Democrats Shut Down Investigation into Maine’s Surging Excess Deaths
Frank Bergman
Democrats in Maine have stepped in and shut down an investigation by Republican lawmakers into the state’s spike in excess deaths.
Republican State Rep. Heidi Sampson (R-Alfred) is raising the alarm over Maine’s surging excess deaths.
Sampson warns that the state has suffered an alarming “silent epidemic.”
She revealed that data shows that excess deaths are now 18% higher than they were in 2020.
Specifically, the state has seen a surge in sudden deaths among young and middle-aged adults with no known previous illness.
However, Sampson revealed that the state’s Democrat lawmakers “shrugged their shoulders” when she proposed investigating the deaths.
Alarmingly, she warns that Democrats have stymied her effort to investigate the issue.
After growing increasingly concerned about the soaring excess since the pandemic, Sampson tried to bring the issue to the Maine House of Representatives in March.
Sampson compiled Maine’s all-cause mortality data for 2015-2022.
The data was analyzed by a statistician.
The lawmaker warned her colleagues that Maine has suffered an 18% increase in excess deaths among 25- to 64-year-olds since 2020.
She also cited the CEO of the One America insurance company, J. Scott Davison.
Sampson said Davison “publicly disclosed that during the third and fourth quarter of 2021, death in people of working age 18 to 64 was 40% higher than it was before the pandemic.”
She went on to describe the recent emergence of the now-common phenomenon of “sudden death syndrome.”
Examples of sudden deaths include death by heart attack, stroke, meningitis, brain aneurysm,pulmonary embolism, anaphylaxis, and asthma.
“You will find hundreds, even thousands, of examples,” she told her colleagues in the state House.
“A few years ago, this was unheard of.
“Sudden death syndrome (SDS)” is a “silent epidemic” that demands immediate attention and investigation, she asserted.
“SDS is an umbrella term. It includes biologically based scenarios describing [the] quick onset of unexpected mortality without prior signs of illness. I’ll repeat: without prior signs of illness,” Sampson said.
“Autopsies may be non-conclusive due to the lack of obvious abnormalities. They may also be non-conclusive because we may not be asking the right questions.”
“If there is even a chance this data is correct, we have the moral obligation to our children to investigate,” she said.
In a new interview, Sampson described the surge in excess deaths as “earthshaking.”
“This data was compiled by actuaries who are the mathematical experts insurance companies rely upon,” she told the Defender.
“A 40% increase in deaths is literally earthshaking.
“Even a 10% increase in excess deaths would have been a 1-in-200-year event.”
Sampson presented her findings to her colleagues at the state House and urged Maine lawmakers to back investigations into the issue.
However, she said Democrats moved to block Sampson’s efforts to investigate the deaths.
“The Democrats could not reject this order fast enough,” she added.
She said two Democrats, both doctors, approached her after her speech demanding to know where she got the data.
They then proceeded to insist that the increased deaths were due to suicides.
“They just shrugged their shoulders,” Sampson said.
“We shut the whole damn state down for 6%,” she said of the lockdowns during the Covid pandemic.
“What are we doing with almost 18%?
“As a mother and a grandmother, this entire issue deeply concerns me.
“I want my children and their children to have long, healthy lives.
“We need to get to the bottom of this.”
Sampson has also raised critical questions about the safety of Covid mRNA shots which were misleadingly pushed onto the public as “vaccines.”
She also warned against the growing influence of unelected international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO).
“The data are in — it is not safe and effective,” she said.
“And until the federal government removes the liability shield from the vaccine manufacturers, the COVID-19 shot must be removed from the Maine market.”
But she told the Defender that “she once again faced resistance from her colleagues.”
She described the response from Democrats as “tense and uncomfortable.”
Her Democrat colleagues also shot down her order to nullify WHO’s now-failed pandemic treaty authority that surrenders state’s rights to the United Nations “health” agency in the event of a future pandemic or “climate emergency.”
“It was heart-sickening to watch my colleagues on the other side of the aisle rapidly stand, object, and vote against this motion,” Sampson wrote in April.
“All I can say is now they are responsible for the information they have heard,” she said.
California’s government has updated its Covid safety website with protocols that set the stage for pandemic-era restrictions on daily life. The website advised that “California’s COVID-19 State of Emergency is over, but COVID-19 has not gone away,” and admonished that we need to keep taking steps to prevent the spread. The document promotes self-isolation, mask-wearing, digital vaccine records, and more. The federal government took steps to enact Covid lockdowns that were to begin with incremental restrictions next month, but it has retreated due to push back.Texas: On September 1, local governments will be prohibited from requiring COVID-related masks, vaccines, or business shutdowns. However, Senate Bill 29 does not restrict private entities from enforcing their own rules.
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.California’s government has updated its Covid safety website with protocols that set the stage for pandemic-era restrictions on daily life.
“California’s COVID-19 State of Emergency is over, but COVID-19 has not gone away,” reads the opening statement on the safety measures page. “To safely go about our daily lives, we need to keep taking steps to prevent the spread.”
The page goes on to promote self-isolation, mask-wearing & digital vaccine records, and more.
There’s even a “Do’s and don’ts for daily life.”
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This rush to normalize biometric tyranny comes alongside Alex Jones’ scoop that the feds are setting the stage for full Covid lockdowns that will begin with incremental restrictions next month.
I’m publishing this early, on a Sunday, because there’s a little bit of chatter on the internet about a very strange Russian television commercial that’s been making the rounds, mostly on YouTube. That in itself is worth some commentary, but we’ll get back to that later, as it forms part of today’s high octane speculation. I was first made aware of this commercial last Friday (Aug 12, 2022) during our members’ vidchat when someone first mentioned it, and another member chimed in and said that they’d also seen it.
