immunity, attenuates the risk of hyper-inflammation, supports anti-oxidative effects and thus reduces lung damage and minimized secondary infections. Especially older subjects, patients with chronic diseases and most of the remaining COVID-19 risk groups would most likely benefit. Although studies are needed testing the effect of zinc as therapeutic option for established disease, preventive supplementation of subjects from risk groups should begin now, as zinc is a cost-efficient, globally available and simple to use option with little to no side effects. The first clinical trials on zinc supplementation alone and in combination with other drugs such as chloroquine have been registered (124, 160–162).

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7365891/

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    Furiously curious

    Hit it with HCQ, Ivermectin, zinc, vitamin D, as early as possible. Don’t allow it to stew through the organs. How come no one’s coming out with this, it’s been obvious for months? Have our institutions been flooded with ideological mediocrity? Has our meritocracy been replaced by a mediocracy?
    Move along, nothing to see here.

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      nezy

      FC – you’re quite correct!! I believe there are current ongoing trials of a combination treatment of Ivermectin / Doxycycline / Zinc by Professor Borody in Australia and the US. The combination of drugs has been successfully used to treat a number of patients in several countries. I’ve attached a couple of links below for interest…. Obviously no money in it for big pharma so it might not get the backing of the Canberra lobby groups who are literally “banking” on the introduction of the next best vaccine. In my cynical old age any expectations of effective political action to fast track what are effectively harmless drug treatments usually result in frustrated but pointless letters to my MP – (with apologies to Orwell) “a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity – a mass of imbecile enthusiasms”….

      http://covexit.com/australian-gps-can-legally-prescribe-ivermectin-triple-therapy-protocol-professor-borody/

      https://gumshoenews.com/2020/08/30/ivermectin-professor-borody-the-94-year-old-woman-and-the-federal-government/

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      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      G’day F c,
      I sort of agree with you, but with a couple of reservations which I consider to be significant.
      Firstly, while I agree completely with your statement about HCQ etc, here in Australia HCQ has been declared a poison (!) and is precluded from being used against COVID-19, so your recommended treatment is not available here, even in hospitals, let alone to GPs.
      Secondly, and as a result, I suggest your final sentence is too harsh. There are people suffering, and badly so, from the after effects, and those after effects have not, yet, been publicly acknowledged to be the result of the non-use of the early treatment you recommend. But the reasons for that inadequacy are being deliberately hidden, as you imply with your questions. So there is something to be seen behind a rather heavy curtain which we must remove.
      Cheers
      Dave B

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    A C Osborn

    There is a video from 2019 by a UK person Peter Daszak of Ecohealth Alliance who is bragging about exactly how it was done.
    With the best intentions of course.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdYDL_RK–w

    Add this to the other information that cam eout of China and it all makes sense.

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    Nezysquared

    Sorry but these posts are beginning to sound more and more akin to the global warming heebie jeebies. There is way too much conjecture for me – might, could, maybe etc. Self assessment via an app has no rigorous methodology and is so subjective as to be next to worthless – and basing a stated position on a mere 39 cases sounds like desperation. If (and it’s a big if) this story carries any weight it should be relatively easy to provide a rebuttal to the post by Ivor Cummins where he posits that we now have a casedemic. I see much logic in his argument and increasingly sparse logic used on this site. Rebuttal please! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UvFhIFzaac&feature=youtu.be – and more than happy to be proven wrong…..

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      Nexy, the post said “60,000” in the UK with some form of long covid, which means 3 months or more. We don’t know how many of those are resolved.

      Wouldn’t the most sensible thing be to collect this data asap? 60,000 out of 440,000 is pretty high, even if many of those are “just” 12 week long illnesses.

      The answer to anyone suggesting that we are testing too much and the tests are meaningless is Western Australia where we have done 170 days with zero positive cases in the community, but thousands of tests. There’s no casedemic here, and it wouldn’t matter if we tripled our tests. Zero is zero.

