offguardian--2020-05-26--Were conditions for high death rates at Care Homes created on purpose?

During the COVID-19 pandemic , people in care homes have been dying in droves .
Why is this happening ?
Is it simply because older adults are very vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 and therefore it ’ s not unexpected that many would succumb ?
Or do care homes deserve the lion ’ s share of the blame , such as by paying so poorly that many workers have to split their time between several facilities , spreading the virus in the process ?
Alternatively , could medical experts and government bureaucrats , with the full knowledge of at least the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conditions shortly after the pandemic struck that contribute to the high death tolls while engendering virtually no public backlash against themselves ?
This article shows that the third hypothesis is highly plausible .
The people who created the conditions may be unaware of , or oblivious to , their implications .
But it ’ s also possible that at least some of them know exactly what they ’ re doing .
After all – seeing it from an amoral government ’ s point of view – the growing numbers of elderly are a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strained governments , because in aggregate they ’ re paying much less into the tax base than younger people while causing the costs of healthcare and retirement programs to skyrocket .
Here are three sets of conditions that collectively create a framework for enabling significantly boosted care-home deaths – and doing so with impunity – even while most of each set of conditions in isolation may appear to be purely for the benefit of everyone in society : One .
Bureaucrats develop extremely broad definitions of novel-coronavirus infections and outbreaks .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a number of care homes scattered across each jurisdiction , of at least one nurse or physician who follows every letter of all definitions and rules .
( Such individuals are always present in every discipline , but in the medical milieu their actions can be deliberate , deadly and very hard to detect . )
Two .
Influential organizations and individuals produce hospital-care-rationing guidelines that recommend younger people receive higher priority than the elderly during the pandemic , by giving significant weight to how many years of life patients would have ahead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Also , some guidelines bar care-home residents from being transferred to hospital .
Three .
The chief coroner and leaders of the funeral , cremation and burial industries craft procedures that fundamentally change the way care-home deaths are documented and bodies dealt with .
Their stated goal is to prevent overburdening of medical staff and body-storage areas during a surge in COVID-19 deaths .
They also put them into effect very quickly with no notice to the public ; this gives those directly affected very limited opportunity for input or push-back .
Among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are no longer completed by people who care for care-home residents ; instead , they are filled in by the chief coroner ’ s office .
Also , examination of the undisturbed death scene is prevented , as are all but a very few post-mortems and other sober second looks at the cause and mode of death .
In the background are the complicit ranks of public-health organizations , politicians , media and many other influential individuals .
When the pandemic first strikes they focus on how new , dangerous and poorly understood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effect , this scares many care-home staff so much they flee in fear , leaving their overwhelmed colleagues to cope .
After a short time , they also start to distract the public and victims ’ loved ones from uncovering the three sets of conditions by focusing on other factors in the rash of deaths among institutionalized elderly – and by insisting the solution to everything is more testing and contact tracing , along with accelerated vaccine and anti-viral development .
This article shows how the three sets of conditions were put in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on these conditions very likely have been crafted in other jurisdictions in North America , Europe and elsewhere .
An exclusive interview with the daughter of one of the dozens of people who died during an outbreak at an Ontario care home illustrates how the three sets of conditions work in practice .
Condition Set One : Broad Definitions of Novel-coronavirus Infections and Outbreaks At the start of the novel-coronavirus epidemic in Ontario , formal definitions of infections and care-home-outbreaks weren ’ t issued , at least not publicly .
Rather , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Ontario , Dr. David Williams , and the Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health , Dr. Barbara Yaffe , described the criteria verbally during their daily press briefings .
An outbreak should be declared when two or three people show symptoms of infection with the novel coronavirus , they said .
Also , polymerase chain reaction testing for viral RNA wasn ’ t required for confirmation .
This is a loosened version of criteria used in the province prior to the novel-coronavirus epidemic .
These previous criteria defined an outbreak as either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a facility developing symptoms within two days of each other ( making their infections ‘ epidemiologically linked ’ ) and at least one of them testing positive for viral RNA ; or three people in the same area developing symptoms within two days of each other .
On March 30 the Ontario health ministry released new rules for defining and managing care-home outbreaks ( with the document confusingly dated April 1 ) .
Staff at all Ontario care nursing homes were trained on the new rules via webinars two days later , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ included an even broader outbreak definition : the presence of only one person with just one symptom of a SARS-CoV-2 infection .
Outbreaks were deemed confirmed when just one resident or staff member tested positive ; subsequently , every resident in the care home showing any coronavirus-infection symptoms is deemed to have COVID-19 .
Notably , however , there wasn ’ t a symptom list in the document .
Dr. Williams said on April 1 during that day ’ s press briefing they deliberately did not include a list of infection .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ April 8 , a Provincial Testing Guidance Update was issued .
It included the following list of symptoms ( most of which are highly non-specific ) : fever , any new or worsening acute respiratory illness symptom – for example cough , shortness of breath , sore throat , runny nose or sneezing , nasal congestion , hoarse voice , difficulty swallowing – and pneumonia .
The document also listed several symptoms that are “ atypical ” but “ should be considered , particularly in people over 65 ” [ italics added ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ status and inattention ( i.e.
, delirium ) , falls , acute functional decline , worsening of chronic conditions , digestive symptoms ( e.g.
, nausea/vomiting , diarrhea , abdominal pain ) , chills , headaches , croup , unexplained tachycardia , decreased blood pressure , unexplained hypoxia ( even if mild ) and lethargy .
Then on April 22 the province produced the first COVID-19-screening guidelines for care homes .
It ’ s broadly similar to the April 8 document , except that two or more of some of the symptoms – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and sneezing , stuffed-up nose , diarrhea – need to be present for a person to be deemed positive .
On May 2 a new testing guidance and a new screening guide were released .
Both documents concede that if a person has only a runny or stuffed-up nose , “ consideration should be given to other underlying reasons for these symptoms such as seasonal allergies and post-nasal drip.
” They also narrow the definition of falls considered diagnostic of a novel-coronavirus infection in people over 65 , to falls that are unexplained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they add to the symptom list another three that are very non-specific : a decrease in sense of taste , abdominal pain and pink eye .
There are enormous implications to having overly broad definitions of symptoms and outbreaks , particularly in combination with other rules put in place at the beginning of the epidemic .
Broad definitions very likely are used in many other jurisdictions around the world , albeit perhaps masked by the use of somewhat different terms .
First , in Ontario , in every facility with an outbreak , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is defined as being a ‘ probable ’ COVID-19 case .
This applies whether these residents had an inconclusive or negative viral-RNA test result – or even weren ’ t tested at all .
Second , the cause of death of everyone who had been diagnosed with a SARS-CoV-2 infection is recorded as being COVID-19 .
This is a dictate of the World Health Organization and is followed throughout North America , Europe and elsewhere .
Third , COVID-19-attributed deaths are deemed ‘ natural ’ by new rules released by the chief coroner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Set Three , ’ below ) .
In all but an extremely small number of cases , natural deaths are exempt from any further investigations or post-mortems .
( Over the last 30 years post-mortems have become rare , but to almost completely remove the possibility is another matter . )
Taken together , this may explain what the daughter of a woman who died along with dozens of others , during a COVID-19 outbreak at an Ontario care home experienced .
The daughter granted the author an exclusive interview on May 13 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her from possible repercussions . )
Diane Plaxton said in the interview that on April 1 she received a shocking and unexpected phone call from her mother ’ s care home .
“ Your mother ’ s declining .
She ’ s been having loose bowels and lots of diarrhea .
There ’ s a DNR on her chart .
And we ’ re not sending anyone to the hospital .
[ Likely because of ‘ Condition Set Two , ’ below ] We ’ re going to have to put her on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ head nurse telling her in a cold , uncaring voice .
Plaxton was stunned .
She knew about her mother ’ s diarrhea : it was from bowel-cleansing meds she ’ d been on for about nine days , after being diagnosed with a clogged bowel .
Plaxton told the nurse that if her mother seemed to be declining it probably was from the diarrhea and resultant dehydration .
She suggested to the head nurse that she give mother IV rehydration .
The nurse refused , saying it would “ just prolong the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t say the word COVID-19 , nor tell Plaxton the home had been declared to have an outbreak that day .
She also didn ’ t mention that on March 30 the province had issued new rules on novel-coronavirus infections and outbreaks , then trained all of Ontario ’ s care-home staff on them via webinar April 1 .
As described above , the rules included very broad definitions of SARS-CoV-2 infections and outbreaks .
Therefore the nurse could well have been complying fully with the new rules by diagnosing Plaxton ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her having diarrhea alone ( and without telling Plaxton any of this ) .
Furthermore , since transfer to a hospital was not an option ( as per ‘ Condition Set Two ’ ) and since COVID-19 is deemed to be very frequently fatal in the elderly , this may be why the head nurse pushed Plaxton so hard to consent to palliative care for her mother .
Shaken but unbowed , Plaxton asked the head nurse to let her speak to the nurse who had been directly caring for her mother .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and agreed that palliative care was not appropriate for Plaxton ’ s mother .
She agreed instead to allow her to not take the bowel-cleaning meds , and to coax her to eat and drink to recover her fluids and strength .
She also said she ’ d keep an eye on the slight fever Plaxton ’ s mother had .
Over the next few days this plan worked , and the nurse told Plaxton she needn ’ t worry .
That ’ s why it hit Plaxton like a gut punch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call from another nurse , who was panicking .
She told Plaxton her mom was struggling to breathe and “ going fast.
” The nurse said the care home couldn ’ t transfer her to the hospital .
She asked Plaxton ’ s permission for the doctor to give her mother “ a shot to ease her passing.
” Plaxton was reeling .
She immediately consulted with her sister ; together they decided to give consent for the shot .
Three hours later their mother was dead .
In mid-March , not long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treatment-rationing guidelines for during the pandemic started to proliferate .
For example , on March 21 the UK ’ s National Institute for Clinical Excellence produced its guidelines .
They ’ re based on a frailty score and on mortality probabilities across different age groups for pneumonia and underlying cardiovascular or respiratory diseases .
On March 23 the paper “ Fair allocation of scarce medical resources in the time of Covid-19 ” was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine .
The paper ’ s first recommendation calls for : On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the American Medical Association ( JAMA ) published “ A framework for rationing ventilators and critical-care beds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
” Ontario Health published guidelines for hospital-treatment rationing on March 28 , albeit not publicly .
( To this day the government hasn ’ t made the protocol public , nor disclosed whether or when they implemented it . )
At that time a crush of COVID-19 patients crowding Ontario hospitals wasn ’ t a realistic possibility for at least the short or medium terms ( contrary to the pandemic-curve theoretical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ procedures and surgeries had been cancelled or indefinitely postponed .
Toronto Star reporter Jennifer Yan obtained a copy of the Ontario treatment-triaging document and wrote in a March 29 article that : Then on April 10 , the Canadian Medical Association adopted all the recommendations by Dr. Ezekiel and his co-authors in their New England Journal of Medicine paper , and advised Canadian physicians to follow them .
The Canadian Medical Association statement ( whose authors were not listed ) asserted that “ the current situation , unfortunately , does not allow for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ create their own recommendations .
This is tendentious .
Canadian healthcare providers and researchers have access to as much information about COVID-19 as do others around the world .
In addition , many had direct clinical experience with a close cousin of the novel coronavirus , SARS-CoV , in 2003 .
Indeed four Canadians co-authored an ethical framework for guiding decision-making during a pandemic that was based on their experience with SARS and published in 2006 .
They made no mention of age as a criterion for treatment triaging in that framework .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ released information to guide clinicians in rationing healthcare resources during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic .
Unlike at least some other COVID-19-related guidelines issued in the same period , it was not accompanied by a press release ; therefore it has flown under the public radar .
The document includes an emphasis on age-based rationing .
It also explicitly discourages transfer of care-home residents to hospitals : This is underlined in another place in the document : Prohibiting transfer to hospital drastically narrows the treatment options available to care-home residents .
There have been transfers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the COVID-19 crisis , but until very recently they have been by far the exception .
All of this may well be why Plaxton was told by nurses at the care home that her mother couldn ’ t be transferred to hospital .
This also has played out at other care homes .
The medical director of the Pinecrest nursing home in Bobcaygeon , two hours ’ drive northeast of Toronto , strongly advised residents ’ family members against considering hospital transfer .
The Globe and Mail reported on March 29 that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 21 ( which was the day after three of the home ’ s residents tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 ) and raised the spectre of significant suffering and possible death if the elderly people were put on ventilators .
The last death attributed to COVID-19 at Pinecrest occurred on April 8 ; by then , 29 of the home ’ s 65 residents had perished .
“ I ’ ve never had four deaths in a day at any nursing home I ’ ve worked at , ” Dr. Stephen Oldridge , one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was quoted as saying in the March 29 Globe and Mail article .
“ You feel helpless .
Because there ’ s nothing you can do other than support them , give them morphine and make them comfortable.
” Still other media reports indicate that care-home residents ’ families in Canada have denied the option of transfer to hospital during the pandemic even if the residents are relatively young , do not have a DNR , and both they and their families want the option of a transfer .
Instead , they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This also is happening elsewhere , such as in the UK .
Hugh Scher , a Toronto lawyer who ’ s been involved in some of Canada ’ s highest-profile end-of-life cases , strongly opposes this .
He told the author in a telephone interview : Condition Set Three : New Rules Surrounding Death Certificates and Removal and Disposition of Bodies On April 9 the Chief Coroner for Ontario , Dr. Dirk Huyer , released rules for an ‘ expedited death response ’ in handling and disposition of bodies of people who die @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stated goal was to prevent infection spread , overburdening of medical staff , and overfilling of hospital morgues and body-storage areas in care homes in the event of a surge in deaths during the pandemic .
The new procedures were created jointly by Dr. Huyer ’ s office , the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services and the Bereavement Authority of Ontario ( the province ’ s funeral-home , cremation-services and cemetery self-regulatory body ) .
They are a drastic sea change in the way deaths are handled in the province .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the only “ surge ” in sight one in mathematical models , and a significant body-storage-space problem based on hard data nowhere on the horizon ( and still a low probability ) .
The new procedures went into effect immediately on April 9 .
Then over the next three days ( the Easter long weekend ) , Dr. Huyer and the registrar of the Bereavement Authority of Ontario led webinars on them for staff of hospitals and care homes across the province .
“ We pushed it [ writing and releasing the new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maybe was necessary because it ’ s a brand-new process and there ’ s thousands of people involved , ” Dr. Huyer told Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno in explaining the haste .
As part of the new rules , the chief coroner ’ s office now completes the death certificates of every person who dies in long-term-care homes .
The office also completes some death certificates of people who die in hospitals .
Up until April 9 , and for good reason , death certificates in Ontario were filled in by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the people before they died .
In addition , as also noted in ‘ Condition Set One ’ above , COVID-19-attributed deaths are deemed ‘ natural ’ by the new rules .
And all “ natural ” deaths are virtually exempt from any further investigations and post-mortems .
Yet it was only 10 months ago that the official report on the high-profile Wettlaufer inquiry was released .
It calls for many more checks and balances surrounding care – and more rather than less time and transparency in determining and documenting the causes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s 91 recommendations have been implemented .
( The inquiry probed the killing in southwestern Ontario by nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer of eight people , attempted murder of several others and aggravated assault of two more .
All but two of the victims were LTCH residents . )
Moreover , the April 2020 rules also dictate that families must contact a funeral home within one hour of a hospital death and within three hours of a care-home death .
The bodies are to be taken to the funeral home extremely rapidly , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quickly as possible .
This journalist wrote about the rules in a May 11 article .
Diane Plaxton found and read online the May 11 article .
She suddenly understood more of what took place before and after her mother ’ s April 10 death .
She and this journalist connected , and the May 13 interview ensued .
Plaxton related , in that interview , that three hours after she got off the phone with her dying mother on April 10 , a nurse called and matter-of-factly said her mother was dead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funeral home .
And about an hour later , while Plaxton was still reeling , another nurse called and again told her to contact a funeral home .
“ I got off the phone .
That ’ s when I flew off the handle , ” she told the author in the May 13 interview .
“ It ’ s like they ’ re treating her [ body ] like a piece of garbage : ‘ Get her out of here !
Ger her out of here !
’ ” As if that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the funeral home four days later she saw COVID-19 listed as the cause of her mother ’ s death .
Plaxton believes what really killed her mother was the combination of dehydration and chronic diseases including asthma ; her shortness of breath on April 10 may have been an asthma attack , Plaxton surmises .
Making matters even worse , the funeral director told her she couldn ’ t take a copy or photo of the ‘ Cause of Death ’ form .
He said she ’ d have to request a copy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months to arrive .
But the funeral director also commiserated with Plaxton .
He was incredulous that her mother had gone from dehydrated to dead so fast .
He also was bewildered by the requirements such as bodies having to be picked up in haste and arrangements for cremation and burial also having to be made extremely quickly .
“ I ’ m just taking orders from the top down , ” Plaxton recalls the funeral director telling her .
That ’ s the third of the three sets of conditions that can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The three sets are the work of officials , experts and bureaucrats who – while being seen to serve the public interest and who could be unaware of , or oblivious to , the implications of the conditions – may in fact have hidden intentions .
Even if the latter is true , there ’ s little chance the perpetrators will be caught or punished .
On May 19 the Ontario premier announced that an independent commission will probe why so many people have died in the province ’ s care homes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very unlikely the commission ’ s mandate will include scrutinizing the sets of conditions described in this article .
Perhaps the most elegant element of all is that just one or two people working at any given care home can suffice to translate the sets of conditions into actions – or inaction – that can be deadly for residents .
And they ’ d probably be the only ones held responsible in the unlikely event any of this ever comes to light .
It ’ s all as simple as one , two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Msc in molecular biology from a faculty of medicine and was a freelance medical writer and journalist for 22 years .
She is now an independent investigative journalist .
You can read her article on The Seven Steps from Pandemic to Totalitarianism here , watch and listen to an interview she gave on COVID-19 , and follow her on Twitter .