After the vidchat I quickly went searching for the commercial, and any information that might corroborate that the commercial is genuine, and indeed a product of the Russian government. Welll, according to this article from the U.K. Express, the commercial is indeed genuine, so I’m going to throw caution to the winds and run with it:
Now in case you missed the commercial itself while you were watching Sean Vannity on Faux News, or whoever-it-is on SeeBS or whatever, here it is:
So in that short minute, the case for moving to Russia is reduced to the following 16 points:
(1) delicious cuisine: check, I have to admit that I miss my mother’s beef Stroganoff, although she wasn’t Russian (for that matter, I also liked her chicken paprikash, and she wasn’t Hungarian either, but Orban makes a good case too);
(2) Beautiful women: well, check, at least they seem to know what women are in Russia (beautiful or not), and the last time I checked, they’re not letting men swimmers compete against women swimmers just because the former “identify” as the latter, which makes one wonder if Ron De Santis is either Russian, or a Russian agent. His lack of gender confusion is…well, it’s just highly suspicious;
(3) Cheap gas: well, that’s probably a check. I don’t know, because I haven’t bought any gas in Russia lately, or for that matter, ever. I imagine, however, that the way the Germans are wincing, it’s probably true. I know it’s not nearly as cheap here as it was when Orange-Man-Bad was president.
(4) Rich history: check, Russia certainly has that, and with several intriguing nooks and crannies well worth exploring. Take it from me, because I used to teach Russian history in college.
(5) World famous literature: again, check, and probably several checks. Dostoyevsky alone would have put Russia on the literary map, and he’s just one of very many. And while we’re on the subject, isn’t it a bit ironic and creepy that Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard resembles more the modern USSA than it does Russia, they having gone through their “cherry orchard” dark ages-evil empire moment called the Soviet Union? Who can forget the fun and frolic with Yezov, Yagoda, and Beria, huh?
(6) Unique architecture: yup, check: they have everything from Byzantine, classical, and European to that unique style that can only be called “Soviet Modern Ugly”, sort of the Russian equivalent in spartan ugliness to the German Bauhaus school, only the Soviet style isn’t nearly as ugly. The only uglier style is the Obama Presidential Library Style that infects modern America.
(7) Fertile soil: well, a probable check here. Again, I don’t know, and I’m the last person anyone should ask, because after years of careful and studious neglect, I’ve managed to kill my mother’s old Swedish ivy plant. I know nothing about soil conditions, and particularly Russian soil conditions, except I do know that the Russian government doesn’t like GMOs, has banned than, and that this has to be good for the soil. That one factoid alone makes me extremely suspicious of Western motivations in backing the regime in Kiev (and yes, I’m going to keep spelling it and pronouncing it that way, just to be irritating).
(8) Cheap electric and water: again, a probable check, because I don’t know, I’m not there. That said, we do have a couple of members of this website who actually maintain rather spacious apartments in St. Petersburg (a city full of that unique architecture) and when they told me how cheap their rent was for such a large city, I was flabbergasted, so I can believe the cheap water and gas, though I suppose like everywhere else, it depends on local conditions.
(9) Ballet: ok, check. I’m not a big ballet fan as one might have guessed, probably for the same reasons I’m just not a big opera guy. But, once that’s on the record, the music itself has become part of the standard repertoire. Who of us haven’t heard The Nutcracker or Swan Lake? If you haven’t, well, then that sort of makes the commercial’s point: you’re a modern western cretin, and the commercial isn’t targeting you to move to Russia. Had I been in charge of making the commercial for the Russian government and its evil-super-criminal-genius-and-never-to-be-trusted-byzantine-mastermind Vladimir Putin, I would have stressed “Great music” rather than ballet, with perhaps a snippet of Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev playing in the background.
(10) Cheap taxi and delivery: well, a probable check on that one too, though I haven’t had to ride any Russian taxis or have any packages delivered in that country, although my guess is, yea, that’s probably true too.
(11) Traditional values: ok, check. You don’t get to dress up in outlandish costumery and purple hair, call yourselves “Pussy Riot”, and carry on in a lewd fashion in an Orthodox Cathedral and call it a “protest” without being clapped in the slammer; up to that point, apparently, it was ok to dress as outlandishly as your liked, and to call yourself whatever offensive name you wished; you just don’t get to do that in church.
(12) Christianity: ok, check. Granted, the Christianity in Russia is, well, Russian Orthodox by and large, but so what? When Kirill wakes up and realizes that the Church is missing a golden opportunity to put some real weight behind an Orthodox western rite complete with hierarchy, then who knows where that will lead. (Here’s a hint Kir: neither Antioch nor ROCOR know what they’re doing… dig in your archives long enough and you’ll find out what I’m talking about… have your people contact my people; let’s talk.)
(13) No cancel culture: well, ok, check, but with caveats: when are we talking about here? Certainly there was a lot of “canceling” being done under the aforementioned Mssrs Yezov, Yagoda, and Beria. But I grant the basic proposition: no one carted Pussy Riot off to a gulag; rather, one gets the impression that Pussy Riot would be entirely ok with putting the entirety of the Russian Church back in the gulag.
(14) Hospitality: check: this one deserves some ‘splaining. While I’ve not been to Russia, I have been around a lot of Russians, and yes, I can vouch for the hospitality. WARNING (and I learned this trick far too late to do me any good): don’t drink the vodka (the next point on the list). Claim that you’re an alcoholic. I’m still suffering a hang-over with a half-life of 243 years because I drank vodka with Russians, and I’ll still be suffering that hang-over long after I’m dead.
(15) Vodka: check (see point 14 above).
(16) An economy that can withstand thousands of sanctions. Well, ok, check. To listen to the western propatainment media tell it, Russia’s economy is on its last legs and will implode at any moment. Now, in my humble and uninformed opinion, that’s probably right up there with The Ukraine is Winning Hugely meme we’ve been watching. We’re supposed to be gloating that the Russian military is doing so poorly. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, but I don’t see the American military anywhere close, and one wonders how its “reality fluid” approach to basic metaphysical categories would fare. If the captured American-and-NATO trained fascist military units are any indicator, then they wouldn’t fare too well. It was, after all, Russian 152mm cannon firing point blank into the Reichstag, and not German 15omm cannon firing point blank into the Kremlin, that ended the last little fascist saber-rattling episode, as I recall.
