Back in 2017, I toured Japan, and was struck by a strange sight on Tokyo streets: about half the people were wearing face masks, even though there was no pandemic or other immediate public health problem.
Hotel and tour people gave several reasons for all the mask wearing: sometimes women didn’t feel like putting on makeup before heading off to work, so they put on a mask instead; some people felt rundown and wanted to minimize their chances of catching colds from others; but most often, people wore masks to avoid possibly passing on unknown viruses and bacteria to others…..in other words, out of concern for their fellow citizens. So at a place like the Tokyo Fish Market, where the accompanying photo was taken, the majority of Japanese out shopping for food wore masks, like those in this photo.
Japanese culture emphasizes consideration and concern for the community at large. Japanese children tend to be quiet and well behaved in public, people don’t gab and talk during movies at a theater.
I’m not trying to start another argument about the benefits of face masks. It’s gotten awfully tiring.
What’s amazing to me is how differently from other countries Americans are reacting to the need for face masks, along with other relatively small steps of prevention, like social distancing and avoiding parties and bar scenes. In other words, abiding by long established public health protocols that amount to consideration and concern for the community at large so as to deter spread of the pandemic.
Those Americans who rebel against such steps mostly argue, to effect: The pandemic isn’t nearly as serious as it’s made out to be and, besides, masks don’t help prevent getting or communicating the virus.
The biggest problem with the denial is that people can see for themselves that it’s not true. Many now have friends or neighbors who have gotten sick, very sick, with Covid-19. They can see that the U.S. has never organized a testing protocol that allows for serious tracking that could slow down or stop the pandemic. And they can see how most other developed countries have gotten their arms around this thing much more effectively than we have. This comparative analysis from a public health professional says a lot:
“To understand just how bad things are in the United States and, more important, what can be done about it requires comparison. At this writing, Italy, once the poster child of coronavirus devastation and with a population twice that of Texas, has recently averaged about 200 new cases a day when Texas has had over 9,000. Germany, with a population four times that of Florida, has had fewer than 400 new cases a day. On Sunday, Florida reported over 15,300, the highest single-day total of any state…”
“Italy, Germany and dozens of other countries have reopened almost entirely, and they had every reason to do so. They all took the virus seriously and acted decisively, and they continue to: Australia just issued fines totaling $18,000 because too many people attended a birthday party in someone’s home….”
So while much of the rest of the world reopens its businesses and schools, Americans continue to argue about the supposed tyranny of masks and the subtleties of the data about Covid-19 illnesses and testing. It’s mostly argued on the basis of rights and feared tyranny. In the meantime, many schools will remain shut this fall, and many restaurants and other small businesses, will fail. Americans aren’t allowed into most of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, or Canada.
In the meantime, the real tyrannical action is going on in Portland, Oregon. There, American paramilitary troops in unmarked uniforms (never thought I’d be describing American law enforcement of any kind that way) are out forcing demonstrators into unmarked vans. Right now, those arrested are being released, but such tactics, no matter what the country, inevitably lead to much worse–things like disappearances, torture, and murder.
Most troublesome to me is the fact that those getting hysterical about how masks interfere with their rights are mostly silent as American paramilitary troops round up individuals in Portland exercising their First Amendment rights of assembly and free speech. Instead, we go at each even more intensively, which seems to be the real intention of the exercise.
I sure hope we avoid the trap of fighting each other ever more aggressively. We did that once before, in the 1860s, and hundreds of thousands were slaughtered before we came back together. It’s the path we’ve been heading down for far too long, and it is not only getting discouraging, but it is threatening our democratic institutions and traditions. I can tell you that living in a country where the streets are patrolled by secret paramilitary troops with the authority to pull anyone into an unmarked vehicle at will is not the way you want to live. Because while you may right now be on the right side of the powers ordering the troops into play, at some point you won’t be….but at that point, it will be too late to do much about it.
this is so full of false information it’s not even funny. There are plenty of peer-reviewed published studies that prove masks are NOT useful in any way. End of story. Stop being a mask nazi. I will not comply
Yeah name these studies, You are a possible virus spreader and a fool. I am glad to know any mask Nazi!
here’s the URL to a compilation of all the hard evidence one could want, explaining why wearing a mask is irrelevant to the so-called “Pan-demic”. Have the courtesy to actually read it, if you are at all interested in intelligent dialogue on this topic.
https://vaccinechoicecanada.com/tag/masks/
and to Sarah Smith
thank you for the thought you’ve put in on this topic. I hope you do make available the references substantiating what you say.