Rosemary Frei
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people in care homes have been dying in droves.
Why is this happening? Is it simply because older adults are very vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 and therefore it’s not unexpected that many would succumb?
Or do care homes deserve the lion’s share of the blame, such as by paying so poorly that many workers have to split their time between several facilities, spreading the virus in the process?
Alternatively, could medical experts and government bureaucrats, with the full knowledge of at least the top tier of government officials, have created conditions shortly after the pandemic struck that contribute to the high death tolls while engendering virtually no public backlash against themselves?
This article shows that the third hypothesis is highly plausible. The people who created the conditions may be unaware of, or oblivious to, their implications. But it’s also possible that at least some of them know exactly what they’re doing.
After all – seeing it from an amoral government’s point of view – the growing numbers of elderly are a big burden on today’s fiscally strained governments, because in aggregate they’re paying much less into the tax base than younger people while causing the costs of healthcare and retirement programs to skyrocket.
Here are three sets of conditions that collectively create a framework for enabling significantly boosted care-home deaths – and doing so with impunity – even while most of each set of conditions in isolation may appear to be purely for the benefit of everyone in society:
One. Bureaucrats develop extremely broad definitions of novel-coronavirus infections and outbreaks. This is coupled with the continuing presence, in a number of care homes scattered across each jurisdiction, of at least one nurse or physician who follows every letter of all definitions and rules. (Such individuals are always present in every discipline, but in the medical milieu their actions can be deliberate, deadly and very hard to detect.)
Two. Influential organizations and individuals produce hospital-care-rationing guidelines that recommend younger people receive higher priority than the elderly during the pandemic, by giving significant weight to how many years of life patients would have ahead of them if treatment is successful. Also, some guidelines bar care-home residents from being transferred to hospital.
Three. The chief coroner and leaders of the funeral, cremation and burial industries craft procedures that fundamentally change the way care-home deaths are documented and bodies dealt with. Their stated goal is to prevent overburdening of medical staff and body-storage areas during a surge in COVID-19 deaths.
They also put them into effect very quickly with no notice to the public; this gives those directly affected very limited opportunity for input or push-back.
Among the many radical changes is death certificates are no longer completed by people who care for care-home residents; instead, they are filled in by the chief coroner’s office.
Also, examination of the undisturbed death scene is prevented, as are all but a very few post-mortems and other sober second looks at the cause and mode of death.
In the background are the complicit ranks of public-health organizations, politicians, media and many other influential individuals. When the pandemic first strikes they focus on how new, dangerous and poorly understood the virus is. As one side effect, this scares many care-home staff so much they flee in fear, leaving their overwhelmed colleagues to cope.
After a short time, they also start to distract the public and victims’ loved ones from uncovering the three sets of conditions by focusing on other factors in the rash of deaths among institutionalized elderly – and by insisting the solution to everything is more testing and contact tracing, along with accelerated vaccine and anti-viral development.
This article shows how the three sets of conditions were put in place in Ontario, Canada.
Variations on these conditions very likely have been crafted in other jurisdictions in North America, Europe and elsewhere. An exclusive interview with the daughter of one of the dozens of people who died during an outbreak at an Ontario care home illustrates how the three sets of conditions work in practice.
Condition Set One: Broad Definitions of Novel-coronavirus Infections and Outbreaks
At the start of the novel-coronavirus epidemic in Ontario, formal definitions of infections and care-home-outbreaks weren’t issued, at least not publicly.
Rather, in late March Chief Medical Officer of Health for Ontario, Dr. David Williams, and the Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, described the criteria verbally during their daily press briefings.
An outbreak should be declared when two or three people show symptoms of infection with the novel coronavirus, they said.
Also, polymerase chain reaction testing for viral RNA wasn’t required for confirmation.
This is a loosened version of criteria used in the province prior to the novel-coronavirus epidemic. These previous criteria defined an outbreak as either: two people in the same area of a facility developing symptoms within two days of each other (making their infections ‘epidemiologically linked’) and at least one of them testing positive for viral RNA; or three people in the same area developing symptoms within two days of each other.
On March 30 the Ontario health ministry released new rules for defining and managing care-home outbreaks (with the document confusingly dated April 1). Staff at all Ontario care nursing homes were trained on the new rules via webinars two days later, on April 1.
The new rules included an even broader outbreak definition: the presence of only one person with just one symptom of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Outbreaks were deemed confirmed when just one resident or staff member tested positive; subsequently, every resident in the care home showing any coronavirus-infection symptoms is deemed to have COVID-19.
Notably, however, there wasn’t a symptom list in the document. Dr. Williams said on April 1 during that day’s press briefing they deliberately did not include a list of infection.
This is because:
“to look for those symptoms [in the rest of the care-home residents after the initial case is identified] is a challenge, particularly in seniors,” […] “They may not mount a fever, they may have a lot of other symptoms and they may not have obvious symptoms. [Rather,] any change in their health condition really [can be considered a symptom].”
A few minutes later Dr. Williams added:
I don’t mind false alarms. [As a result of the looser outbreak criteria] the numbers [of outbreaks that] we see might be[come] quite [a bit] larger …. [But that’s because w]e want to ramp up the sensitivity. [That] means the number of outbreaks will go up, because we’ve widened the definition.”
One week later, April 8, a Provincial Testing Guidance Update was issued. It included the following list of symptoms (most of which are highly non-specific): fever, any new or worsening acute respiratory illness symptom – for example cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, runny nose or sneezing, nasal congestion, hoarse voice, difficulty swallowing – and pneumonia.
The document also listed several symptoms that are “atypical” but “should be considered, particularly in people over 65” [italics added]: unexplained fatigue/malaise, acutely altered mental status and inattention (i.e., delirium), falls, acute functional decline, worsening of chronic conditions, digestive symptoms (e.g., nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain), chills, headaches, croup, unexplained tachycardia, decreased blood pressure, unexplained hypoxia (even if mild) and lethargy.
Then on April 22 the province produced the first COVID-19-screening guidelines for care homes. It’s broadly similar to the April 8 document, except that two or more of some of the symptoms – for example sore throat, runny nose and sneezing, stuffed-up nose, diarrhea – need to be present for a person to be deemed positive.
On May 2 a new testing guidance and a new screening guide were released. Both documents concede that if a person has only a runny or stuffed-up nose, “consideration should be given to other underlying reasons for these symptoms such as seasonal allergies and post-nasal drip.”
They also narrow the definition of falls considered diagnostic of a novel-coronavirus infection in people over 65, to falls that are unexplained or increasing in number.
However, they add to the symptom list another three that are very non-specific: a decrease in sense of taste, abdominal pain and pink eye.
There are enormous implications to having overly broad definitions of symptoms and outbreaks, particularly in combination with other rules put in place at the beginning of the epidemic.
Broad definitions very likely are used in many other jurisdictions around the world, albeit perhaps masked by the use of somewhat different terms.
First, in Ontario, in every facility with an outbreak, every resident with even just one symptom is defined as being a ‘probable’ COVID-19 case. This applies whether these residents had an inconclusive or negative viral-RNA test result – or even weren’t tested at all.
Second, the cause of death of everyone who had been diagnosed with a SARS-CoV-2 infection is recorded as being COVID-19. This is a dictate of the World Health Organization and is followed throughout North America, Europe and elsewhere.
Third, COVID-19-attributed deaths are deemed ‘natural’ by new rules released by the chief coroner on April 9 (see ‘Condition Set Three,’ below). In all but an extremely small number of cases, natural deaths are exempt from any further investigations or post-mortems. (Over the last 30 years post-mortems have become rare, but to almost completely remove the possibility is another matter.)
Taken together, this may explain what the daughter of a woman who died along with dozens of others, during a COVID-19 outbreak at an Ontario care home experienced. The daughter granted the author an exclusive interview on May 13. (Under a pseudonym to shield her from possible repercussions.)
Diane Plaxton said in the interview that on April 1 she received a shocking and unexpected phone call from her mother’s care home.
“Your mother’s declining. She’s been having loose bowels and lots of diarrhea. There’s a DNR on her chart. And we’re not sending anyone to the hospital. [Likely because of ‘Condition Set Two,’ below] We’re going to have to put her on palliative care,” Plaxton recalls the head nurse telling her in a cold, uncaring voice.
Plaxton was stunned. She knew about her mother’s diarrhea: it was from bowel-cleansing meds she’d been on for about nine days, after being diagnosed with a clogged bowel. Plaxton told the nurse that if her mother seemed to be declining it probably was from the diarrhea and resultant dehydration.
She suggested to the head nurse that she give mother IV rehydration. The nurse refused, saying it would “just prolong the inevitable.”
The head nurse didn’t say the word COVID-19, nor tell Plaxton the home had been declared to have an outbreak that day.
She also didn’t mention that on March 30 the province had issued new rules on novel-coronavirus infections and outbreaks, then trained all of Ontario’s care-home staff on them via webinar April 1. As described above, the rules included very broad definitions of SARS-CoV-2 infections and outbreaks.
Therefore the nurse could well have been complying fully with the new rules by diagnosing Plaxton’s mother with a novel-coronavirus infection based on her having diarrhea alone (and without telling Plaxton any of this).
Furthermore, since transfer to a hospital was not an option (as per ‘Condition Set Two’) and since COVID-19 is deemed to be very frequently fatal in the elderly, this may be why the head nurse pushed Plaxton so hard to consent to palliative care for her mother.
Shaken but unbowed, Plaxton asked the head nurse to let her speak to the nurse who had been directly caring for her mother.
Fortunately, that second nurse was kind, and agreed that palliative care was not appropriate for Plaxton’s mother. She agreed instead to allow her to not take the bowel-cleaning meds, and to coax her to eat and drink to recover her fluids and strength. She also said she’d keep an eye on the slight fever Plaxton’s mother had.
Over the next few days this plan worked, and the nurse told Plaxton she needn’t worry.
That’s why it hit Plaxton like a gut punch when on April 10 she got a call from another nurse, who was panicking. She told Plaxton her mom was struggling to breathe and “going fast.”
The nurse said the care home couldn’t transfer her to the hospital. She asked Plaxton’s permission for the doctor to give her mother “a shot to ease her passing.”
(The nurse didn’t tell Plaxton what ‘the shot’ was. But it very likely was morphine, which is routinely used to relieve severe pain. A high enough dose of morphine slows people’s breathing and hastens their death.)
Plaxton was reeling. She immediately consulted with her sister; together they decided to give consent for the shot. Three hours later their mother was dead.
Condition Set Two: Hospital-care-rationing Guidelines
In mid-March, not long before Plaxton’s mother died, treatment-rationing guidelines for during the pandemic started to proliferate.
For example, on March 21 the UK’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence produced its guidelines.
They’re based on a frailty score and on mortality probabilities across different age groups for pneumonia and underlying cardiovascular or respiratory diseases.
On March 23 the paper “Fair allocation of scarce medical resources in the time of Covid-19” was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. The paper’s first recommendation calls for:
maximizing the number of patients that survive treatment with a reasonable life expectancy.”