Finally, the commercial ends with a cheery “Time to Move to Russia” and then a not-so-cheery “Winter is Coming.”
Now I’ve taken a lot of time to review this commercial, because frankly, it intrigued me. Why produce such a thing at all? After all, Russian media has been all but totally banned in the west. In a way, it was easier when I was a boy to dial up the English language service of Radio Moscow than it is to tune into Russian television now. Why go to the production expense to produce such a commercial, when buying advertising time on Deutsche Welle or SeeBS or FAUX news or the Canadian Broadcorping Castration is a foregone negative conclusion? Why produce something that millions of people won’t see? Or rather, why produce something that the Western media and their masters won’t let millions of people see?
One obvious answer is that this commercial may be a typical dye-the-waters operation to see who is paying attention in the alternative media, and how the commercial circulates there. In which case, I’m happy to help. But the other possibility is that we’re also looking at the next phase of a campaign. If you’ve been paying attention to Russia lately, you’ll have noted that it’s not exactly on Mr. Globaloney’s bandwagon because it’s been insisting that there can be no global order that cancels national sovereignty, and more importantly, that global order does not arise without respect to culture and tradition. That’s a fancy way of saying that a merely technocratic approach to global order is doomed to failure. It’s a commercial deliberately designed to highlight the failures of the globalist cabal and their programs, and, indeed, to invite those who crave for an expression of traditional European culture to move to the one place where it still has a living expression, in spite of the best efforts of Bolshevik technocrats and their Pussy Rioting lackeys to crush it.
One can see this by contempleting the implied negative message of the commercial: (1) delicious cuisine, versus poor nutrition, “fast food” and eating bugs; (2) Beautiful women, versus not knowing what a woman is; (3) Cheap gas, versus alleged President Joe Bidenenko; (4) Rich history, versus people that cannot even read and who do not even know, nor are taught, their own; (5) World Famous Literature, versus a population that can barely write and scrawl its own name; (6) Unique architecture; versus collapsing footbridges designed by “inclusive and diverse” committees; (7) fertile soil; versus soil polluted and corrupted, and robbed of nutritional value by “argibusiness”; (8) cheap electric and water, versus alleged President Joe Bidenenko; (9) Ballet, versus the bump-whump of subwoofers in vehicles drumming out a primitive jungle beat and screaming unrelenting iambic pentameter, for everyone to hear; (10) cheap taxi and delivery; versus lockdowns (11) Traditional values; versus collapsing reality and epistemological solipsism; (12) Christianity, versus hollowed out ecclesiastical institutions, bishopettes, mangled and gutted “liturgies”, “inclusiveness” and empty churches, (13) no cancel culture, or rather, a culture period, and one not apologizing for existing.
The bottom line that I’m suggesting here is that this commercial is not a one-off. It’s but the latest chapter in a long series of messages of culture and tradition and history that post-Soviet Russia has been sending. So far, they’ve been sending that message – at the popular level at least – mostly to their own population. In so far as they have sent that message to the West, it’s been to the Western leaders, who, of course, are stupid and tone-deaf and unable to hear it. But the western populations… they are a different matter. This is a serious message, addressed to them. And I suspect it’s only the first of many. There is even a carefully calculated geopolitical aspect to it, but I’ll leave that for you to guess, and perhaps take it up at another time.
I suspect a large portion of the public is at least partially aware when they are being pushed or lured into a specific way of thinking. We have certainly had enough experience with institutions trying to manage our thoughts over the years. Governments and mainstream media outlets in particular have made the manufacture of public consent their top priority. This is what they spend most of their time, money and energy on. All other issues are secondary.
The media does not objectively report facts and evidence, it spins information to plant an engineered narrative in the minds of its viewers. But the public is not as stupid as they seem to think. This is probably why trust in the media has plunged by 46% in the past ten years, hitting an all time low this year of 27%.
Except for pre-election season spikes, mainstream outlets from CNN to Fox to CBS to MSNBC are facing dismal audience numbers, with only around 2 million to 3 million prime time viewers. There are numerous YouTube commentators with bigger audiences than this. And, if you sift through the debris of MSM videos on YouTube, you’ll find low hits and a majority of people that are visiting their channels just to make fun of them.
The MSM is now scrambling to explain their crumbling empire, as well as debating on ways to save it from oblivion. The power of the “Fourth Estate” is a facade, an illusion given form by smoke and mirrors. Bottom line: Nobody (except perhaps extreme leftists) likes the corporate media or activist journalists and propagandists.
One would think that media moguls and journos would have realized this by now. I mean, if they accepted this reality, they would not be struggling so much with the notion that no one is listening to them when it comes to pandemic mandates and the covid vaccines. Yet, journalists complain about it incessantly lately.
In fact, half the media reports I see these days are not fact based analysis of events, but corporate journalists interviewing OTHER corporate journalists and bitching to each other about how Americans are “too ignorant” or “too conspiratorial” to grasp that journos are the anointed high priests of information.
I actually find this situation fascinating as an observer of oligarchy and being well versed in the mechanics of propaganda. The fundamental narrative of control-culture is that there are “experts” that the establishment chooses, and then there is everyone else. The “experts” are supposed to pontificate and dictate while everyone else is supposed to shut up, listen and obey.
Media elitists see themselves in the role of “the experts” and the public as devout acolytes; a faithful flock of sheep.
But what happens when everyone starts ignoring the sheep herders?
The other day I came across this revealing interview on CBS news about a poll of Americans showing at least 30% will refuse to take the covid vaccine outright. The interview is, for some reason, with another journalist from The Atlantic with no apparent medical credentials and no insight into the data surrounding covid.