Unfortunately, those promoting the mask ritual are not listening. They were stampeded in to their position by the media onslaught of 24/7 fearmongering. Jonathan Swift put it thus :
“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.”
we’re going to have to endure the idiocy for about a year …. then, will be obvious that the thing is a HOAX in the first instance. Go back and take a look at how the 1976 so-called “swine flu’ perpetrated = FOR AN ULTERIOR, WICKED PURPOSE
As I’ve said any number of times, I’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but in this situation, I’ve found myself wondering….The American response to the pandemic has been so terribly incompetent compared to the rest of the world, and so organized on developing a vaccine, that maybe there is a connection: American leadership screwed up the public health response to the pandemic so the only way out of the morass would be a vaccine, at a cost of many billions of dollars going to Big Pharma.
Here are the references you asked for.
Masks raise resting blood pressure: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25886031/
Masks limit oxygen intake, especially in pregnant women:
https://aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13756-015-0086-z
81% of healthcare workers develop headaches from mask usage:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32232837/
And here is one more reference that demonstrates that the science is NOT settled regarding whether or not masks are effective. This study for the CDC and WHO was published in May 2020 and was specifically aimed at providing guidance for public policy in the current pandemic.
It concludes, “We did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility.”
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
Since you brought up Portland, here is an article about how three federal officers may be permanently blinded by the “peaceful protestors” lasers. I hope they catch who did it and whoever they are rot in jail for 10 years. https://www.theblaze.com/news/federal-officers-blinded-by-lasers?utm_source=theblaze-dailyPM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily-Newsletter__PM%202020-07-23&utm_term=TheBlaze%20Daily%20PM%20-%20last%20270%20days
Protests and riots are a messy business. Lots of decent people just doing their jobs can be injured, some seriously. There have been dozens of journalists badly injured–blinded and beaten, some accidentally and some on purpose. This article is a pretty good roundup.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/31/journalists-blinded-injured-arrested-covering-george-floyd-protests/5299374002/
“The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it is investigating reports of attacks and arrests in Louisville, Kentucky, Las Vegas, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
“U.S. police have arrested or attacked journalists more than 110 times since May 28, according to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.
“On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a lawsuit on behalf of a freelance journalist that alleges a pattern of attacks on journalists carried out by the Minneapolis Police Department and the Minnesota State Patrol “tramples on the Constitution.” “
Mr. Gumpert, I gravitated to your website because of your excellent work on Food Rights, but after reading your willfully ignorant stances on face masks, violent rioting, and you not admitting that the federal government is allowing state and city governments to police these riots and the feds only stepped in when the violent rioters started to destroy federal properties, I have to say you are a leftist idiot. Don’t like being called names? Sorry, that is all I can say for you people who claim Trump is a tyrant. So false, it is not funny. He has allowed the states and cities of this country to handle it themselves. And they haven’t handled it. And these cities where all the violence and destruction is occurring is in democrat-run cities. All of it. But they won’t ask for help from the National Guard. Because they maniacally hate Trump. The have Trump Derrangement Syndrome. TDS. And you obviously suffer from it as well. It is shocking and amazing how an intelligent man like you can be so blind. You are willfully ignorant, I am sorry to say.
Larry…..Other than all you wrote here, you love me and what I have to say, right?…It’s okay, I don’t take it personally. You’re not the first Trumper to rage at me. In fact, the raging seems to have increased–over the last month, I’d say I’ve been unfriended on Facebook by half a dozen individuals similarly angry at me. There is one thing their rants have in common, though: they are all very upset about the “rioting” and “violence and destruction” you rage about. But none of them (or you) ever mention the sparks that have set off the rioting and violence over the last few months. They are always the result of white police abusing and/or killing a black man who hasn’t done anything to justify such a strong response. I am not trying to justify rioting or violence–they are always wrong. But the abuse and killings by police are wrong as well. If those weren’t going on, then the rioting wouldn’t be going on. (Actually, they have all been going on for many years, except in recent months they’ve been caught on video more and more often.) The only thing Trump has said is that the cops have “choked.” He compares them to his golfing pals who screw up a putt on the green. Ummmm, I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about. So, the solution is pretty obvious: cut out the police abuse and you’ll cut way down on the violence. Got it?