      Be aware, there are vested interests on both sides of this debate — ones that want to play it down and open up and ones that want to scare everyone into accepting expensive vaccines.

      How do we know what’s real? Inasmuch as anyone can know, — doctors in Australia, the UK, US, Brazil, Italy, France, Spain and South Korea have some messages in common.

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        Nezysquared

        Jo – whilst I get your drift I still maintain that 60000 people who self asses as suffering from “long COVID” offers no rigorous (and therefore meaningful) basis for looking at the potential effects of this disease. It might be 60000 or it might just be 600 – who knows? And I agree that collecting this data might prove useful. I didn’t suggest we are testing too much but conversely I might question why we should ignore other large data sets such as those presented by Mr Cummins in the attached link. I also agree that the question of vested interests cannot be ignored but going down that particular rabbit hole does not absolve us from looking dispassionately at other evidence which might paint a different picture to the standard commentary which presents WuFlu as something we simply must avoid rather than learning to live with. I acknowledge the thrust of your argument but would reiterate if the Cummins data is in any way accurate we have taken a wrong turn and there is little justification for continuing to compromise the economic wellbeing of Australia based on the apparent evidence from other countries.

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      PeterS

      I’ve watched the video before and watched it again. I can’t escape the conclusion our lockdown approaches to tackling the pandemic is all wrong and is only leading us down the path of self-destruction. The sooner we get rid of despots like Andrews the better. It might already be too late but better late than never.

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        el gordo

        ‘ … lockdown approaches to tackling the pandemic is all wrong …’

        Strongly disagree, there maybe no vaccine for a weapon of mass destruction. Elimination is better than herd immunity, Beijing knows best.

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          PeterS

          That’s your opinion but the evidence is against you, as been shown repeatedly in previous posts by so many. You also didn’t view the video or if you did your biased view got in the way.

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            el gordo

            My bias is toward elimination and bringing life back to normal, which should happen around Xmas when the Trans-Tasman Bubble kicks in.

            Are you for herd immunity?

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              PeterS

              Am I for herd immunity? Of course since that’s already happening. How can you ignore and reject something that’s actually working? A cure would be better but alas there isn’t one.

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          Serp

          To convey displeasure with Xi’s regime call its capital Peking and undo decades of nomenclature bullying.

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            Serp

            Vocabulary is key to wrangling with the PRC and still its word is not binding; apparently it’s five thousand years of recorded history does that.

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              el gordo

              Inscrutability is a key word.

              I’m confident Australia can rebuild strong ties with Beijing, but they’ll have to come clean on how a weapon of mass destruction was found in the Wuhan fish market.

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                Analitik

                They’ll never admit to any level of culpability – too much loss of face, especially for President (for life) Xi.
                You of all people should see that.

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    Anton

    My best guess for the cause of long covid is diseased epithelium. I understand it is rich in ACE2 receptors.

    The panicked response of the Chinese authorities was, at a guess, due to a broad containment failure at the Wuhan laboratory such that the CCP did not know what pathogens had escaped. I doubt that it was being engineered as a bioweapon; more likely its capacity to attack humans was engineered as part of a drive to prepare generic vaccines that would be saleable to the West. But that it is manmade is essentially certain: Yan Li-Meng’s paper (linked to in Jo’s article) explains that you can see the join, and Prof Angus Dalgleish’s paper examines the research papers coming out of the Wuhan laboratory and explains that the creation of something like SARS-CoV-2 was the obvious next step in their research:

    https://www.minervanett.no/files/2020/07/13/TheEvidenceNoNaturalEvol.pdf

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      If the Wuhan Institute had only good intentions why did the CCP order all associated material destroyed on January 2?

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        Analitik

        Loss of face for the screw up of this magnitude is ample motive for the CCP to coverup the gain of function experiments they hoped would give them leadership in vaccine development.