One thing to note right away is that the discussion itself never addresses any actual facts about the virus, the pandemic, the lockdowns, the mandates, or the vaccines. The establishment keeps telling us to “listen to the science”, but then they dismiss the science when it doesn’t agree with their agenda. When is the the mainstream going to finally acknowledge facts like these:
1) According to multiple official studies, including a study from American College of Physicians, the Infection Fatality Ratio (or death rate) of Covid-19 is only 0.26% for anyone outside of a nursing home. This means that 99.7% of people not in nursing homes will survive the virus if they contract it.
2) Nursing home patients account for over 40% of all Covid deaths across the US. These are mostly people who were already sick with multiple preexisting conditions when they contracted covid.
3) The Federal Government’s own hospital data from the Department of Health and Human Services indicates that capacity for hospital beds is ample in the US and that this has been the case for the past year. Covid patients only take up around 13% of inpatient beds nationally. The stories in the media of hospitals at overcapacity due to covid are therefore inaccurate or they are outright lies.
4) International studies including a Danish study published by the American College of Physicians have proven that wearing masks makes NO significant difference in the spread or infection rate of Covid-19. Interestingly, the states in the US with the most heavily enforced mask mandates have also had the highest infection rates.
“Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks….there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is, and often there are unintended consequences – people keep fiddling with the masks and they’re touching their face.”
“Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”
Both the Surgeon General and Fauci later reversed their stance on mask wearing when it no longer suited the control narrative, and are now fervent supporters of enforcing mask mandates. Scientific data continues to show that mask wearing does nothing to stop the spread of Covid.
7) The Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines are made with a brand new technology that has had limited testing. The NIAID used minimal animal testing on mice, but these mice were NOT a type that is normally susceptible to contracting covid the way humans are. These tests were completely inadequate, yet the mRNA vaccines were released for human use anyway.
8) The new vaccines do not contain the virus that triggers COVID-19, as a conventional vaccine might. Instead, Moderna and Pfizer researchers used a new technique to make messenger RNA (mRNA), which is similar to mRNA found in SARS-CoV-2. In theory, the artificial mRNA will act as instructions that prompt human cells to build a protein found on the surface of the virus. That protein would theoretically trigger a protective immune response. The entire Covid vaccine effort was essentially a giant shortcut. This is not an advantage, as the long term effects of any vaccine from 1 year to 5 years to 10 years should be understood before it is injected into human beings.
9) Multiple medical industry professional including the former VP of Pfizer have signed a petition warning about the new mRNA vaccinations. They say far more testing is needed before humans are exposed, and they warned that the vaccines may cause severe autoimmune responses or even infertility.
10)Numerous polls also show that at least 30% to 50% of medical professionals including nurses and doctors plan to refuse the vaccines as well. These people are facing the risk of losing their jobs, but they are still not going to accept the shot. That is how potentially volatile the mRNA vaccines could be; long term health is more important than short term risk.
When all of these facts are taken into account, along with numerous others that I do not have space to mention here, it is not so outlandish for millions of Americans to be skeptical of medical mandates and vaccination over covid.
Why should we worry about getting vaccinated over a virus that 99.7% of the population will survive without difficulty? Why should we allow economic shutdowns, medical passports or invasive contact tracing at all, let alone over a pandemic that less than 0.3% of the population is susceptible to? Beyond that, why should we volunteer to be guinea pigs for a new vaccine technology without knowing what the long term consequences might be?
Even if covid was a legitimate danger, no crisis justifies handing over our civil liberties in response.
The basic establishment narrative is this: “Covid is an existential threat to the public, therefore, we are justified in taking away people’s freedoms, their economy and their privacy. It is for the “greater good of the greater number”. Vaccination is infallible and cannot be questioned. The “experts” are infallible and cannot be questioned. It’s not your body and it is not your choice. Your body is property of the government and if you do not voluntarily take injections of whatever experimental cocktail we give you, then we will continue to erode your freedoms until you give in and submit. Then, once you have submitted, your freedoms will still never be given back.”
It’s not really a persuasive argument for lot of people.
Media outlets like CBS will rarely mention the overall issue of control and oppression tied to the pandemic response, just as they will never address any facts that run contrary to their message. What they will do is misrepresent the situation in order to gain compliance. The Atlantic journo basically admits this in the interview above, arguing that the media in particular needs to change the message to better attach incentive to vaccine compliance. In other words, people are easier to manipulate when they are tricked into thinking there is more to gain by submission rather than rebellion.
The medical passport system is the personification of false incentive. The media presents the notion that no one will be “forced” to take the vaccines; but what they don’t mention is that without the vaccine they will not get a medical passport, and without a medical passport they will be cut off from the normal economy. You can be vax free, but you will be punished through poverty and zero access until you give in.
My question is, why do they care so much if people don’t want or trust the vaccine? Why are they so obsessed? If the mRNA cocktail actually works and is not a health hazard, then they should be perfectly safe from infection. The idea that people who refuse are a danger to others is nonsense.
If we are going to start talking about potential “mutations” that bypass vaccine protections, then why take any vaccine? If mutations are really a threat and are not obstructed by current vaccines, then taking a vaccine now is useless.
And, why the constant attempts at public division? CBS and The Atlantic use an obvious ploy to assert that black and brown Americans have different reasons for refusing to comply when compared to apparently white conservatives. Why do they assume that black and brown people are not conservative or that we do not have ample reasons in common? This is never explained or supported.
Finally, as always the media seeks to gaslight anyone that disagree with the prevailing agenda as “conspiracy nuts”, presenting strawman arguments while ignoring all legitimate arguments on the side of liberty. There is such a thing as conspiracy REALITY, and none of these journos would survive a debate on a level playing field against those of us in the alternative media when it comes to covid and the vaccines.
The media and the government’s stalker mentality when it comes to people skeptical of covid restrictions and vaccines is unsettling. They act more like a jilted psychopathic ex-girlfriends rather than people concerned with saving lives. This tells me they are afraid. Their agenda is uncertain, and they have doubts. This is a good thing.