I read that article about the injuries to the press. I do think it is unfortunate that the press gets injured. Correct me if I am wrong but I did not see anybody with permanent injuries from the pepper spray as bad as it is. Pepper spray is an approved police tool to defend themselves.The use of lasers to the eye as far as I know is not used by police on protestors. Lasers causing permanent blindness is much more malevolent in my view. Generally I don’t see the police activity as criminal. I see the “peaceful protestors” activity as criminal. I see the rule of law as necessary to have a functioning society. I see much of the protestor activity as criminal activity and lawless and pure anarchy. States have rights but a certain amount of federalism is required to keep us as one country. President Washington quelled the Whiskey Rebellion . It had to be done to keep our country as “one nation under God”. The path we are on now is for the nation to break up if each part insists on their own sovereignty. I see these democrats as encouraging a breakup of the nation by allowing pure anarchy. This is not protesting. This is insurrection on the parts of all these democratic mayors, governors and other politicians. I believe we are the brink of total anarchy. I applaud Trump’s actions to try and bring the violence to an end. I do not see Trump as a Hitler. I see that as total hogwash. I see the threat from the violence and anarchy of the “peaceful protestors” and the surrender of our academia, sports world, Hollywood, corporations, Biden and company kissing China’s butt as the far worse threat. I am convinced that you and I will never see eye to eye and never agree on what is going on right now in this country. You see it one way, I see it another. It is your blog. You get the right to say what you want. I am just a nobody and I want to express another opinion with all due respect to you. I can’t stay silent any more. This is my opinion. I don’t expect to change your opinion. I don’t want to change your opinion. I just need to speak out my opinion while this country still allows differing opinions. I am anti the woke religion.. I won’t take their koolaid. Woke wants to stop freedom of speech IMHO. It’s just my opinion. There still seems to be freedom of speech on your blog even though you might blast me for my opinion. You are to be commended for that in this cancel culture environment. People are too afraid to say what they really think in this woke environment IMHO.
Not just pepper spray. At least one journalist was blinded in one eye, from a teargas canister. Others were shot and injured by rubber bullets.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8373001/Journalist-left-blind-one-eye-shot-rubber-bullet-Minneapolis-protest.html
I wouldn’t say you’re a nobody. My guess is more people on this blog agree with you than with me when it comes to issues of human rights and similar. But I have always respected each individual’s right to express their opinion here. And one thing I suspect we agree on is that we should all continue to have the right to free speech.
You respect each individual’s right to express their opinion on this blog. So how do you support a movement that does not support free speech for all sides. How do you support a movement that supports China which suppresses the Hong Kong freedom protestors? https://nypost.com/2020/07/23/fordham-student-wrongfully-penalized-for-social-media-posts-suit/
I agree with you that some colleges and universities have gone overboard in their support of political correctness and the so-called “cancel culture.” Other universities, like the one I went to (the University of Chicago) have been very strong in refusing to go along with these kinds of actions. By the same token, I could ask you how you could support a president who goes to court to stop publication of a book (the one by his niece) and who forces his former lawyer (Michael Cohen) back into jail as punishment for publishing a book; fortunately, federal judges ruled against him in both cases. He also practically kisses Putin’s rear end, a man who regularly jails and tortures journalists and others who try to speak freely. We could go down long lists of examples of interference or attempted interference with free speech. As I said in my previous comment, I’d like to think we could agree on the need to defend the First Amendment’s protection of free speech (and right of assembly and religion).
David, sure wish there was a “like” button,LOL!!
You didn’t answer barnrat’s question…you simply deflected.
Sorry, you lost me.
Let me clarify that I think the conservatives are too afraid to say what they think in this woke environment IMHO.
I live in Portland and I completely agree with this. It’s strange that we as Americans are so dismissive of the experience of the rest of the world, especially the Asian countries that have managed to keep their economies open with minimal COVID-19 deaths. We would rather rely on easily debunked YouTube “research” than look at the real-life example of a country like Japan. Our society is terribly xenophobic and some of us have taken the idea of personal freedom to mean we have zero obligation to our fellow humans. This is the reason I recently stopped following WAPF sources – they are a full on death cult at this point. Sadly, because too many adults have refused to make the small accommodation of wearing a mask, our children over the age of 5 in Oregon are now being required to wear masks all day in class.
