It is now very common for those who dissent from the narrative of Covid-19 being an unprecedented crisis necessitating unprecedented restrictions on public life and private freedoms to be labeled ‘covidiots’ whose actions are selfish, deluded, irresponsible and a danger to public. But it’s becoming increasingly clear, as doctors and scientists voice their concerns, that this dissent has more support from ‘the science’ than does the ‘official’ pandemic narrative. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that those who don’t question the narrative and attempt to deter questioning are the ones who are being irresponsible.
In a stunning development, [Dr. Mike Yeadon] a former Chief Science Officer for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says “there is no science to suggest a second wave should happen.”
https://hubpages.com/politics/Pfizer-Chief-Science-Officer-Second-Wave-Based-on-Fake-Data-of-False-Positives-for-New-Cases-Pandemic-is-Over
The increase in positive test results cannot be used to predict a second wave of illnesses and deaths. Yeadon points to flaws in the PCR test for the presence of Covid-19 that result in false positives and positives that do not indicate current infection and infectiousness.
Despite efforts to suppress dissent there are many voices in the medical and science communities across the world that argue that the dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic were overhyped in the first place and that it is now essentially over. They argue that some responses to the virus, such as lockdowns and masks, have been unnecessary and have done more harm than good.
A group of over 500 Belgian doctors and over 1600 other medically trained staff signed an open letter dated 5 September that begins:
We, Belgian doctors and health professionals, would like to express our serious concern about the evolution of the situation in recent months surrounding the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We call on politicians to be independently and critically informed in the decision-making process and in the compulsory implementation of corona-measures. We ask for an open debate, where all experts are represented without any form of censorship. After the initial panic surrounding covid-19, the objective facts now show a completely different picture – there is no medical justification for any emergency policy anymore. The current crisis management has become totally disproportionate and causes more damage than it does any good. We call for an end to all measures and ask for an immediate restoration of our normal democratic governance and legal structures and of all our civil liberties.
https://docs4opendebate.be/en/
‘Fact checkers’ attempted to delegitimise this letter when I posted a link to Facebook groups on the grounds that some claims about the wearing of masks were false or unproven. This prompted me to responded by writing an earlier article: Checking the Checkers.
The wearing of masks is currently presented as completely sensible and unproblematic and wearing them has become mandatory in some situations but in March the government was advising against wearing masks.
Members of the public could be putting themselves more at risk from contracting coronavirus by wearing face masks, one of England’s most senior doctors has warned.
Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer, said the masks could “actually trap the virus” and cause the person wearing it to breathe it in.
“For the average member of the public walking down a street, it is not a good idea” to wear a face mask in the hope of preventing infection, she added.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-face-masks-increase-risk-infection-doctor-jenny-harries-a9396811.html
The question must be asked ‘why the change?’ And if there are good reasons for the change in advice and policy does that mean that the concerns that Jenny Harris raised were wholly unwarrented? If they were not wholly unwarranted then surely there should be some kind of ‘mask protocol’ giving guidance on how to safely use and care for masks? The failure to give proper guidance must diminish the effectiveness of mask use and possibly endangers some users.
In addition to, and perhaps more important than, the issue of masks, the Belgian open letter raises a concern about the drive to develop a vaccine for the Covid-19:
Survey studies on influenza vaccinations show that in 10 years we have only succeeded three times in developing a vaccine with an efficiency rate of more than 50%. Vaccinating our elderly appears to be inefficient. Over 75 years of age, the efficacy is almost non-existent.38
https://docs4opendebate.be/en/
Due to the continuous natural mutation of viruses, as we also see every year in the case of the influenza virus, a vaccine is at most a temporary solution, which requires new vaccines each time afterwards. An untested vaccine, which is implemented by emergency procedure and for which the manufacturers have already obtained legal immunity from possible harm, raises serious questions. 39 40 We do not wish to use our patients as guinea pigs.
On a global scale, 700 000 cases of damage or death are expected as a result of the vaccine.41
If 95% of people experience Covid-19 virtually symptom-free, the risk of exposure to an untested vaccine is irresponsible.
Besides the potential dangers of a covid vaccine we should also consider the costs to governments of investing in such a vaccine. Might it not be more effective to tackle issues such as poor, overcrowded, housing, nutrition and health and social care that make some disadvantaged communities more vulnerable?
There is evidence that poorly judged responses to the pandemic have already cost more lives than they have saved. We read in the British Medical Journal that:
Only a third of the excess deaths seen in the community in England and Wales can be explained by covid-19 …
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1931
David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said that covid-19 did not explain the high number of deaths taking place in the community.
… on 12 May he explained that, over the past five weeks, care homes and other community settings had had to deal with a “staggering burden” of 30 000 more deaths than would normally be expected, as patients were moved out of hospitals that were anticipating high demand for beds.
Of those 30 000, only 10 000 have had covid-19 specified on the death certificate. While Spiegelhalter acknowledged that some of these “excess deaths” might be the result of underdiagnosis, “the huge number of unexplained extra deaths in homes and care homes is extraordinary. When we look back . . . this rise in non-covid extra deaths outside the hospital is something I hope will be given really severe attention.”
He added that many of these deaths would be among people “who may well have lived longer if they had managed to get to hospital.”
It has been argued that the number of excess deaths is a very central measure in assessing of the impact of Covid-19. The high number of excess deaths has been used to counter the argument that very many of those who died of or with the infection would have died very soon anyway. However it seems that two-thirds, 20,000, of these deaths were caused not by the virus but by the response of government and public institutions to the virus.
Perhaps it is time for those who have accepted the pandemic narrative as sold to them by their governments and political leaders to ask a few questions or at least to have sufficient epistemic humility to permit others to ask questions.