At bottom, covid is a non-issue that has been inflated into a crisis of epic proportions through storytelling and selective fact checking. Millions of people around the world die every year from a myriad of illnesses, some of them as infectious as covid. We don’t shut down our lives, wear diapers on our faces, inject ourselves with untested cell altering cocktails or sacrifice our freedoms because of this. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness continues. Those who wish to take away our self determination in these matters are the real threat; covid is not.
If you are advocating for lockdowns, you are complicit in tearing families apart. You are complicit in inflicting untold suffering on millions of people around the world. You are complicit in casting the poorest and most vulnerable in our societies into even further grinding poverty. You are complicit in murder.
WHO Flip-Flops: Urges World Leaders To Stop Using Lockdowns To Fight COVID Contagion
In a stunning rebuke of the “science” and the “doctors” and leftist politicians and career bureaucrats in the US and across much of The West, The Epoch Times’ Evan Pentchoukov reports that The World Health Organization’s special envoy on COVID-19 has urged world leaders to stop using lockdowns as the primary control method against the spread of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.
“We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” David Nabarro told The Spectator in an interview aired on Oct. 8.
“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”
[ZH: How long before this video is removed by Twitter?]
Nabarro pointed to the collateral damage that lockdowns are having worldwide, especially among poorer populations.
“Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry, for example in the Caribbean or in the Pacific, because people aren’t taking their holidays. Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world because their markets have got dented. Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. Seems that we may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition because children are not getting meals at school and their parents, in poor families, are not able to afford it,” Nabarro said.
“This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe actually,” he added. “And so we really do appeal to all world leaders: Stop using lockdown as your primary control method, develop better systems for doing it, work together and learn from each other, but remember – lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.”
Nabarro isn’t the only scientist opposing lockdowns.
A number of medical or public health scientists and medical practitioners have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which states that “current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”
The signatories include: “Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University and a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.”
“The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk,” the declaration states.
With few exceptions, world leaders followed in the footsteps of the Chinese communist regime when responding to the outbreak of the virus, imposing unprecedented lockdowns. Sweden, which did not impose a lockdown, did not experience an adverse outcome compared to some locales and nations that did.
In the United States, President Donald Trump delegated the decisions on lockdown measures to the governors of individual states, but has pushed for the economy to be reopened, and lockdowns lifted.
We have to understand that the political classes and their media have a vested interest in the lockdown status quo, and that includes regular provision of what only can be called disinformation. The mainstream media this past summer dutifully reported a highly questionable (I use that term charitably) report that the Sturgis Bike Rally in South Dakota led to more than a quarter million covid infections and more than $12 billion of medical costs. It should have been obvious on its face that the report was deeply flawed, yet in their desire to fuel the covid-is-killing-us narrative, journalists took this too-good-to-be-true story and ran with it.
As for politicians, the covid crisis has been a godsend for those governmental executives and bureaucrats who see constitutional restrictions that limit their authority as mere obstacles to be easily swept away. Governors such as Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Andrew Cuomo of New York, Gavin Newsom of California, and Tom Wolfe of Pennsylvania have received adoring coverage in the media for seizing and employing dictatorial powers, Whitmer even unilaterally deciding that the sale of garden seeds in stores was illegal. Cuomo’s decision to force the housing of covid-19 patients in nursing homes led to the deaths of thousands of people, yet his national media coverage is uniformly positive.
Contrast the affirmative news coverage of Cuomo with the barrage of media attacks on Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota. Noem has emphasized personal responsibility and did not attempt mass closures of schools and businesses in the state, and the mainstream media erupted with fury. That South Dakota has come through this pandemic relatively well does not matter with the media, as the only acceptable action (to mainstream and elite journalists) in response to covid is for governors to single-handedly seize power and lock down their citizens.
Keep in mind that the real losses that Americans suffered because of the heavy-handed governmental response to the covid outbreak are permanent. As Robert Higgs so eloquently pointed out in Crisis and Leviathan, governments often create crises or, at the very least, they manipulate events such as natural disasters and use them as opportunities to expand governmental powers. Even after the crises end, governments keep some of their newly self-granted powers—and most people raise little or no concern even when government has curtailed more of their freedoms.
We wonder how long it will be before WHO also urges the end of mask-wearing?
In the end, as Anderson concluded, the only way that the political classes can “make us safe” is for us to do what is necessary to make ourselves safe, or as relatively safe as possible. When a virus is afoot—as is the case most of the time—we do what we can to avoid it and do what we can to treat it. In other words, we appeal to real medical science, not what the political and media classes have cooked up for us.
Below is a video from Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, attorney licensed in Germany and the state of California. He practices as a trial lawyer against fraudulent corporations. He is one of four members of the German Corona Investigative Committee. In this video, he explains how the anti-Corona measures were implemented, and have destroyed companies and lives worldwide. Thank you to our Anne Dachel for the transcribed excerpts below the video.
“…an international network of lawyers will argue this biggest tort case ever, the corona fraud scandal, which has meanwhile unfolded into probably the greatest crime against humanity ever committed. …
“…Do the so-called anti-corona measures such as the lockdown, mandatory facemasks, social distancing and quarantine regulations serve to protect the world population from corona, or do these measures serve only to make people panic so that they believe, without asking any questions, that their lives are in danger, so that in the end, the pharmaceutical and tech industries can generate huge profits from the sale of PCR tests, antigens and antibody tests and vaccines as well as the harvesting of our genetic fingerprints.
“…Is it true that the German government was massively lobbied, more so than any other country, by the chief protagonists of the so-called corona pandemic, …because Germany is known as a particulary disciplined country and was therefore to become a role model for the rest of the world for its strict and of course successful adherence to the corona measures. …
32:50 “…Oxford professor, Carl Heneghan, director for Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, writes that ‘the COVID virus would never disappear if this test practice were to be continued, but would always falsely detected in much of what is tested.’
“Lockdowns…do not work. Sweden with its laissez-faire approach and Great Britain with its strict lockdown, for example, have completely comparable disease and mortality statistics. The same was found by U.S. scientists concerning the different U.S. states.