My office is located across the street from the courthouse where the protests have been centered. I’ve seen the vandalism first hand, but it is just that – vandalism. Buildings can be repaired. The violent response is completely disproportionate. Honestly, much of what the administration is describing is simply not accurate and it’s very telling that they need to resort to blatant lies to try to justify their actions.
Boiling the argument down to “people who care about others” and “people who are selfish and care about their own rights more than the health of others” is not a fair characterization of the situation. There is a whole other side to the mask issue that is generally being ignored: there are people for whom wearing masks has negative impacts on their health.
Our Governor here in New Mexico has a “zero-tolerance” policy on mask wearing. Our mask mandate says we have to wear masks in any public space, indoors or outdoors, including during exercise. It does not even exempt young children from wearing masks. Technically, we can be fined $100 for going for a walk or hike unmasked. At the behest of our Governor, unmasked people are being harassed and followed around by others taking their picture to send to the Governor. People with legitimate health issues are being denied entry and service at medical offices, grocery stores, restaurants, and retail stores in New Mexico. This is not an isolated issue, but is actually a widespread problem.
There have not been any scientific studies looking at health effects of mask-wearing by the general public or children. The scientific studies about negative health consequences of mask-wearing are generally isolated to healthcare workers and pregnant women. These studies show that mask wearing can increase resting blood pressure, reduce oxygen uptake and increase carbon dioxide intake (especially in pregnant women), and induce headaches in over 80% of wearers. (I can provide references for all of these.)
Because there is a lack of scientific data in this area, and because I know several people who have reported health issues related to wearing masks, I have been collecting data about negative health effects related to mask-wearing. This data is from individuals who live in New Mexico. Individuals have reporting the following negative effects from mask-wearing:
· pleurisy (infection of the lining of the lungs)
· dizziness
· fainting
· nausea
· vomiting
· shortness of breath
· reduced oxygen saturation levels
· skin abrasions
· headaches
(If you’re interested, I can send you a full chart showing all of this in relation to age, duration of mask wearing, type of mask worn, etc.) It is particularly important to note that many of the people who have reported these negative effects do not have any pre-existing lung conditions, and these negative effects are occurring across the age spectrum from children to adults to elderly.
There is also whole other subset of people for whom wearing a mask is deeply triggering, such as those who have been the victim of rape or abuse. These people obviously may not feel comfortable having to justify why they cannot wear a mask.
It has been generally acknowledged that transmission is not likely to occur in passing interactions in stores, etc. It is already well understood that asymptomatic transmission is rare; the asymptomatic transmission studies referenced by the CDC clearly show that it happened when people lived in the same house as an asymptomatic person, shared food with them, or rode on an airplane with them.
The New England Journal of Medicine published a perspective in May 2020 by Harvard researchers (https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMp2006372) that says, “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.”
The argument that everyone has to wear a mask in any public setting does not make sense in light of the current science on transmission. The people who have health issues with wearing masks need to be allowed to not wear masks! Many of the negative health issues people are reporting from masks are not related to specific diagnosed health conditions. The science clearly shows that they are not putting others at risk by not wearing masks in stores. Instead, they are called horrible names, accused of being selfish, and encouraged to be discriminated against by the government.
Oh give me a real break here. How long does someone have to wear a mask anyway? Just when around other people to save their lives and yours too. Really you cannot go grocery shopping really quickly before you break out in hives or what ever? You don’t need it in a car or your own home. You cannot order online rather than linger in a mall? Do you really think it wise to go to any social gathering? Zoom or Skype friends. If you are so against masks limit the time you should wear them.
The fact that many people can wear masks with no issues does not change the fact that for some people, mask wearing is actually detrimental to their health. The rights of these people are being thrown under the bus right now, and no one seems to care. Yes, this is a minority of people, but that is all the more reason that their rights need to be protected.
Limiting the amount of time one has to wear a mask is not even a possibility for many people who are now being required to wear masks all day at work. Children are soon to be required to wear masks all day at school, too.