(Interestingly, the paper’s lead author, Ezekiel Emmanuel, MD, PhD, is an oncologist, bioethicist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The centre is secretive about its funders but according to a 2011 investigation in The Nation its supporters included dozens of giant corporations ranging from Boeing to Walmart. Today, retired general Wesley Clark and executive VP of global investment firm Blackstone Henry James are among the organization’s trustee advisory board members.)
On March 27, the equally influential Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published “A framework for rationing ventilators and critical-care beds during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The paper’s authors assert that:
[y]ounger individuals should receive priority, not because of any claims about social worth or utility, but because they are the worst off, in the sense that they have had the least opportunity to live through life’s stages.”
Ontario Health published guidelines for hospital-treatment rationing on March 28, albeit not publicly. (To this day the government hasn’t made the protocol public, nor disclosed whether or when they implemented it.)
At that time a crush of COVID-19 patients crowding Ontario hospitals wasn’t a realistic possibility for at least the short or medium terms (contrary to the pandemic-curve theoretical modelling), because all elective hospital procedures and surgeries had been cancelled or indefinitely postponed.
Toronto Star reporter Jennifer Yan obtained a copy of the Ontario treatment-triaging document and wrote in a March 29 article that:
[u]nder the triage protocol, long-term-care patients who meet specific criteria will also no longer be transferred to hospitals.”
Then on April 10, the Canadian Medical Association adopted all the recommendations by Dr. Ezekiel and his co-authors in their New England Journal of Medicine paper, and advised Canadian physicians to follow them.
The Canadian Medical Association statement (whose authors were not listed) asserted that “the current situation, unfortunately, does not allow for” the time for Canadian experts to create their own recommendations.
This is tendentious. Canadian healthcare providers and researchers have access to as much information about COVID-19 as do others around the world. In addition, many had direct clinical experience with a close cousin of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV, in 2003.
Indeed four Canadians co-authored an ethical framework for guiding decision-making during a pandemic that was based on their experience with SARS and published in 2006. They made no mention of age as a criterion for treatment triaging in that framework.
On April 17 the Canadian federal government released information to guide clinicians in rationing healthcare resources during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. Unlike at least some other COVID-19-related guidelines issued in the same period, it was not accompanied by a press release; therefore it has flown under the public radar.
The document includes an emphasis on age-based rationing. It also explicitly discourages transfer of care-home residents to hospitals:
Long term care (LTC)[care-home] facilities and home care services will be encouraged to care for COVID-19 patients in place and may be asked to take on additional non-COVID-19 patients/clients to help relieve pressure on hospitals”
This is underlined in another place in the document:
If COVID-19 does develop in LTC facility residents, they should be cared for within the facility if at all possible, to preserve hospital capacity.”
Prohibiting transfer to hospital drastically narrows the treatment options available to care-home residents.
There have been transfers of care-home residents to hospitals in Canada during the COVID-19 crisis, but until very recently they have been by far the exception.
(Instead, starting in mid-March as part of the clearing out of hospitals to make room for a putative surge in COVID-19 patients, thousands of elderly people were transferred from hospitals to care homes. This likely also contributed to the care-home death toll. More than one journalist has compared care homes to the Diamond Princess cruise ship: virus incubators with people trapped inside.)
All of this may well be why Plaxton was told by nurses at the care home that her mother couldn’t be transferred to hospital.
This also has played out at other care homes.
The medical director of the Pinecrest nursing home in Bobcaygeon, two hours’ drive northeast of Toronto, strongly advised residents’ family members against considering hospital transfer.
The Globe and Mail reported on March 29 that Dr. Michelle Snarr wrote families on March 21 (which was the day after three of the home’s residents tested positive for SARS-CoV-2) and raised the spectre of significant suffering and possible death if the elderly people were put on ventilators.
Dr. Snarr reiterated this in a March 30 television interview.
Once we heard it was COVID, we all knew it was going to run like wildfire through the facility […] The reason I sent the email was to give them a heads-up that this is not normal times. Under normal times, we would send people to the hospital if that was the family’s wishes, but we knew that was not going to be possible, knowing that so many people were going to all get sick at once and also knowing the only way to save a life from COVID is with a ventilator. And to put a frail, elderly person on a ventilator, that’s cruel. [In another interview Dr. Snarr said they weren’t outright refusing hospital transfers.]
The last death attributed to COVID-19 at Pinecrest occurred on April 8; by then, 29 of the home’s 65 residents had perished.
“I’ve never had four deaths in a day at any nursing home I’ve worked at,” Dr. Stephen Oldridge, one of the physicians working at the home, was quoted as saying in the March 29 Globe and Mail article. “You feel helpless. Because there’s nothing you can do other than support them, give them morphine and make them comfortable.”
Dr. Oldridge told CBC a similar narrative on April 1:
“There is no vaccine, we have no effective treatment other than supportive care for these folks, and obviously there’s no cure. So when the infection takes hold in their lungs, in this elderly population we can just make them comfortable.”
Still other media reports indicate that care-home residents’ families in Canada have denied the option of transfer to hospital during the pandemic even if the residents are relatively young, do not have a DNR, and both they and their families want the option of a transfer. Instead, they are pressured to put DNRs in place. This also is happening elsewhere, such as in the UK.
Hugh Scher, a Toronto lawyer who’s been involved in some of Canada’s highest-profile end-of-life cases, strongly opposes this. He told the author in a telephone interview:
The notion that long-term-care-home or nursing-home medical directors can tell residents and their families that they can’t or shouldn’t be transferred to hospital if they need treatment for COVID or anything else – I don’t agree with that. […] [But unfortunately] there’s now an aggressive push to say, ‘Granny’s already ninety-five … and sending her to hospital for a cough or a runny nose isn’t going to improve her underlying condition. And so she should be made comfortable and left to die.’
Condition Set Three: New Rules Surrounding Death Certificates and Removal and Disposition of Bodies
On April 9 the Chief Coroner for Ontario, Dr. Dirk Huyer, released rules for an ‘expedited death response’ in handling and disposition of bodies of people who die in care homes and hospitals.
The stated goal was to prevent infection spread, overburdening of medical staff, and overfilling of hospital morgues and body-storage areas in care homes in the event of a surge in deaths during the pandemic.
The new procedures were created jointly by Dr. Huyer’s office, the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services and the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (the province’s funeral-home, cremation-services and cemetery self-regulatory body).
They are a drastic sea change in the way deaths are handled in the province. Yet they were launched extremely rapidly with the only “surge” in sight one in mathematical models, and a significant body-storage-space problem based on hard data nowhere on the horizon (and still a low probability).
The new procedures went into effect immediately on April 9. Then over the next three days (the Easter long weekend), Dr. Huyer and the registrar of the Bereavement Authority of Ontario led webinars on them for staff of hospitals and care homes across the province.
“We pushed it [writing and releasing the new rules] a little more quickly than maybe was necessary because it’s a brand-new process and there’s thousands of people involved,” Dr. Huyer told Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno in explaining the haste.
As part of the new rules, the chief coroner’s office now completes the death certificates of every person who dies in long-term-care homes. The office also completes some death certificates of people who die in hospitals. Up until April 9, and for good reason, death certificates in Ontario were filled in by the physicians or nurse practitioners who cared for the people before they died.
In addition, as also noted in ‘Condition Set One’ above, COVID-19-attributed deaths are deemed ‘natural’ by the new rules. And all “natural” deaths are virtually exempt from any further investigations and post-mortems.
(Dr. Huyer was quoted in a May 18 Globe and Mail article as saying “a number” of COVID-19-attributed death investigations have been started – including that of a man whose daughter believes he died because of neglect at a care home and who asked the coroner’s office to investigate – but that he doesn’t know what that number is.)
Dr. Huyer said, in a phone interview:
“All of these things were added during this period of time to allow not only a timely approach but also an efficient approach to be able to ensure that people proceed to burial or cremation in a timely way without requiring extra storage space,”
Yet it was only 10 months ago that the official report on the high-profile Wettlaufer inquiry was released. It calls for many more checks and balances surrounding care – and more rather than less time and transparency in determining and documenting the causes of death.
Just 18 of the report’s 91 recommendations have been implemented. (The inquiry probed the killing in southwestern Ontario by nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer of eight people, attempted murder of several others and aggravated assault of two more. All but two of the victims were LTCH residents.)
Moreover, the April 2020 rules also dictate that families must contact a funeral home within one hour of a hospital death and within three hours of a care-home death. The bodies are to be taken to the funeral home extremely rapidly, and from there to cremation and burial as quickly as possible.
This journalist wrote about the rules in a May 11 article.
Diane Plaxton found and read online the May 11 article. She suddenly understood more of what took place before and after her mother’s April 10 death.
She and this journalist connected, and the May 13 interview ensued.
Plaxton related, in that interview, that three hours after she got off the phone with her dying mother on April 10, a nurse called and matter-of-factly said her mother was dead. She asked Plaxton to call a funeral home.
And about an hour later, while Plaxton was still reeling, another nurse called and again told her to contact a funeral home.
“I got off the phone. That’s when I flew off the handle,” she told the author in the May 13 interview. “It’s like they’re treating her [body] like a piece of garbage: ‘Get her out of here! Ger her out of here!’”
As if that wasn’t enough trauma, at the funeral home four days later she saw COVID-19 listed as the cause of her mother’s death. Plaxton believes what really killed her mother was the combination of dehydration and chronic diseases including asthma; her shortness of breath on April 10 may have been an asthma attack, Plaxton surmises.
Making matters even worse, the funeral director told her she couldn’t take a copy or photo of the ‘Cause of Death’ form. He said she’d have to request a copy from the government and it could take months to arrive.
But the funeral director also commiserated with Plaxton. He was incredulous that her mother had gone from dehydrated to dead so fast. He also was bewildered by the requirements such as bodies having to be picked up in haste and arrangements for cremation and burial also having to be made extremely quickly.
“I’m just taking orders from the top down,” Plaxton recalls the funeral director telling her.
That’s the third of the three sets of conditions that can enable high death rates in care homes.
The three sets are the work of officials, experts and bureaucrats who – while being seen to serve the public interest and who could be unaware of, or oblivious to, the implications of the conditions – may in fact have hidden intentions.
Even if the latter is true, there’s little chance the perpetrators will be caught or punished.
On May 19 the Ontario premier announced that an independent commission will probe why so many people have died in the province’s care homes. This journalist believes it’s very unlikely the commission’s mandate will include scrutinizing the sets of conditions described in this article.
Perhaps the most elegant element of all is that just one or two people working at any given care home can suffice to translate the sets of conditions into actions – or inaction – that can be deadly for residents. And they’d probably be the only ones held responsible in the unlikely event any of this ever comes to light.
It’s all as simple as one, two, three.
Rosemary Frei has an Msc in molecular biology from a faculty of medicine and was a freelance medical writer and journalist for 22 years. She is now an independent investigative journalist. You can read her article on The Seven Steps from Pandemic to Totalitarianism here, watch and listen to an interview she gave on COVID-19, and follow her on Twitter.