“It makes no difference to the incidence of disease whether a state implements a lockdown or not.
“With regard to the now infamous Imperial College of London’s professor Neil Ferguson and his completely false computers models warning of millions of deaths, [Heneghan] says, ‘No serious scientist gives any validity to Ferguson’s model.’ …”
Sweden Close to Reaching Herd Immunity Countrywide
In the U.S., even as the COVID-19 curve appears to have flattened, and death rates for some groups have fallen to almost zero,1 dire warnings about an ominous “second wave” continue.
Likewise, Sweden, a country that has handled the pandemic differently than most of the globe, is being chided for its looser restrictions and lack of lockdowns, even as data suggest their refusal to implement a full shutdown of their society may have been the best approach after all.
While most other countries instituted stay-at-home orders and shuttered schools and businesses, Sweden did not.
While high schools and universities closed and gatherings of more than 50 people were banned, elementary and middle schools, shops and restaurants have remained open during the pandemic.2
Now, news outlets are trying to use Sweden as an example of what not to do to fight COVID-19, citing a high death toll.
“The country’s mortality rate from the coronavirus is now 30% higher than that of the United States when adjusted for population size,” CBS News reported,3 but this doesn’t tell the full picture of how Swedes have fared in comparison to the rest of the world.
Sweden May Be Close to Reaching Herd Immunity
If a novel virus is introduced to a population, eventually enough people acquire natural immunity so that the number of susceptible people declines. When the number susceptible is low enough to prevent epidemic growth, the herd immunity threshold, or HIT, has been reached.
With SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, some estimates have suggested that 60% to 70% of the population must be immune before HIT will be reached, but researchers from Oxford, Virginia Tech, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine4 found that when individual variations in susceptibility and exposure are taken into account, the HIT declines to less than 10%.5
Independent news source Off-Guardian6 cited data from Stockholm County, Sweden that showed an HIT of 17%,7 as well as an essay by Brown University Professor Dr. Andrew Bostom, who explained:8
“… [A] respected team of infectious disease epidemiologists from the U.K. and U.S. have concluded: ‘Naturally acquired immunity to SARS-CoV-2 may place populations over the herd immunity threshold once as few as 10-20% of its individuals are immune.’”
And, as pointed out in Conservative Review:9
“… Naturally acquired herd immunity to COVID-19 combined with earnest protection of the vulnerable elderly — especially nursing home and assisted living facility residents — is an eminently reasonable and practical alternative to the dubious panacea of mass compulsory vaccination against the virus.
“This strategy was successfully implemented in Malmo, Sweden, which had few COVID-19 deaths by assiduously protecting its elder care homes, while ‘schools remained open, residents carried on drinking in bars and cafes, and the doors of hairdressers and gyms were open throughout.’”
Off-Guardian continues with Stanford’s Nobel-laureate Michael Levitt, who is among those in support of Sweden’s lighter restrictions.
Levitt successfully predicted the trajectory of COVID-19 deaths in China, including when the deaths would slow, and has stated that the pandemic would not be as dire as many have predicted.
Have Sweden’s COVID-19 Deaths Peaked?
What’s more, in an interview with The Stanford Daily, Levitt stated in May 2020, “If Sweden stops at about 5,000 or 6,000 deaths, we will know that they’ve reached herd immunity, and we didn’t need to do any kind of lockdown.”10
As of July 17, 2020, there were 5,619 deaths in Sweden due to COVID-19,11 and in a study released by Levitt and colleagues June 30, 2020, which analyzes COVID-19 outbreaks at 3,546 locations worldwide, it’s predicted that Sweden’s total COVID-19 deaths will plateau at about 6,000.12
So far, Levitt is spot-on, and it appears, indeed, that Sweden’s COVID-19 deaths have slowed, peaking at more than 100 deaths per day and now, midsummer, tallying in the low teens.
The intensive care unit at Stockholm’s Sodertalje Hospital has also cleared out, housing 77 cases during the pandemic’s peak and only four cases as of July 17, 2020.13
Sweden’s Epidemiologist Calls Lockdowns ‘Madness’
Sweden continues to stand by their handling of the pandemic, despite heavy criticism.
The country’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, even described the rest of the world’s lockdowns as “madness,” considering the steep side effects they ultimately cause.
Levitt suggested that not only did lockdowns not save lives, but likely cost lives due to social damage, domestic abuse, divorces, alcoholism and other health conditions that were not treated.14 Bloomberg reported:15
“‘It was as if the world had gone mad, and everything we had discussed was forgotten,’ Tegnell said in a podcast with Swedish Radio … ‘The cases became too many and the political pressure got too strong. And then Sweden stood there rather alone.’”
Tegnell stated that shutting down schools was also unnecessary during the pandemic, and scientists from the Institut Pasteur in France indeed found that there was no significant transmission of COVID-19 in primary schools, either among the students or from students to teachers.16
“The study also confirmed that younger children infected by the novel coronavirus generally do not develop symptoms or present with minor symptoms that may result in a failure to diagnose the virus,” study author Bruno Hoen added.17
Meanwhile, while Sweden has encouraged its citizens to engage in social distancing, mask usage is another story, and Tegnell has stated that there’s little evidence for wearing face masks.18
Stanford Expert Slams Lockdowns
Outside of Sweden, other experts, including epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford University, have also spoken out against statewide lockdown measures in response to COVID-19.
Ioannidis suggests that 150 million to 300 million people may have already been infected globally and may have developed antibodies to the virus, and the median infection fatality rate has remained low at about 0.25%.19
As continues to be demonstrated, the elderly and those with underlying health problems appear to be most vulnerable, and protecting such populations should have been a priority. But lockdowns for young, healthy people are far more questionable.
Speaking with Greek Reporter, Ioannidis said:20
“The death rate in a given country depends a lot on the age-structure, who are the people infected, and how they are managed. For people younger than 45, the infection fatality rate is almost 0%. For 45 to 70, it is probably about 0.05-0.3%.