        If it was being developed as a bio-weapon,there would have been more military involvement at the WIV

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        Anton

        To make it impossible for the West to prove that a CCP screwup was responsible and therefore harder for the West to seek compensation (something that Trump might just be up to but not Biden).

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    Matty

    Long Covid – in the case of 39 UK doctors.

    “These include things like headaches, dizziness, the inability to walk 200 metres or more, breathlessness, strange numb patches, new allergies, difficulty regulating body temperature, ongoing diarrhea. Many are unable to work.”

    So what is “many” out of 39? And that’s a very big spread of symptoms….over a very small group?? It is also an unfortunate observation of many that the medical profession these days have at least their quota of sleazebags, reprobates, opportunists and frauds, as any other profession. Especially in England. Follow the money.

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    A C Osborn

    So without any iformation at all you are attacking these doctors ethics and honesty.
    Nice one mate.

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    Richard Ilfeld

    The few intelligent realists are still looking for data and trying to figure this out.
    The folks have had enough.
    Where they can, people in the US are emulating Sweden: normal life with better public health.
    It’s here, it’s bad, it’s not worse that cars in the 50’s or teen drinking and life must go on.
    We know a bunch of people will be killed or scarred, but have decided the the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
    We have figured out a lot of public health things and changed society a little.
    So now we are optimists of the right and opportunistic pessimists of the left.

    If our election in the States turns out to be “next year will be the best ever” vs “mask mandates, do what we say, and hide forever”
    I think optimism will win in some surprising places.

    Florida; media gloom and doom notwithstanding, just went to phase III. When the official line is getting worse and things on the ground are getting better
    (or vice versa) is when democracies traditionally call BS on their leaders.

    All of the people who will vote, or not, for all of the traditional reasons, are set in stone……and then there are these other folks, which is why the parties morph or the government is not permanent on one side or the other. When one party chooses hope and the other chooses fear; the pollsters don’t always see the result but the polls do.

    We all know that we can’t not figure out a way to live with Covid AND have an economy, except for a few pols who also want us to power things with windmills….and they are equally wrong here.

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    Gerry, England

    I noticed that two of those affected were both frequent runners. I wonder if there is anything in that as to why they are suffering. It would be interesting to know about any of the others. There was a suggestion of a disease in the past that would ironically hit fit people worst. I can’t recall any details but it did stick in my mind. Could it be that their bodies are in a stressed state from all the exercise – over exercise? – and are more vulnerable.

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      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      Is vitamin D used up in physical exercise?
      Cheers
      Dave B

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      Analitik

      High intensity or lengthy exercise will depress the immune system – Sir Bradley Wiggins said in an interview that since retiring, he is a lot less fit but a lot healthier in general.

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    Kira

    Jo–Look into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). One possible trigger is an infection (e.g. Epstein Barr)that creates an immune response that becomes dysregulated.

    However it is initiated, the symptoms are consistent with what you described. Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM), where exertion causes delayed and lasting joint and muscle pain and fatigue, is a key symptom. Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia (POTS), in which dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system causes difficulty standing and dizziness, is also common. There can be sensory issues, new allergies and intolerances, brain fog and inflammation, and gut problems (many have IBS). It can be dehabilitating. Some are able to work; others are bedridden. Patients often take years to be diagnosed.

    There is a good documentary on Netflix called “Unrest”. Health Rising, a patient advocacy site that summarizes research, has posts on long Covid and what to expect. https://www.healthrising.org/

    Working through the diagnostic criteria for ME and ruling that out, might reduce the time it takes to get help for patients with long Covid. There aren’t many options yet, but at least there is a body of research.

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      A C Osborn

      Fybromialga is also very similar and an immune system problem.

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        Kira

        Yes, fibromyalgia is similar and sometimes comorbid with ME. The Health Rising site that I linked deals with both. If a person chiefly experiences pain which causes fatigue, fibro is more likely. The symptoms that Jo described sound more like PEM and POTS which are characteristic of ME.