offguardian--2020-05-25--The REAL meaning behind Dominic Cummings breaking lockdown

From Ferguson to Cuomo to Cummings , the high profile Lockdown violations show the establishment don ’ t believe their own hype The debate today is whether Dominic Cummings , Boris Johnson ’ s Chief Advisor , should resign , or not .
Whether he broke the lockdown rules , or even the law .
Whether his trip was justified or if there was some perfidiousness behind it .
Mostly , they miss the vitally important point .
The same was true when Neil Ferguson – main author of the Imperial Model , and consequently the lockdown – was found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ girlfriend .
The press divided between the lockdown enthusiasts defending him , or the anti-lockdowners eagerly calling him a hypocrite .
Both , again , were missing the point .
Yes , it ’ s satisfying to cast people down for being hypocrites .
Yes , it ’ s easy to conduct witchhunts based on shallow issues against people whose politics we disagree with .
But to take part in the free-for-all is to endorse a distraction that actually reinforces the narrative , and misses the fundamentally more important issue at the root @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meant to be “ sheltering in place ” and “ protecting the NHS ” and “ saving lives ” because there is a “ deadly virus ” .
We ’ re being told this is for our own safety .
Because the virus is allegedly dangerous .
When the people giving us these orders do not follow them themselves , they are not showing themselves to be “ hypocrites ” .
They are showing themselves to be liars .
They are admitting they don ’ t really believe what they ’ re saying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the other side of the pond – Chris Cuomo , CNN anchor , brother of one New York governor and son of another .
When Cuomo was meant to be “ self-isolating ” , after allegedly getting infected , he was spotted by a cyclist socialising on the site where his new house is being built .
( Days later , Cuomo made a big deal out of emerging from his basement as if he hadn ’ t seen his family in two weeks ) .
You don ’ t invite your married @ @ @ @ @ @ @ send her back to her husband and children , if you really believe there ’ s a dangerous virus .
You don ’ t drive to Durham in the middle of a “ national emergency ” if you really believe we could all get infected and die .
You don ’ t break your self-isolation early to have a barbecue with your neighbours if you truly think you have a terrible disease that could make your family sick .
If I tell you you shouldn ’ t eat chocolate , because it will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take your chocolate off you and eat it – you wouldn ’ t think “ You hypocrite !
You fool !
That could make your head explode !
” , would you ?
You ’ d be far more likely to think “ Hey , he lied to me so he could steal my chocolate.
” Whether it ’ s Neil Ferguson or Dom Cummings or Chris Cuomo the message is the same .
They are telling us they do not really believe there is any danger .
More than that , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really believe it either .
Look at the crush of reporters and cameramen swarm over Dom Cummings outside his home this morning : Are any of those people social distancing ?
Are they all wearing masks ?
Are they acting – in any way whatsoever – as if there is a genuinely “ deadly virus ” out there ?
No , they ’ re not .
Because they don ’ t really believe it .
The same is true of the police , who will happily man-handle someone for not wearing a mask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Or , without any sense of irony , mob protesters for not “ social distancing ” : Whether this is true Orwellian double-think or just old-fashioned dishonesty is not for us to judge ( that ’ s between them , their consciences and maybe their therapists ) .
The internal complexities are as unknowable as they are irrelevant .
The point is : The police , the press , the scientists , the politicians – everyone spouting the need to follow the lockdown rules is perfectly happy to break them .
Because they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and it ’ s not to protect us from a virus .