For those above 70, it escalates substantially, to 1% or higher for those over 85. For frail, debilitated elderly people with multiple health problems who are infected in nursing homes, it can go up to 25% during major outbreaks in these facilities.”
Overall, Ioannidis said the mathematical models that predicted hospitals would be overrun by COVID-19 patients were “astronomically wrong,” and although a handful of U.S. hospitals did become stressed, no health systems were overrun.
“Conversely,” he said, “the health care system was severely damaged in many places because of the [lockdown] measures taken,” while lockdown measures have also significantly increased the number of people at risk of starvation while leading to financial crisis, unrest and civil strife.21
What’s more, one study even found that 81% of people not exposed to SARS-CoV-2 were still able to mount an immune response against it, which “suggests at least some built-in immune protection from SARS-CoV-2 …”22
US Surgeon General Opposes Mask Mandate
With mask usage becoming an increasingly polarized debate, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams encouraged mask usage but spoke out against making them mandatory due to concerns that it could lead to rebellion.23
In my interview with Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., a former full professor of physics, and a researcher with the Ontario Civil Liberties Association in Canada, we also discussed the controversial topic of masks.
Rancourt did a thorough study of the scientific literature on masks, concentrating on evidence showing masks can reduce infection risk, especially viral respiratory diseases.
If there was any significant advantage to wearing a mask to reduce infection risk to either the wearer or others in the vicinity, then it would have been detected in at least one of these trials, yet there’s no sign of such a benefit.
He said in our interview:
“It makes no difference if everybody in your team is wearing a mask; it makes no difference if one is and others aren’t. Wearing a mask or being in an environment where masks are being worn or not worn, there’s no difference in terms of your risk of being infected by the viral respiratory disease.
“There’s no reduction, period. There are no exceptions. All the studies that have been tabulated, looked at, published, I was not able to find any exceptions, if you constrain yourself to verified outcomes.”
This is another area where Sweden has stayed ahead of the curve, as they’ve resisted asking the public to wear masks based on lack of evidence of effectiveness and the risk that they offer wearers a false sense of security.
Tegnell did state that officials are considering whether to recommend masks during use of public transportation, but stressed masks “definitely won’t become an optimal solution in any way.”24
Sweden Speaks Out Against WHO Warning
In late June 2020, the World Health Organization counted Sweden among European countries at risk of seeing a resurgence of COVID-19.
The warning was based on WHO data showing Sweden had 155 infections for every 100,000 inhabitants in the past 14 days, a higher rate than in most of Europe.25
Tegnell, however, said that this was a “total misinterpretation of the data” and WHO was confusing Sweden with countries just at the outset of their epidemics.
Instead, any rise in infections is likely due to increases in testing, Tegnell said, adding,
“They didn’t call to ask us. The number of admissions to intensive care is at a very low level and even deaths are starting to go down.”26
Time will tell whether Sweden’s strategy, which avoided lockdowns and widespread mask usage, turns out to be the right one after all, but some believe the writing is already on the wall.27
“Dr. Michael Levitt and Sweden have been right all along,” Off-Guardian reported.
“The only way through COVID-19 is by achieving the modest (10-20%) Herd Immunity Threshold required to have the virus snuff itself out.
“The sooner politicians — and the press — start talking about HIT and stop talking about new confirmed cases, the better off we will all be.
“Either way, it’s likely weeks, not months, before the data of new daily deaths will be so low that the press will have to find something new to scare everyone. It’s over.”
From the author: The existing medical establishment is responsible for killing and permanently injuring millions of Americans, but the surging numbers of visitors to Mercola.com since I began the site in 1997 – we are now routinely among the top 10 health sites on the Internet – convinces me that you, too, are fed up with their deception. You want practical health solutions without the hype, and that’s what I offer.
Welcome to Let’s Pretend. Let’s pretend everything is OK and Nice and Polite are going to win the day, and no one is going to have to give up his position in life or his security. The missiles fired into the heart of the economy will have no lasting effects. Politicians who can’t find their asses with both hands will put things right. Fascist governors and mayors will soon abdicate their power and never lock down their populations again, no matter what. It was all just a bad dream. A cloud passing over the sun for a few minutes.
There’s a reason MY contact tracing led to you, Mr. Trump.
You’re the only one left in the menagerie. You’re the only political animal who could offer a shred of a sliver of a slim ray of hope. To push back the invaders.
Several times you’ve said, “It’s no good if the cure is worse than the disease.” Surely you understand by now, the cure IS the disease. The H-bomb that went off in the middle of the economy was and is the whole point of the invasion, which has been taking place under your nose.
With your assistance. As a result of your failed marriage to Tony Fauci.
Let’s put aside the gloss, Mr. Trump. You understand the real effects of the lockdowns. The effects the networks refuse to lead with, on the evening news.
There is the symbolic economy, represented by the careening up and down stock market. Then there is the real thing—the businesses and lives destroyed.
Nixon and Kissinger. Bush and Cheney. Bill and Hillary. They don’t hold a candle to you and Fauci.
You allowed Fauci to become head of the coronavirus task force, and to remain in that position, spreading vast clouds of overblown lies about the “pandemic” and the fascist measures needed to stem it.
That’s a crime you’ll have to live with.
But you can do something about it. The governors won’t. The mayors won’t. Believe me, I’ve looked high and low to find someone other than you, to whom I could send these dispatches. Some noble figure in the American landscape with power, who could turn the tide in the economic war against the people. I don’t see one. You’re the default choice.
You sat in the Oval, when Fauci slithered up to you with the absurd computer projections Neil Ferguson authored, and that psychopathic freak, Bill Gates, bankrolled. You accepted the numbers of deaths Ferguson predicted. Two million in the US. You never had your people investigate Ferguson. In an hour, they would have discovered he had a long track record of abysmal failures. Failure is his whole story. Yet, you took those numbers and allowed Fauci to run with them. Leading the nation into a crushing economic dead-end.