Furthermore, the negative effects that some people experience from wearing masks are induced within a short time of wearing the masks. For instance, a 10-year-old child had this experience with wearing a cloth mask: “after wearing it for about 10 mins, she began to get nauseous. She had to sit down, then went to the bathroom, and threw up. Took the mask off, and she felt better.”
Another one, of a person who had been wearing a mask while grocery shopping, and ended up fainting and breaking his nose: “a 69 yo male passed out leaving the grocery store, [wearing a] cloth mask that he had put on before he left his house.”
A 24-year-old who was required to wear a mask at work and ended up experiencing carbon dioxide poisoning such that she fell off a ladder at work: “my daughter: She works for [petstore], she’s 24, and they are making them wear the throw away kind [of masks]. Work provides them, but these people are wearing them for 9 hours a day. First her face was breaking out really bad, and she was having bad bouts of nausea. Then she kept losing feeling in her fingers, which progressed into her hands and feet. She fell off a ladder at work from from being dizzy. I made her take her 2 weeks home quarantine, though she didn’t have Covid, they allowed her 2 weeks off. She was just treated at the hospital. I don’t know if you can call it a full recovery, she now has serious anxiety about wearing the mask. She’s frightened to go to work, for fear of it happening again. She has still been getting migraines, I think I left that out in the first list. She is now afraid of ladders too. Her work does still require her to wear the mask if she wants to keep her job.”
this is totaL bs. If you cannot tolerate a mask, then you are too unhealthy to tolerate Covid19! STAY HOME!
Missy Cindy = when Goebells said this, he had in mind people like you. When the smoke cleared after the war, they were reviled as “good Germans” ie. those who had gone along with the IN-sanity
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” [Hermann Goering]
versus
“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
the Covid thing is one enormous HOAX
“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.”
Very true, but in order to not take part in a lie one must first recognize that they are being lied to. Unfortunately, when it comes to this so-called coronavirus many individuals are so overwhelmed by fear that they wouldn’t be able to recognize a lie even if it slapped them in the face. The current narrative that was and still is based on a discredited model is being used as a tool to foster and augment fear of what cannot be sensibly controlled… Fear is a powerful weapon in the hands of those who are obsessed with control and they use fear mongering tactics as a tool to manipulate and eat away at courage so that they can achieve their objective… no matter how irrational, contradictory and/or lacking in common sense there methods may be. The face mask issue is a case in point… initially according to the WHO and Dr. Fauci they were viewed as not effective at preventing the spread of the virus in the general population, today there are increasing mandates compelling there use and now even in homes if you live in Florida.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/florida-county-orders-residents-to-adhere-to-facial-covering-requirements-at-home?fbclid=IwAR332X5-X03kdx0dceH48X4J9pKVL_ou25KunXfFAWqb46jBuvG4_AiuHqg
I think Fauci and WHO now effectively acknowledge they were mistaken in playing down face masks early in the pandemic. They say they were concerned about supplies, and that medical providers wouldn’t have enough.
https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-mask-advice-was-because-doctors-shortages-from-the-start-2020-6
Watson, your comparison is most ridiculous.
I’m know I’m going to be an outlier here on this issue. I’ve been wearing masks in all indoor public spaces since April, when my first orders arrived in the mail. Where I live, at least 50% of people wear masks in the grocery stores where I shop. There is no “mask mandate,” people just voluntarily do it. Why do I do it? Because I don’t want to spread the virus, and I’m in a “high risk” category due to both age and asthma. I don’t want to catch this virus, so if I want others to wear masks so as to reduce the risk that they spread it to me, I should be doing likewise. Yes, I know that me wearing a mask won’t protect me, but me wearing a mask might protect others to some degree. General mask wearing in my community started around the same time, around 4 months ago, but some people were wearing them earlier than this even.
Sarah, I have never experienced any of the adverse symptoms you describe others as having experienced from masks. But what does strike me is that there are many different types of masks out there, and many of them have been designed by people who have no intention of wearing them but just see this as a “cash cow.” Manufacturers thus make masks from cheap materials which are almost impossible to breath through. Over the last few months I’ve tried at least 6 different types of masks. Some are okay, some are hideous. If anyone complains about symptoms from wearing a masks, I’d want to ask them, “How many types have you tried and what were they made out of?” My favourite masks are from Zazzle.com – they are light-weight, stretchy, and easy to breath through.