From Ferguson to Cuomo to Cummings, the high profile Lockdown violations show the establishment don’t believe their own hype
Kit Knightly
The debate today is whether Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s Chief Advisor, should resign, or not. Whether he broke the lockdown rules, or even the law. Whether his trip was justified or if there was some perfidiousness behind it.
Mostly, they miss the vitally important point.
The same was true when Neil Ferguson – main author of the Imperial Model, and consequently the lockdown – was found to be breaking lockdown with his married girlfriend.
The press divided between the lockdown enthusiasts defending him, or the anti-lockdowners eagerly calling him a hypocrite.
Both, again, were missing the point.
Yes, it’s satisfying to cast people down for being hypocrites. Yes, it’s easy to conduct witchhunts based on shallow issues against people whose politics we disagree with. But to take part in the free-for-all is to endorse a distraction that actually reinforces the narrative, and misses the fundamentally more important issue at the root of it.
We’re all meant to be “sheltering in place” and “protecting the NHS” and “saving lives” because there is a “deadly virus”. We’re being told this is for our own safety. Because the virus is allegedly dangerous.
When the people giving us these orders do not follow them themselves, they are not showing themselves to be “hypocrites”. They are showing themselves to be liars. They are admitting they don’t really believe what they’re saying.
The best example is actually from the other side of the pond – Chris Cuomo, CNN anchor, brother of one New York governor and son of another.
When Cuomo was meant to be “self-isolating”, after allegedly getting infected, he was spotted by a cyclist socialising on the site where his new house is being built. (Days later, Cuomo made a big deal out of emerging from his basement as if he hadn’t seen his family in two weeks).
You don’t invite your married girlfriend round to your house, then send her back to her husband and children, if you really believe there’s a dangerous virus.
You don’t drive to Durham in the middle of a “national emergency” if you really believe we could all get infected and die.
You don’t break your self-isolation early to have a barbecue with your neighbours if you truly think you have a terrible disease that could make your family sick.
If I tell you you shouldn’t eat chocolate, because it will make your head explode, then I take your chocolate off you and eat it – you wouldn’t think “You hypocrite! You fool! That could make your head explode!”, would you?
You’d be far more likely to think “Hey, he lied to me so he could steal my chocolate.”
(To fully complete the metaphor there needs to be a third person there, saying “but chocolate never made our heads explode before”, and being roundly insulted by the other two as a “Chocolate Denier”, who “just wants people’s heads to explode!”)
Whether it’s Neil Ferguson or Dom Cummings or Chris Cuomo the message is the same. They are telling us they do not really believe there is any danger.
More than that, the press covering it obviously don’t really believe it either.
Look at the crush of reporters and cameramen swarm over Dom Cummings outside his home this morning:
No adherence to #SocialDistancing rules by the hypocritical #FakeNews media as they ambush Dominic Cummings at his family home. This is a Witch Hunt, plain and simple.pic.twitter.com/rF20OO4rsp — Darren of Plymouth 🇬🇧 (@DarrenPlymouth) May 24, 2020
Remember: Cummings alleged crime is “breaking social distancing rules”.
Are any of those people social distancing? Are they all wearing masks? Are they acting – in any way whatsoever – as if there is a genuinely “deadly virus” out there?
No, they’re not. Because they don’t really believe it.
The same is true of the police, who will happily man-handle someone for not wearing a mask, despite not wearing masks themselves:
German police attack a man for not wearing mask in supermarket. Is this LAW in Germany, or just ‘recommend’?….. either way, these police officers don’t bother wearing masks themselves! This is BRUTAL treatment of citizens!#MartialLaw #NWO pic.twitter.com/So4u9dawIo — BeachMilk (@BeachMilk) May 15, 2020
Or, without any sense of irony, mob protesters for not “social distancing”:
Whether this is true Orwellian double-think or just old-fashioned dishonesty is not for us to judge (that’s between them, their consciences and maybe their therapists). The internal complexities are as unknowable as they are irrelevant.
The point is: The police, the press, the scientists, the politicians – everyone spouting the need to follow the lockdown rules is perfectly happy to break them.
Because they know what they’re really for, and it’s not to protect us from a virus.