So you see, you’re actually part of the war against the people. If you’re going to be a General now, you’ll have to admit that. You’ll have to fire Fauci and stand up straight and reclaim your own soul.
If hundreds of thousands or millions of Chinese soldiers were encamped in cities and towns across USA right now, smashing the American engines of production, don’t you think you’d be justified in sending in the troops? To liberate the people? Would anyone is his right mind cite Posse Comitatus to try to stop you?
Well, the US governors and mayors and public health officials are our enemies, and their lockdowns were and are the war. So send in the Army and liberate those towns and cities. Forcibly. Open the American economy all the way. Permanently. Tell your opponents, THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE. Tell them 50 million Americans out of work is intolerable.
You’re supposed to be the riverboat gambler. So shove in all your chips on this one, Mr. Trump. Crack the media delusion that all is well in America, if we just “stick together,” which means bowing down to the masks and the distancing and the dehumanizing and the isolating and the tracing and the testing and the vaccinating and the shredding of the economy.
As you know, COVID is one supermax lie. Nothing worse than a flu season is happening in the world.
Of course, I’m out of my mind. I must be. Who could imagine sending in the Army to liberate the people, so they could live free?
Preposterous.
Better to huddle in fear. And wait. For the keeper of the cage to open the door.
So we can go out for a little while.
Right, Mr. President?
Until the next time, the next wave, the next crisis—tomorrow.
Germany’s federal government and mainstream media are engaged in damage control after a report that challenges the established Corona narrative leaked from the interior ministry.
Some of the report key passages are:
The dangerousness of Covid-19 was overestimated: probably at no point did the danger posed by the new virus go beyond the normal level.
The people who die from Corona are essentially those who would statistically die this year, because they have reached the end of their lives and their weakened bodies can no longer cope with any random everyday stress (including the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation).
Worldwide, within a quarter of a year, there has been no more than 250,000 deaths from Covid-19, compared to 1.5 million deaths [25,100 in Germany] during the influenza wave 2017/18.
The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm.
A reproach could go along these lines: During the Corona crisis the State has proved itself as one of the biggest producers of Fake News.
So far, so bad. But it gets worse.
The report focuses on the “manifold and heavy consequences of the Corona measures” and warns that these are “grave”.
More people are dying because of state-imposed Corona-measures than they are being killed by the virus.
The reason is a scandal in the making:
A Corona-focused German healthcare system is postponing life-saving surgery and delaying or reducing treatment for non-Corona patients.
Berlin in Denial Mode. The scientists fight back.
Initially, the government tried to dismiss the report as “the work of one employee”, and its contents as “his own opinion” – while the journalists closed ranks, no questions asked, with the politicians.
But the 93-pages report titled “Analysis of the Crisis Management” has been drafted by a scientific panel appointed by the interior ministry and composed by external medical experts from several German universities.
The report was the initiative of a department of the interior ministry called Unit KM4 and in charge with the “Protection of critical infrastructures”.
This is also where the German official turned whistleblower, Stephen Kohn, work(ed), and from where he leaked it to the media.
The authors of the report issued a joint press release already on May 11th, berating the government for ignoring expert advise, and asking for the interior minister to officially comment upon the experts joint statement:
“Therapeutic and preventive measures should never bring more harm than the illness itself. Their aim should be to protect the risk groups, without endangering the availability of medical care and the health of the whole population, as it is unfortunately occurring”
“We in the scientific and medical praxis are experiencing the secondary damages of the Corona-measures on our patients on a dialy basis.”
“We therefore ask the Federal Ministry of the Interior, to comment upon our press release, and we hope for a pertinent discussion regarding the [Corona] measures, one that leads to the best possible solution for the whole population”
At the time of writing, the German government had yet to react.
But the facts are – sadly – vindicating the medical experts’ worries.
On Mai 23 the German newspaper Das Bild titled: “Dramatic consequences of the Corona-Measures: 52,000 Cancer Ops delayed.”
Inside, a a leading medical doctor warns that “we will feel the side-effects of the Corona crisis for years”.
Shooting the Whistleblower. Ignoring the Message.
As Der Spiegel reported on Mai 15th: “Stephen Kohn [the whistleblower] has since been suspended from duty. He was advised to obtain a lawyer and his work laptop was confiscated.”
Kohn had originally leaked the report on May 9th to the liberal-conservative magazine Tichys Einblick one of Germany’s most popular alternative media outlets.
News of the report went mainstream in Germany during the second week of May – but already in the third week media and politicians alike stopped discussing the issue by refusing to comment upon it.
Emblematic was the approach taken by Günter Krings, the representative for Interior Minister Horst Seehofer – the whistleblower’s boss:
Asked it he would treat the document seriously, Krings replied:
“If you start analyzing papers like that, then pretty soon you’ll be inviting the guys with the tin foil hats to parliamentary hearings.”
Men in tin foil hats – Aluhut in German – is a term used to describe people who believe in conspiracy theories.
Indeed one article by Der Spiegel adressing the Corona protest movement and the consequences of the leaked report contained the word “conspiracy” no fewer than 17 times!
And no discussions of the issues raised by the report itself.
Outside Germany the news has virtually gone unreported.
The Protest Movement – or “Corona-Rebellen”.
Germans begun demonstrating against Lockdowns as early as April.
And thousands of citizens keep showing up at demonstrations every week-end, even as the government is easing the restrictions.
The demonstrations are not merely against restrictions, which have actually been comparatively mild compared to many other Western countries.
The demos question the entire Corona Narrative, and even more its principals, especially the role Bill Gates is playing, as the WHO’s second biggest donor (the first one since Trump suspended U.S. contribution).
Indeed the biggest such demonstrations took place in Stuttgart on May 9th, where tens of thousands people assembled to say no – to the NWO.
Germans are saying no to any Orwellian solution the government might one day impose out of a questionable “emergency status”, from mass surveillance Apps to mandatory vaccinations.
The leaked report has proved their fears to be well founded.
At least as far as the fake nature of the “Corona pandemic” is concerned.