This doctor wore a mask through a 22 km run: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/09/world/doctor-runs-with-mask-on-trnd/index.html to show that they are safe.
BTW, the COVID-19 case rate in the little area of Canada where I live is currently 17 per 100,000. In contrast, your state of New Mexico case rate is 1,081 per 100,000. This difference is not entirely due to mask wearing, but there is no evidence that they do no help “flatten the curve.”
Thank you, S.E. Part of my intention in describing the situation in Asia was to demonstrate that an area of the world known for its pioneering of good health and diet was on board with use of face masks. Asia, after all, has given the world Ayurvedic medicine and acupuncture. Countries like Japan have among the greatest longevity, thanks to their diets heavy on fish and vegetables. Sure, there is terrible pollution and environmental degradation that adversely affect health, but overall Asia has promoted effective natural approaches to health. And what’s the reaction here? Mostly denial, denial, and more denial. Even though the virus is “novel,” meaning it is new, somehow certain Americans learned everything there was to know about it before the rest of the world, and in contradiction to the rest of the world.
In my neck of the woods, in the Northeast, people have tended to embrace masks. I’m sure it’s a factor in helping Massachusetts, for one, convincingly flatten the curve after having been one of the nation’s hotspots early on, and help keep people alert to new flareups. Your point about the differences between New Mexico and Canada are well taken.
When opening up the silos in the fall I often used N-95 face masks in an attempt to reduce my exposure to mold spores… THEY DID NOT WORK! I frequently developed farmers lung/lung fever /pleurisy. The only thing that did work was a specially designed helmet with an air pump that pressurized the inside of the helmet wih filtered air and continuously exhausted that air along with the exhaled CO2 via two vents. Keep in mind that mold spores at 3 – 12 microns in size and are many, many times larger then viruses at .005 – .3 microns. Anyone that thinks that they are protecting others and themselves by wearing a mask are fooling themselves and endangering their overall health. For this and other reasons I flatly refuse to buy into this mask narrative and I do not wear a mask.
“The foregoing data show that masks serve more as instruments of obstruction of normal breathing, rather than as effective barriers to pathogens. Therefore, masks should not be used by the general public, either by adults or children, and their limitations as prophylaxis against pathogens should also be considered in medical settings.”
https://www.primarydoctor.org/masks-not-effect
I sure hope that all of you that are so concerned about masks never have to go into surgery, as there are doctors, nurses, anesthetist that work day-out and day-in with those ‘so called’ unhealthy masks in the most critical conditions of life and death for the patients. There are an abundance of studies indicating the importance in masks in slowing down transmission of the virus. As an European, I can assure you that no policy is implemented without good scientific evidence for the benefit thereof. Masks and social distancing are the two unique measures that you can all implement to stop this devestating epidemic in USA. Those that refuse to respect those two rules, are the ones that are going to continue to contribute to the devestating economy crippling epidemic in your nation.
We in Europé Watch, with mixed feelings, as we see the critical moments in the ‘rise and fall of empires’ and USA is right now on a very drastic and dramatic crumbling.
Great and insightful comment!
Like!!
rather poor journalism on your part, David Gumpert = regurgitating the Central Party line of “4% deaths” when even the World Health Org.’s spokeslady uses the figure of .06 per cent. That means one in 167 people who actually ‘catch’ the virus, die of it.
or is it that the Daily Mail in the UK, just “made that up”?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8588299/World-Health-Organization-says-Covid-19-kill-0-6-patients.html
years from now, it will be obvious that the whole thing is an utter HOAX > lying with statistics to distract the plebes from the implosion of the US dollar. One of the mass hysteria events of all time.
In Melbourne Australia, the entire city is in medical martial law house arrest. Central govt. dictating how much of what foodstuffs can be purchased >>> classic symptom of end-stage communism
The data I used to get to 4% comes from the Johns Hopkins covid site, which has been tracking worldwide data since last January. Just a matter of doing the math: 18,187,396 cases worldwide, 691,352 deaths worldwide. I’ve put the link up many times. If my math is wrong, I apologize. But this is the most authoritative and complete collection of worldwide data, untouched by journalistic hands.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Actually, one of the negative mask experiences that was sent to me was from a former surgeon. She wrote, ” I fainted numerous times when in surgical cases which pretty much curtailed my work in surgery.”