offguardian--2020-05-25--We’re all in the big numbers now

We’re all in the big numbers now

It is the end of the affair .
We are no longer at epidemic levels of covid19 prevalence in the UK ( 0.27 % of the population infected , where 0.4 % is the low end required to be “ epidemic ” ) , and all-cause deaths have slipped back below average .
It seems a good time to look back on the extraordinary past few weeks and try and draw conclusions .
First : who has the disease killed ?
Covid19 targets the old and the sick ; this is not to be callous , but to understand the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ average age of those dying of covid19 in the UK is over 80 , and fully a third are residents of care homes where average “ stay ” ( a euphemism I ’ m afraid ) was only 30 months from admission before the virus anyway .
Our statistics agencies are only now following Italy ’ s lead and publishing the comorbidities of those dying from covid19 , and it is now clear just how extreme is the amplification of risk .
95 % of victims dying with covid19 have serious pre-existing conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ severe enough to be mentioned as causes of death on death certificates .
The most prevalent are dementia and diabetes ( a quarter of cases , each ) , hypertension ( a fifth ) and serious lung , kidney or heart disease ( around a sixth each ) .
In both the UK and Italy , the average victim had three comorbidities severe enough to be causes of death on a certificate .
Second : who hasn ’ t it killed ?
Parents , unions and nervy adults fret about the risk , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no serious pre-existing conditions , the young-ish and healthy are far more likely to be hit by lightning ( 49 occurrences per annum in UK ) than to die of covid19 ( 33 in England under age 40 , of which only 3 under the age of 19 ) .
Panning out , among healthy under 60s ( i.e .
children and the vast majority of our working population ) , 253 people have died of covid19 in English hospitals ; this compares to 400 ( non-suicide ) drownings per year in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are no pre-existing conditions serious enough to be mentioned as contributary causes of death , covid19 has taken about 2/3rds the lives that British roads do every year , and we wouldn ’ t think of outlawing driving , swimming or going outside in a storm .
Even taking all deaths where covid19 is mentioned on the death certificate regardless of age or comorbidities , looking at the total toll : 43,000 lives is less than 2018 ’ s excess winter deaths and would count as a bad , but by no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ College haven ’ t had a good war , and after their performance in other recent epidemics perhaps they will now pass their mantle onto another team .
Preferably one that can code to levels fit for publication , never mind policy : it is increasingly awkward to hear the Prime Minister quoting their forecast that , were it not for lockdown , the UK could have been looking at half a million deaths when , at the tail-end of the epidemic , there are only 320,000 deaths worldwide .
But there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most accurate analysts were those who relied on other pillars of science than complicated models when input parameters were close to unknown ( “ garbage in , garbage out ” ) .
Science does not only proceed from models after all : it also has , inter alia , experiments , defaults ( “ null hypotheses ” ) , controls and historical context .
In mid-March , Stanford ’ s Nobel laureate Michael Levitt ( biophysicist and professor of structural biology ) discussed the “ natural experiment ” of the Diamond Princess @ @ @ @ @ @ @ petri-dish disproportionately filled with the most susceptible age and health groups .
Even here , despite the virus spreading uncontrolled onboard for at least two weeks , infection only reached 20 % of passengers and crew ( an “ upper bound ” to infection levels ? )
; Levitt concluded that we must have high levels of innate immunity that can clear the virus .
And using very simple mathematics ( not “ 15,000 lines of uncommented code ” like Neil Ferguson ) he demonstrated that the virus ’ s spread had never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of steam from day one .
Who listened ?
The eccentric biostatistician Knut Wittkowski came at things from a different angle , the “ null hypothesis ” angle – a default , in layman terms .
In the absence of evidence to the contrary , he assumed that covid19 was a normal viral respiratory disease , and at the end of March wrote a compelling but neglected paper showing how the emerging data backed up his view that “ respiratory diseases [ including covid19 ] … remain only about two months in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be seen in the first graph at the top of this article showing the UK ’ s epidemic , but is illustrated more clearly by a simple “ what-if ” thought-experiment : respiratory viral diseases generally peak in mid-winter , and covid19 is very unusual to be killing people with a peak at Easter .
If we simply move covid19 deaths from spring to winter , the death-toll and the extent of the epidemic is put in the context of recent bad ( but not dramatic ) influenza years .
Remember the killer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the Millenium super-spreader events ?
Me neither .
Covid19 might not be “ just flu ” , but that ’ s because there ’ s no “ just ” about flu .
We also have ‘ controls ’ , since not all countries have behaved the same .
Neither Sweden nor Japan have locked down so , if the lockdown hypothesis were true , Stockholm would by now be a morgue and Greater Tokyo ( population 38 million ) a necropolis .
In Sweden , Professors Giesecke and Tegnell have managed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without suspending civil liberties or shutting down schools or society ( Sir Patrick Vallance ’ s “ Plan A ” ) , with no greater death-toll than our own .
The Free Swedes pointed out all along that lockdown would be much easier to get into than out of : no kidding , we ’ re in an eel-trap .
The final scientific datum would have been historical context .
The media has not pointed out that the toll of covid19 is only 0.5 % that of the 1918/1919 influenza , before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could Neil Ferguson ’ s attention-grabbing estimate of twice the number of deaths for covid19 ever have been realistic when the parameters of the disease were largely unknown ?
I mean : what were the chances ?
Oxford ’ s competing model , trumpeted in the press but attacked by their peers , looks like it will have been far more accurate , so it will be important in due course to ask : why ?
SAGE minutes make it clear that the public was explicitly petrified in order to ensure compliance with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but has a real cost in lives : before a policy lever like lockdown was pulled , where was the cost/benefit analysis , or was SAGE only thinking of covid19 ?
Lockdown , after all , affects not just this thing over here ( covid19 ) but also that thing over there ( cancer , cardiac , sepsis , etc. )
.
Through lockdown , A & E cardiac admissions have been as much as 50 % down , so around 5,000 people per month have not been turning up at hospital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside hospital have only a 1-in-10 chance of survival .
Same story with strokes .
And downstream , many cancers are touch-and-go even if you catch them early ; give them a two month head-start and Stanford ’ s Professor Bhattacharya estimates the impact of urgent cancer referrals running 70 % below normal levels will be around 18,000 deaths .
Chris Whitty ( CMO ) warned two months ago of the toll of these “ indirect deaths ” ( = ’ lockdown deaths ’ ) , and the figures are in : there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since the start of lockdown , of which over 12,000 in care homes .
Can the scale of these figures in the context of the disease be remotely acceptable ?
Where the inevitable enquiry highlights failings , let ’ s hope they will never be made again .
An obvious smoking gun is the government guidance ( until 12th March ) that it was “ very unlikely ” that people in care homes will become infected with covid19 .
It was already known from the Italian experience that this simply could not be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ target demographic ; but as late as mid-April government policy was still for patients to be admitted to care homes from hospitals without requiring negative tests .
Bluntly , this is what South Korea ( whose care homes instituted regular temperature checks on all residents with compulsory quarantine for anybody symptomatic , and with two consecutive negative tests required before re-admittance ) and Germany ( where hospitals are paid for each night a patient is retained , unlike “ our ” NHS ) got right and the UK got lamentably wrong .
Lockdown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
What of the impact on the “ levelling-up ” agenda ?
The lockdown will prove a peerless inequality wedge : many executives are still busy but a huge number of the lower-waged millions think they ’ re furloughed but will soon find they ’ re unemployed .
And consider education : it ’ s increasingly clear that schools should never have closed ( so why aren ’ t they immediately re-opened ? )
, and although private schools have maintained a full curriculum through lockdown , elsewhere many children will have missed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ education by September with the damage incalculable .
The damage to the economy is calculable , but dizzying : an extra £300 to 500 billion deficit ( let me help you : 10 to 15 Brexit bills , with lockdown now costing a Brexit bill per week ) will mean higher taxes , higher borrowing and therefore ( the other side of the equation ) less investment .
Geographically , investment will refocus where it always made sense , not in the locations where , politically , it is most needed .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around soon , the “ northern powerhouse ” agenda will wither on the vine and the mortar is already falling out of the Red Wall .
( Sorry for the mixed metaphors but you get the point . )
Kids can ’ t make it through a day at school without having “ growth mindset ” hammered into them , so let ’ s acknowledge failings and learn lessons from this shambles , and make sure that the next epidemic meets defences ready to resist it : • The Nightingales : is there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and dust-sheeted , ready at a moment ’ s notice for the inevitable next time , rather than having to put the rest of the NHS into hibernation during an epidemic at such cost to life ?
Of course , this is no good without the staff , so : • Remember the 750,000-strong ‘ NHS volunteer army ’ : would basic annual training ( like a medical Territorial Army ) allow us to hit future epidemics with phalanxes of trained staff ready to go ?
• Given the high incidence of asymptomatic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with this virus notwithstanding the horlicks made of setting up the NHSX app .
But perhaps the next killer , the “ disease X ” , will be amenable to such an approach , and we should have the app and other tracing measures ready to go at a moment ’ s notice .
• PPE : how on earth could we run out so early in an epidemic ?
And treatment protocols changed during the epidemic such that the ventilators weren ’ t needed ; but maybe they will be next time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the hop again .
For now : we ’ re bamboozled with daily changes to the semi-mystical R number ( cognoscenti have moved onto Z-scores ) , but dig below the surface and it ’ s clear that transmission is now mostly within care homes and hospitals ( up to 20 % of infections are now nosocomial ) , and even there it is in rapid retreat .
So why on earth is civil society still locked down ?
Boris Johnson ’ s hero was not famous for “ grandmother steps ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ( despite the polls ) the lockdown is causing more harm than good ; Churchill would grit his teeth , rip the plaster off , and get the country back to school and back to work .