        We have a family member with ME. As soon as reports of long Covid came out, the ME community immediately recognized the collection of symptoms. Perhaps getting the information out will help people seek a diagnosis and treatment sooner, rather than believing that they are still fighting Covid and wait. Our family member believed that her symptoms were due to immunotherapy after cancer. It took several years and an oncologist’s urging to seek other help to discover that something else was responsible.

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    John F. Hultquist

    While this article about medical folks is interesting, and important, it is not news that flu and flu-like illness can have long term effects.
    Rheumatic fever is, perhaps, the best known; or well known to those who have had it. Ask my wife.
    But there are lots more issues:
    https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/flu-long-term-effects

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    AZ1971

    But decisions have to be made now.

    In the perfect world, that would be a global abandonment of all business trade with, from, and to China. Starve them into oblivion until the people rise up and demand true democracy instead of this repeated failure known as communism.

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      el gordo

      Life is more complex, if the world turns its back on Beijing it would be a disaster. It seems like only yesterday that the US cut off oil to Japan because they invaded China, which ultimately lead to WW2.

      They are communist in name only, in fact its a fascist dictatorship and we should be concerned not to make a wrong move.

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        Serp

        “We should be concerned not to make a wrong move” until when exactly? Endless lockdown has infected all your thinking el gordo; you’d still have Melbourne under curfew.

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          el gordo

          Its not my call. Thankfully in western NSW life is back to near normal.

          ‘ … until when exactly?’

          I don’t have a timeline for WW3, but we just had a small taste of it. This is no time for adventurism, better to seek detant and avoid history repeating itself.

          Morrison was outstanding in calling for an inquiry into the origin of the WMD.

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    dinn, rob

    (no royal road to geometry so far) Tritto: “everything in China is dual-use technology”
    https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/09/tritto-everything-in-china-is-dual-use.html

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    MrGrimNasty

    If you want to quote the DM (and I am a reader – who takes it with a dumper truck of salt) you should try this one.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8731227/Number-Brits-drinking-high-risk-levels-DOUBLED-8-5million-February.html

    Let’s just suppose 5% of those extra 3.6M problem drinkers stick with it, research suggests they’ll lose 4-5 years of life expectancy (closer to 25/30 years for serious alcoholics), whereas a BMJ article claims the average covid victim loses 12 years (which is way too high for the UK).

    Anyway, going with it, say:

    60,000 Covid victims x 12 years = 720k LLY
    180,000 Drinkers x 4 years = 720k LLY

    So just for that single reason, the government policy has been as deadly as the disease.

    It’s just silly, irresponsible even, quoting Covid risks and scare stories (especially anecdotal ones) without putting it in context.

    As all the ‘second wave’ nonsense occurs in the UK, the latest ONS data shows Covid deaths are still an insignificant cause of death (data lags a few weeks, but other sources do not indicate more than a slight increase to date), and flu and pneumonia (non-Covid) continue to be even more deadly relatively. The number of Covid deaths is still largely decoupled from the number of cases. Looking at France which is supposed to be 2 weeks ahead, the 2nd wave is almost a dud.

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    PeterS

    I laugh whenever I hear the term “health expert”. These are the same ones who for decades proclaimed that butter is not good for us and margarine is better. We now know how wrong that is.

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      How do you know they are the same ones?

      It is like distrusting a scientist because of piltdown man.

      My rhetoric is better than yours.

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        PeterS

        Where there is smoke there is fire. In any case the evidence is mounting the so called experts have got it wrong yet again. Where is your evidence to refute it?

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          You went first without evidence. How can I refute a claim based on something that popped into your head. Put up your evidence and we can have a proper debate rather than me guessing what you base your claim on.

          Where is the blog that once valued posts where the claim was backed-up and refutable?

