In Covid News, 3/14/22

Because We Can't Let Go Of This

I’ll start out with two brief news items that play into the first of two significant articles.

The drumbeat of Covid Regime rollbacks continues, both on the national level as well as on local and business levels:

JPMorgan to resume hiring unvaccinated individuals, drop mask mandate -memo
MSN ^ | 3/14/22

JPMorgan Chase & Co will resume hiring unvaccinated individuals from April 4, the bank said in an internal memo seen by Reuters on Monday, as it looks to ease rules put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bank is also dropping the mask mandate in it offices for all employees, making wearing masks voluntary for both vaccinated and unvaccinated employees, according to the memo.

Mandatory testing for unvaccinated staffers, asking employees to report COVID-19 infection and associated contact tracing and notifications will be discontinued on April 4, the memo said. "We are learning to live with COVID as part of our new normal," the bank said in the memo, as cases decline and vaccines continue to offer high levels of immunity.

From firing to hiring, the “new normal” looks remarkably like the old normal—the real normal, if you will.

France joins Austria in simply walking away from the Covid Regime, one of the more draconian that had been in place. Note what’s interesting—this is happening in the face of rising cases.

France Lifts COVID-19 Rules on Unvaccinated, Mask Wearing
ABC News ^ | March 14, 2022 | Sylvie Corbet

France lifted most COVID-19 restrictions on Monday, abolishing the need to wear face masks in most settings and allowing people who aren’t vaccinated back into restaurants, sports arenas and other venues.

The move had been announced earlier this month by the French government based on assessments of the improving situation in hospitals and following weeks of a steady decline in infections. It comes less than a month before the first round of the presidential election scheduled on April 10.

But in recent days, the number of new infections has started increasing again, raising concerns from some scientists it may be too soon to lift restrictions. The number of new infections have reached more than 60,000 based on a seven-day average, up from about 50,000 a week before.

Two comments. There is widespread data suggesting that Covid has become a pandemic of the injected—that is especially striking when it comes to mortality figures. What would be the point of confining the healthy when, at some point, you have a society and an economy to operate? The other consideration is the one that the following article brings up—the power of public opionion.

Jeffrey Tucker’s article at Brownstone Institute today—How Public Opinion Ended Covid, and Started the Next Thing—is a comment that takes off from polling data. I really don’t have much to add, so I’ll cut to the chase—however, note in particular at the beginning the reference to mortality stats. The end of the Covid Regime has come in spite of the same conditions that were used to start up the hysteria two years ago:

After two years, public opinion has dramatically reversed. Keep in mind that as recently as the last week of February 2021 [he actually means 2022], data indicated that deaths attributed to Covid (if these are and ever were credible numbers) nationwide are roughly the same as they were during the most intense lockdowns of late March 2020. And actually, cases and deaths are higher than they were in the summer of 2020 when public opinion showed mass support for lockdowns.

…

We should be grateful to Americans for Prosperity and YouGov for finally conducting a poll to assess people’s current willingness to comply with virus impositions. The results are encouraging on their face, and provide something of an insight into what has changed. The mood of the public either drove the change or reflected the change in regime priorities, take your pick. Regardless, the shift is dramatic. 

To quote the results:

• 43 percent of Americans feel their protest rights are less secure; only 9 percent say they’re more secure.

• 42 percent of Americans feel their ability to voice their opinion has diminished since the start of the pandemic; only 12 percent say they’re ability to voice their opinion has become more secure.

• More than one in three Americans feel their religious liberties are less secure; only 10 percent feel they’re more secure.

• 49 percent of people said their trust in the CDC has gone way down or slightly down since the start of the pandemic.

• 41 percent of Americans said their trust in the Congress is “way down,” and another 20 percent said that their trust in Congress has gone slightly down, for a total of 61 percent of Americans who indicated they have lost trust in the US Congress since the beginning of the pandemic.

• 59 percent of Americans said public officials did a somewhat or very poor job of being transparent with the public about the information being used and the reasoning. regarding any restrictions or requirements, While 28 percent said government officials did a somewhat or very good job, and 13 percent were unsure.

• Nearly six in ten Americans (58 percent) believe public officials did a poor job of seeking input from the public; only 22 percent said they did a somewhat or very good job and another 20 percent were not sure.

• 55 percent of Americans think officials have done a poor job reassessing any restrictions or requirements; 29 percent believe they did a good job.