It is the end of the affair. We are no longer at epidemic levels of covid19 prevalence in the UK (0.27% of the population infected, where 0.4% is the low end required to be “epidemic”), and all-cause deaths have slipped back below average.
It seems a good time to look back on the extraordinary past few weeks and try and draw conclusions.
First: who has the disease killed?
Covid19 targets the old and the sick; this is not to be callous, but to understand the enemy and to provide context. The average age of those dying of covid19 in the UK is over 80, and fully a third are residents of care homes where average “stay” (a euphemism I’m afraid) was only 30 months from admission before the virus anyway.
Our statistics agencies are only now following Italy’s lead and publishing the comorbidities of those dying from covid19, and it is now clear just how extreme is the amplification of risk. 95% of victims dying with covid19 have serious pre-existing conditions: not just background illnesses, but severe enough to be mentioned as causes of death on death certificates.
The most prevalent are dementia and diabetes (a quarter of cases, each), hypertension (a fifth) and serious lung, kidney or heart disease (around a sixth each). In both the UK and Italy, the average victim had three comorbidities severe enough to be causes of death on a certificate.
Second: who hasn’t it killed?
Parents, unions and nervy adults fret about the risk, but there is little need. With no serious pre-existing conditions, the young-ish and healthy are far more likely to be hit by lightning (49 occurrences per annum in UK) than to die of covid19 (33 in England under age 40, of which only 3 under the age of 19).
Panning out, among healthy under 60s (i.e. children and the vast majority of our working population), 253 people have died of covid19 in English hospitals; this compares to 400 (non-suicide) drownings per year in the UK.
And taking all age-groups where there are no pre-existing conditions serious enough to be mentioned as contributary causes of death, covid19 has taken about 2/3rds the lives that British roads do every year, and we wouldn’t think of outlawing driving, swimming or going outside in a storm.
Even taking all deaths where covid19 is mentioned on the death certificate regardless of age or comorbidities, looking at the total toll: 43,000 lives is less than 2018’s excess winter deaths and would count as a bad, but by no means remarkable, influenza year.
Scientific Context
Imperial College haven’t had a good war, and after their performance in other recent epidemics perhaps they will now pass their mantle onto another team. Preferably one that can code to levels fit for publication, never mind policy: it is increasingly awkward to hear the Prime Minister quoting their forecast that, were it not for lockdown, the UK could have been looking at half a million deaths when, at the tail-end of the epidemic, there are only 320,000 deaths worldwide.
But there is more to science than models, and the most accurate analysts were those who relied on other pillars of science than complicated models when input parameters were close to unknown (“garbage in, garbage out”).
Science does not only proceed from models after all: it also has, inter alia, experiments, defaults (“null hypotheses”), controls and historical context.
In mid-March, Stanford’s Nobel laureate Michael Levitt (biophysicist and professor of structural biology) discussed the “natural experiment” of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, a virtually perfect sealed petri-dish disproportionately filled with the most susceptible age and health groups.
Even here, despite the virus spreading uncontrolled onboard for at least two weeks, infection only reached 20% of passengers and crew (an “upper bound” to infection levels?); Levitt concluded that we must have high levels of innate immunity that can clear the virus.
And using very simple mathematics (not “15,000 lines of uncommented code” like Neil Ferguson) he demonstrated that the virus’s spread had never been exponential but rather has been running out of steam from day one. Who listened?
The eccentric biostatistician Knut Wittkowski came at things from a different angle, the “null hypothesis” angle – a default, in layman terms.
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, he assumed that covid19 was a normal viral respiratory disease, and at the end of March wrote a compelling but neglected paper showing how the emerging data backed up his view that “respiratory diseases [including covid19]… remain only about two months in any given population”.
This can be seen in the first graph at the top of this article showing the UK’s epidemic, but is illustrated more clearly by a simple “what-if” thought-experiment: respiratory viral diseases generally peak in mid-winter, and covid19 is very unusual to be killing people with a peak at Easter.
If we simply move covid19 deaths from spring to winter, the death-toll and the extent of the epidemic is put in the context of recent bad (but not dramatic) influenza years.
Remember the killer flu of 2000, and the lockdown after the Millenium super-spreader events? Me neither. Covid19 might not be “just flu”, but that’s because there’s no “just” about flu.
We also have ‘controls’, since not all countries have behaved the same. Neither Sweden nor Japan have locked down so, if the lockdown hypothesis were true, Stockholm would by now be a morgue and Greater Tokyo (population 38 million) a necropolis.
In Sweden, Professors Giesecke and Tegnell have managed the epidemic within Sweden’s healthcare capacity without suspending civil liberties or shutting down schools or society (Sir Patrick Vallance’s “Plan A”), with no greater death-toll than our own. The Free Swedes pointed out all along that lockdown would be much easier to get into than out of: no kidding, we’re in an eel-trap.
The final scientific datum would have been historical context. The media has not pointed out that the toll of covid19 is only 0.5% that of the 1918/1919 influenza, before the advent of antibiotics. Although possible, could Neil Ferguson’s attention-grabbing estimate of twice the number of deaths for covid19 ever have been realistic when the parameters of the disease were largely unknown? I mean: what were the chances?
Oxford’s competing model, trumpeted in the press but attacked by their peers, looks like it will have been far more accurate, so it will be important in due course to ask: why?
Harm done
SAGE minutes make it clear that the public was explicitly petrified in order to ensure compliance with lockdown.
Mind-control is objectionable in itself, but has a real cost in lives: before a policy lever like lockdown was pulled, where was the cost/benefit analysis, or was SAGE only thinking of covid19?
Lockdown, after all, affects not just this thing over here (covid19) but also that thing over there (cancer, cardiac, sepsis, etc.).
Through lockdown, A&E cardiac admissions have been as much as 50% down, so around 5,000 people per month have not been turning up at hospital with heart attack symptoms; heart attacks outside hospital have only a 1-in-10 chance of survival. Same story with strokes. And downstream, many cancers are touch-and-go even if you catch them early; give them a two month head-start and Stanford’s Professor Bhattacharya estimates the impact of urgent cancer referrals running 70% below normal levels will be around 18,000 deaths.
Chris Whitty (CMO) warned two months ago of the toll of these “indirect deaths” (=’lockdown deaths’), and the figures are in: there have been over 13,000 non-covid excess deaths since the start of lockdown, of which over 12,000 in care homes. Can the scale of these figures in the context of the disease be remotely acceptable?
Politics
Where the inevitable enquiry highlights failings, let’s hope they will never be made again. An obvious smoking gun is the government guidance (until 12th March) that it was “very unlikely” that people in care homes will become infected with covid19.
It was already known from the Italian experience that this simply could not be the case given the disease’s target demographic; but as late as mid-April government policy was still for patients to be admitted to care homes from hospitals without requiring negative tests.
Bluntly, this is what South Korea (whose care homes instituted regular temperature checks on all residents with compulsory quarantine for anybody symptomatic, and with two consecutive negative tests required before re-admittance) and Germany (where hospitals are paid for each night a patient is retained, unlike “our” NHS) got right and the UK got lamentably wrong.
Lockdown’s political consequences will be dramatic. What of the impact on the “levelling-up” agenda? The lockdown will prove a peerless inequality wedge: many executives are still busy but a huge number of the lower-waged millions think they’re furloughed but will soon find they’re unemployed.
And consider education: it’s increasingly clear that schools should never have closed (so why aren’t they immediately re-opened?), and although private schools have maintained a full curriculum through lockdown, elsewhere many children will have missed out on half a year’s education by September with the damage incalculable.
The damage to the economy is calculable, but dizzying: an extra £300 to 500 billion deficit (let me help you: 10 to 15 Brexit bills, with lockdown now costing a Brexit bill per week) will mean higher taxes, higher borrowing and therefore (the other side of the equation) less investment.
Geographically, investment will refocus where it always made sense, not in the locations where, politically, it is most needed. If the lockdown tanker isn’t turned around soon, the “northern powerhouse” agenda will wither on the vine and the mortar is already falling out of the Red Wall. (Sorry for the mixed metaphors but you get the point.)
Next time
Kids can’t make it through a day at school without having “growth mindset” hammered into them, so let’s acknowledge failings and learn lessons from this shambles, and make sure that the next epidemic meets defences ready to resist it:
The Nightingales: is there a case to have spare hospitals mothballed and dust-sheeted, ready at a moment’s notice for the inevitable next time, rather than having to put the rest of the NHS into hibernation during an epidemic at such cost to life? Of course, this is no good without the staff, so: Remember the 750,000-strong ‘NHS volunteer army’: would basic annual training (like a medical Territorial Army) allow us to hit future epidemics with phalanxes of trained staff ready to go? Given the high incidence of asymptomatic spread, contact-tracing can’t work with this virus notwithstanding the horlicks made of setting up the NHSX app. But perhaps the next killer, the “disease X”, will be amenable to such an approach, and we should have the app and other tracing measures ready to go at a moment’s notice. PPE: how on earth could we run out so early in an epidemic? And treatment protocols changed during the epidemic such that the ventilators weren’t needed; but maybe they will be next time.
Let’s not be caught on the hop again.
For now: we’re bamboozled with daily changes to the semi-mystical R number (cognoscenti have moved onto Z-scores), but dig below the surface and it’s clear that transmission is now mostly within care homes and hospitals (up to 20% of infections are now nosocomial), and even there it is in rapid retreat.
So why on earth is civil society still locked down?
Boris Johnson’s hero was not famous for “grandmother steps”, and it is clearer every day that (despite the polls) the lockdown is causing more harm than good; Churchill would grit his teeth, rip the plaster off, and get the country back to school and back to work.
Originally published on The Critic