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      glen Michel

      The fallacy of expertise. Conflicting evidence and political deference. Wisdom and experience dictates that the opinions of experts should be subject to scrutiny. One should seek medical advice on a broken toe from a mechanic.

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    John Galt

    I don’t suppose anyone has looked into a commonality in the cases of those people and others with long term issues,e.g., Vit D status?
    (Nah, lets just have neophyte reporters write scary stories and see if more people will consent to vaccines.)
    Seriously, these medical pros are right to encourage funding a study into their cases to determine if there are common factors and what portion of the public may have exposure.

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    Contemptible Blackguard

    Check this one out as it looks like we have more ammunition in the fight:

    https://www.biopharma-reporter.com/Article/2020/09/28/Novel-nasal-spray-reduces-viral-replication-by-up-to-96-according-to-COVID-19-challenge-study

    It is a nasal spray called INNA 051 and made here which sounds very interesting.

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    Ross

    Jo, one constant thread about COVID that you have highlighted since day 1 is that COVID is a bioweapon. I think you are correct – how it was released is a whole other story which we may never find out. If COVID was an intentional bioweapon it sure does explain a lot of things. So, if it was a bioweapon and had some human design that means every public response to COVID such as lockdowns, social distancing, face masks etc are likely to have been foreseen by it designers. Which means any country employing those tactics is exacerbating the disease. Which also means that waiting for a vaccine is also a foolish ploy. Early on we saw images of Wuhan in full lockdown, supposedly people dropping down sick in the streets, doors being welded shut in apartments. It created the necessary panic for Western countries to nearly all slavishly apply similar COVID public policy tactics. Was that an intentional CCP ploy? Which means the earlier we do the exact opposite, do a “Sweden”, use early anti-virals and stop talking about vaccines the better off we will be.

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      PeterS

      Yes it all fits together but it’s still a conspiracy theory. If it’s all true then we need whistle blower. Even if it’s not true the end result might still be the same, namely NWO, war, etc. People act in very strange ways based on suspicions let alone facts. It could all be stopped if China came clean and opened their doors to all of their secrets surrounding the virus, which clearly isn’t going to happen.

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        Ross the genetic evidence that this was a man made virus is very solid. What the CCP / military subgroup, intended to do with it may never be known.

        Either way it does not follow that we should give up our safety and let it run yet. Especially if there are significant sequelae.

        I’m not “waiting for a vaccine” and have never been. From Day 1 I have said antivirals would save us before any vaccine. (I didn’t call it a bioweapon til April May when the gene studies were done, though I was aware of bioweapon claims from January 24th or so).

        If people want to let this virus run in the population they ought be working hard to get the useful antivirals and other treatments into medical practice. Anything else, other than supporting research on it, is a waste of time.

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      el gordo

      All good points Ross.

      Was it a Chinese hoax from the start?

      I doubt that very much, Beijing was shocked to discover an individual had released the virus into the fish market. It was designed as a first strike weapon, which they hoped would never be used.

      From the beginning I thought the lone wolf was a disgruntled employee at the Institute, a social misfit, but now I’m thinking it may have been a high ranking official with a different MO.

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      Analitik

      I don’t see the case for SAR-CoV-2 being a bio weapon holds up, given the slow response and initial attempts to cover up the existence of the outbreak in Wuhan, internally. The danger of the virus would have been much better appreciated by the upper bureaucracy if there was military involvement in its development.

      A vaccine precursor continues to be the most plausible reason for the gain of function experiments, IMO.

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        The Chinese signed a major trade deal with the USA in mid January. It is likely they tried to keep a lid on the outbreak until after that was signed. Cancelling the New Year celebrations or locking up 11 million people would have given away that something major was afoot.

        There are almost certainly competing divisions of people seeking power within China that knew different information or had different intents in January.

        Even people in the WIV would not have known exactly how the disease would manifest just from the gene studies. Genetic work is not at that level of proficiency. Everything needs to be “clinically tested” to know what effect it has. They could only guess.