• 52 percent of people said officials did a poor job keeping any restrictions or requirements as focused and narrow as possible, with 27 percent disagreeing and saying government officials did a good job.

• 52 percent of Americans also say officials did a poor job allowing sensible modifications to rules as opposed to having blanket bans on activities, while 30 percent of Americans think they did a good job.

• 54 percent of people said officials have done a somewhat or very poor job applying any restrictions or requirements equally to all people, while 31 percent of Americans think government officials did a good job with respect to applying COVID restrictions equally to all people.

These results point to one conclusion: between one-half and two-thirds of the public believe that the pandemic response was an enormous flop, and that their own liberties are far less secure now than they were before. Further, none of it worked to achieve that goal. That is a devastating indictment on the biggest expansion of government power and control in our lifetimes, one that happened not only in the US but almost everywhere in the world. 

Do you wonder how Covid could have so completely disappeared from media coverage and public life so quickly and decisively? Public opinion made a huge contribution. As a result, the people who gave us these policies that have unleashed every kind of economic, cultural, and social malady now want everyone to forget it ever happened. 

And without apologies or regrets, …

Never forget this. Never. More on that later.

The final item is taken from an article at Red State—taking a break from their anti-Russia hysteria that they’ve been pushing relentlessly: Analyses of CDC Data Show Massive Spike in Excess Mortality in Millennials After Vaccine Mandates.

I’m actually going to skip over the bulk of the main topic of the article, excess mortality—important though it is. However, what I will emphasize is closely related to that issue, and that has to do with a twenty minute video presentation by Dr. Michael Yeadon. Unfortunately, I can’t embed this video, so you can go to the article—which I urge you to do. I found Yeadon’s presentation to be really quite stunning. As he has in the past, Yeadon emphasizes that there is no scientific or business justification for the way things happened with the injections. He also argues—powerfully, in my opinion—that the injection program was criminal in nature and involved collusion among everyone involved. In effect, Yeadon is arguing—based on his many years of experience—that the actual Big Pharma companies could not have been directing what occurred. They were complicit, but others were driving events. This is why he calls it all a crime that must be punished.

Here’s the article’s concluding summary:

Former Pfizer vice president Dr. Michael Yeadon said during a recent event that the mRNA shots were “toxic by design.”

Speaking to a group of attorneys and a judges last month as they conducted a “Court of Public Opinion’s Grand Jury,” Yeadon argued that the scientists behind the spike protein-based genetic vaccines “knew exactly what was going to happen.”  He testified that the mRNA injections were “not rationally designed” because they couldn’t work, carried risks, and had uncertain long term outcomes.

“But they did it anyway,” Yeadon said. He went on to allege that the unusual nature of the spike protein was causing autoimmunity, a condition in which a body’s immune response attacks its own healthy cells, tissues and organs.

“I would say that the companies knew that the spike was toxic, and unstable,” he said.

[VIDEO]

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla explained in a recent interview with the Washington Post why his decision to use mRNA vaccines to combat the coronavirus was “counterintuitive.”

“I was surprised when they suggested to me that this was the way to go, and I questioned it,” he said. “Pfizer had very good experience and expertise with a multitude of technologies that could give a vaccine.”

He said that Pfizer scientists were “very good” at developing traditional vaccines, but only two years of experience developing the mRNA was technology.

Yeadon’s argument in the video presentation explains the significance of that “only two years of experience”.

“Never delivered a single product until that day—no vaccine, not any other kind of medicine,” he explained. “So it was very counterintuitive and I was surprised when they suggested that this was the way to go.”

Bourla did not specify who he meant by “they,” but said he questioned their decision, and asked them to justify it.

“How can you say something like that?” he recalled asking. “But they came and they were very, very convinced that this was the right way to go. They felt that the two years of work on mRNA since 2018, together with BioTech, to develop a flu vaccine made them believe that the technology was mature and we were at the cusp of delivering a product,” Bourla said. “So they convinced me. I followed my instinct that they know what they’re saying.”

Yeadon doesn’t directly address Bourla’s recent statements, however he does make points that are very much on target. He very forcefully argues that in drug development the onus—in legal terms, the burden of proof—is on the developer to prove the safety of the product. When developing a drug for injection into the human body the presumption is and must be that the drug is unsafe until proven safe in clinical trials. Yeadon argues in detail that this was reversed and that key parts of any responsible clinical trial process were ignored and skipped.

Bourla is now stating in interviews that a fourth dose of his vaccine may be necessary.