offguardian--2020-05-27--WATCH: Meet Bill Gates

WATCH: Meet Bill Gates

There can be no doubt that Bill Gates has worn many hats on his remarkable journey from his early life @ @ @ @ @ a Seattle-area power couple to his current status as one of the richest and most @ @ @ @ @ .
But , as we have seen in our exploration of Gates ’ rise as @ @ @ @ @ population control advocate , the question of who Bill Gates really is is no mere @ @ @ @ @ will attempt to answer that question as we examine the motives , the ideology , @ @ @ @ @ man who has been so instrumental in shaping the post-coronavirus world .

There can be no doubt that Bill Gates has worn many hats on his remarkable journey from his early life as the privileged son of a Seattle-area power couple to his current status as one of the richest and most influential people on the planet.
But, as we have seen in our exploration of Gates’ rise as unelected global health czar and population control advocate, the question of who Bill Gates really is is no mere philosophical pursuit. Today we will attempt to answer that question as we examine the motives, the ideology, and the connections of this man who has been so instrumental in shaping the post-coronavirus world.


offguardian--2020-05-28--Medical Professionals and Scientists for Health, Freedom and Democracy

Dr Sucharit Bhakdi , and other like-minded medical professionals , have launched Medical Professionals and Scientists for Health , Freedom and Democracy .
A new initiative to organise those who , based on years of experience and their own research , do not believe Covid19 is anything like the “ threat ” it is constantly presented as .
Below is an abridged version of their statement [ full version here ] : Dear like-minded colleagues in other countries , we would like to share with you how our German initiative under the leadership of Prof. Dr. med .
Sucharit Bhakdi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a manageable group of like-minded people from the above-mentioned professional groups , including in particular people who have already attracted attention in society , in the media , on the Internet , e.g .
on YouTube , with their critical comments on the topic of “ excessive containment measures in COVID-19 ” .
The people involved appreciated very much joining forces as a group .
Physicians and professional health care workers , as well as scientists , are most trusted when it comes to health issues .
Freedom and democracy are intimately connected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crucial role for the well being of the individual , and therefore also for his or her health .
As committed people from these professional groups join forces and , for example , found an association , they can work together to inform and educate people and thus also contribute to the formation of opinions by political decision-makers .
A medical colleague experienced in founding associations pointed out to us that it would be helpful if a newly founded association , at least initially , was limited to a not too large @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep the association flexible and manageable with regard to organisational work load ( We all still have our usually quite busy day job ) .
These initiatives can then inform the public via their website and a YouTube channel ( e.g .
post a position paper on COVID-19 ) and can attract like-minded supporters through the website , and keep them up to date on further actions via e-mail newsletters .
Especially with regard to the , in our opinion , completely excessive measures to contain the “ COVID-19 pandemic ” , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ renowned Prof. John Ioannidis , Stanford University , is comparable in its dangerousness , reflected in the “ mortality rate ” , with a viral flu caused by influenza viruses , our request to speak is more than necessary to reassure and educate the people in our respective countries .
There will be enough other topics , such as the impending compulsory vaccination etc.
, which will ask for further public statements and commitment on our part .
Therefore this is also a project for the future , the future of a better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and peace of the countries and peoples of this earth .
The MWGFD will continue to make its voice heard through information campaigns on various other issues , wherever it sees health , freedom and democracy threatened by political aberrations .
• Critical observation of social and political developments concerning health , freedom and democracy for the best possible protection of these values .
• Obtaining competent evaluations on the basis of science and evidence .
• Information of the broadest possible audience on various topics , independent of the public media .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of like-minded people throughout Germany .
We are currently a small association in Germany and have only limited time resources .
So we can by no means react promptly to a flood of e-mails .
Therefore , our suggestion : If you want to found such a group in your country , then take such or similar steps .
Later on we can communicate with each other by e-mail [ email protected ] .
Good luck and success for your initiative !

Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, and other like-minded medical professionals, have launched Medical Professionals and Scientists for Health, Freedom and Democracy. A new initiative to organise those who, based on years of experience and their own research, do not believe Covid19 is anything like the “threat” it is constantly presented as.
Below is an abridged version of their statement [full version here]:
Dear like-minded colleagues in other countries, we would like to share with you how our German initiative under the leadership of Prof. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi came about.
We joined together as a manageable group of like-minded people from the above-mentioned professional groups, including in particular people who have already attracted attention in society, in the media, on the Internet, e.g. on YouTube, with their critical comments on the topic of “excessive containment measures in COVID-19”. The people involved appreciated very much joining forces as a group.
Physicians and professional health care workers, as well as scientists, are most trusted when it comes to health issues. Freedom and democracy are intimately connected to health, because these aspects play a crucial role for the well being of the individual, and therefore also for his or her health.
As committed people from these professional groups join forces and, for example, found an association, they can work together to inform and educate people and thus also contribute to the formation of opinions by political decision-makers.
A medical colleague experienced in founding associations pointed out to us that it would be helpful if a newly founded association, at least initially, was limited to a not too large number of people. This would give keep the association flexible and manageable with regard to organisational work load (We all still have our usually quite busy day job).
These initiatives can then inform the public via their website and a YouTube channel (e.g. post a position paper on COVID-19) and can attract like-minded supporters through the website, and keep them up to date on further actions via e-mail newsletters.
Especially with regard to the, in our opinion, completely excessive measures to contain the “COVID-19 pandemic”, which, according to the findings of the renowned Prof. John Ioannidis, Stanford University, is comparable in its dangerousness, reflected in the “mortality rate”, with a viral flu caused by influenza viruses, our request to speak is more than necessary to reassure and educate the people in our respective countries.
There will be enough other topics, such as the impending compulsory vaccination etc., which will ask for further public statements and commitment on our part.
Therefore this is also a project for the future, the future of a better, fairer, healthier world in freedom and peace of the countries and peoples of this earth.
The MWGFD will continue to make its voice heard through information campaigns on various other issues, wherever it sees health, freedom and democracy threatened by political aberrations.
Aims of the MWGFD:
Critical observation of social and political developments concerning health, freedom and democracy for the best possible protection of these values. Obtaining competent evaluations on the basis of science and evidence. Information of the broadest possible audience on various topics, independent of the public media. Establishment of the largest possible network of like-minded people throughout Germany.
We are currently a small association in Germany and have only limited time resources. So we can by no means react promptly to a flood of e-mails.
Therefore, our suggestion: If you want to found such a group in your country, then take such or similar steps.
Later on we can communicate with each other by e-mail [email protected].
Good luck and success for your initiative!