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    crakar24

    LOL somehow my comment to sam traveled back in time

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    Orson

    Jo, quoting the DailyMail: “The release of SARS-Cov-2 was probably an accident, but there was some kind of plan in mind when it was created. It might be handy to know what that was.”

    Ross: “So, if it was a bioweapon and had some human design that means every public response to COVID such as lockdowns, social distancing, face masks etc are likely to have been foreseen by it designers.” No, this assumes that a bio weapon was comprehensively designed and completed towards that end.

    We don’t know that it went released before then, and while it’s effects on human populations remained untested, and thus incompletely characterised. It seems more likely that it wasn’t because of the great practical expense involved in finding out.

    Going back to intentionality and my firs quote, I too wonder what “the plan” was? But given the very historically odd way the virus rarely kills the young but kills those over 50 but especially the elderly over 70 by about 5%, why wouldn’t the designer’s plan be for domestic Chinese population control?

    The CCP faces great structural stress and demographic imbalances as a result of the many decades of one child-one family policy of their population control from fifty years ago. This threatens the ruling CCP class in the near years ahead, just as the aged require economic support from two of each workers — just like the oldest nations but without their First World wealth and development — competitively disadvantaging China and worsening prospects for a ruling elite that manages them.

    Thus, a domestic weapon that kills these useless old, removing them from the pool of elder who need support from the nation. Ergo, Covid-19.

    Geo-strategic consultant Peter Zeihan has written three recent books, his newest released this year. And throughout over half a dozen lectures or talks (since April, see them all on YouTube) all include the grim prospect that Chinese unification is very rare (and easily crumbles) — twice, in fact, and the 20th century until today is the most recent — and therefore he acerbically predicts its demise and diminishment. He says the CCP is acutely aware of these facts, the risk posed to its rule, and the fate of decline that Xi’s most centralised state since Mao ruled ambitions.

    Zeihan argues that Covid accelerates his prediction’s timetable, requiring that he write a fourth volume sooner than he expected (out, next year?).

    Chinese legitimacy appeals to “The Mandate of Heaven” (see Wiki entry on that concept), and disorder is the most fundamental way it gets undermined, threatened and lost. Everything about the CCP rests on restraining threats from disorder.

    Hence, why not a natural variant on the familiar bat virus that culls the ageing herd? Other than Chinese State agency and authorship (steadfastly denied, of course), how do the CCPs prospects decline with such a bio weapon unleashed at home?

    Or, in other words, cui bono? Who benefits most from such a planned “natural” menace? CCP.

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    Orson

    Let me add how Zeihan’s thesis adds intellectual heft to my thesis (badly edited in at least three sentences, above — sorry!), above.

    Zeihan argues that for 500 years, the West in general and the US in particular, know how a nation can do one thing well, economically: domestic consumption led growth.

    This requires a normal demographic pyramid, consisting of a larger, younger, broad base, with a narrower elderly demographic on top.

    Today and for this century, only the US (tied closely to Mexico) has this great luxury. (Except for tiny New Zealand, which Australia, fitfully, wants to emulate — or is this too controversial to state?) The feared future is the inverted age pyramid and the economics of financial decline.

    There is an alternative, but it requires pioneering innovation that’s not been done before. Add robots to service the old is just one piece of it. This is Japan’s path forward. And uncertainty is threatening, especially to a hardened, mal-adaptive ruling elite.

    China desperately needs to go from two plus decades of export led growth to domestic or internally led growth. She may be the First Nation in history to fail to become a First World nation before facing demographic decline, or population shrinking, and faltering power and control (unless you count the Soviet Union’s failed communism).

    Changes currently seen in the Persian Gulf nations of the Middle East, spearheaded by Saudi Royal (Bin something?) are all attempts to come to grips with the profound challenges of modern demographic shifts like long life generates — achieved by clean potable water, growing literacy, vaccines controlling mass childhood death, and sanitation — all the great public health benefits of modernity. But combined with shifting routes to wealth generation, the ruling class stands to go stress tested and possibly overthrown.

    The losers in this picture may be sub-Saharan Africa. Instead of a short shot at domestic led growth like China, they may get left out entirely, as AI brings the era of jobs through simple work at machines, like the assembly lines, to an end.

    Labor with machines making goods for export by Africa are quite likely to be very limited in economic importance. These nations are the last to grow, economically, since the rise of the industrial revolution, first made possible by the “Dutch – Anglo – American Revolution” (circa 1500 to 1800, see the recent book on this topic), which essentially perfected the legal and political tools like insurance, the corporation, financial markets (and liberal representative governments) to feed industrial innovation, build new technology, and spread it to the masses.

    Well, all this puts intellectual heft behind my thesis that CV-19 was likely designed to benefit the CCP ruling class, who — after all — pay these virus researcher’s bills. Who else ought to benefit? And this is the further thesis I expect Peter Zeihan to flesh out in his fourth and next book on geo-political strategy.

    Stay tuned! Than you, Jo, for returning to this salient subject.

    Now, given that Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have chosen to back Chinese democratic dissidents because of Hong Kong (May to June), and plan to use dollar diplomacy — like with Iraq and Venezuela and Syria and North Korea — against China by making trade out of HK highly difficult, the near-term Neo Cold War looks like this virus’ plan will be unpacked in theory, at least, even if the practice remains murky, years from now.

    The Trump-Pompeo foreign policy goal is to bring down the single party tyranny of the CCP. Make the the Ruling Class pay a high cost in lost trade by making HK an example of the consequences for their international lawlessness.

    This path of diplomatic collision was unleashed with the recent virus calamity, but stems from China’s Xi earlier rejection of the International Court of Justice 2016 (‘15?) ruling, giving the Spratley Islands (in the South China Sea) control to the Philippines, not China.

    Interesting times.

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      Lucky

      Orson- #27. good comments.
      Now you say, “economically: domestic consumption led growth.”
      Keynesian theory, wrong.

      Economic growth comes from technology and investment, not from consumption such as printing and distributing more money.

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    Anton

    Evidence that the CCP trolled Western leaders who were going against a lockdown strategy, and faked the deaths in the streets to frighten the West:

    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/china-covid-lockdown-propaganda

    I am sure that this thing is manmade. Whether it is a deliberate or an accidental release… differing items of information point differing ways. Hopefully time will tell.

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    Fortunately, Quillette has published a four part series rebutting Sinophobic propaganda about Covid. It begins here:

    https://quillette.com/2020/08/24/the-china-syndrome-part-i-outbreak/

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      Lucky

      I have looked at the Quillette part 1. It is well written but the theme of rebuttal is not supported on all the accusations.

      There are comments below the article attached which weaken the case that it is just Sinophobia.
      There are more cynical explanations not covered.

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      Anton

      It is written by a philosophy student. As with climate change, worthwhile discussion begins with the science and only then moves on to the politics. Part 3 takes the existence of the RaTG13 virus as genuine although the timing of the uploading of its sequence from China is suspicious and there is no independent corroboration. It was written before Li Meng Yan’s paper explaining how you can see the join in the RNA sequence of SARS-CoV-2, but not before Prof Angus Dalgleish’s:

      https://www.minervanett.no/files/2020/07/13/TheEvidenceNoNaturalEvol.pdf

      I have no idea what motivated the author to write this article but it is worth very little.

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    Yonason

    Did those Doctors have flu shots that year?
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X19313647?via%3Dihub

    (I saw that FactCheck, disputed that, but FC aren’t the most reliable resource.)

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    Anton

    I have been pondering the symptoms of those doctors and one or two of my own, and I have realised that they are all consistent with damage to the feedback system telling the circulatory system that more oxygen is needed. I am a physicist and know nothing of how the body does this. Anybody else?

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