Yes, many people can wear masks with no issues, and that is great. The fact that many people can wear masks with no issues does not change the fact that for some people, mask wearing is actually detrimental to their health. The rights of these people are being thrown under the bus right now, and no one seems to care. Yes, this is a minority of people, but that is all the more reason that their rights need to be protected.
Agreed, CatharinaBerge, regarding what currently looks to be the end of the “American empire.” Dr. Wade Davis, University of British Columbia Department of Anthropology (see https://anth.ubc.ca/faculty/wade-davis/) covers this topic in detail in “The Unraveling of America” – https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206 .
Excellent article. Here’s an excerpt relevant to discussion at hand:
“As a number of countries moved expeditiously to contain the virus, the United States stumbled along in denial, as if willfully blind. With less than four percent of the global population, the U.S. soon accounted for more than a fifth of COVID deaths. The percentage of American victims of the disease who died was six times the global average. Achieving the world’s highest rate of morbidity and mortality provoked not shame, but only further lies, scapegoating, and boasts of miracle cures as dubious as the claims of a carnival barker, a grifter on the make….
“For the first time, the international community felt compelled to send disaster relief to Washington. For more than two centuries, reported the Irish Times, “the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the U.S. until now: pity.” As American doctors and nurses eagerly awaited emergency airlifts of basic supplies from China, the hinge of history opened to the Asian century.”
The whiskey rebellion response by Washington was hypocritical after we just fought a revolution for such petty little taxes. “States have rights but a certain amount of federalism is required to keep us as one country. President Washington quelled the Whiskey Rebellion . It had to be done to keep our country as “one nation under God”.
Here is some history of the Whiskey Rebellion. Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKKJfQynEE
Thank you for the insightful article! After reading the replies to your article it becomes very clear to me the irony of the name of our nation. “United” States of America? Should be called “ Divided States of America”. United we stand, divided we fall. There are those in the media and government who are sowing the seeds of division. Instead of all of us working for the common good, we break off into tribes demonizing the others.
Sad.
Let’s get personal with our facts. I am a 67 year old male who has been going shopping at Walmart very frequently several times a week and I notice the greeters at this Walmart store and others are often times seniors. Many hate to wear a mask so they pull it down around their chin as they stand at the doors counting people or greeting them and wiping the carts. I asked them if they have been sick with covid-19 and they say no even though they have been meeting thousands of people per day.
likewise I had a tooth extracted a few weeks ago and had a big hole in my mouth and I did not wear a mask as I went shopping just imagine an open wound where that cobras could just jump right in and take route and yet nothing happened.
let’s get more factual there are 10,000 people a day turning 65 and have been for years and will continue for a few more years as us baby boomers grow older but you do not hear of 10,000 people a day dying!! this is because they get older and end up dying from heart attacks as the number one disease in this nation also cancers, Alzheimer’s etc. But not the covid-19 necessarily. The people dying are primarily those with comorbidities or other lifestyle conditions that tend to weaken their immune system yet the government wants all of us to wear a mask as if we were all in danger. We not all equal we are not all in danger we do not all need to wear masks and this does not even touch on personal freedom issues guaranteed to us in our constitution it only deals with common sense issues which hopefully will help you see your argument as being out of line with societal norms.
Great post Dave. It’s sad to see the vitriol in the comments. For those of you against masks, what is your suggestion to control this virus? Other countries are proof that they work. How do you explain the covid parties wear participants are getting the virus and a 30 year old in Texas died. I have lost friends from this virus and have people in my family that are high risk. It is indeed an argument about “people who care about others” and “people who are selfish”. I wear my mask to protect others. Americans are spoiled brats that don’t want to do anything that makes them even slightly uncomfortable….no compassion whatsoever. This is also about the concern of our health care workers. My friends on the front lines are begging people to spread the word about masks as they are working 18 hour shifts and getting sick themselves. Maybe people who don’t want to wear masks should not go to the hospital if they get the virus.
For those of you stating that its a big conspiracy to track our every move and take away our freedom, I ask you review the patriot act which already accomplished that. Besides, the smart phone you have been using for years is a tracking device so I’m not clear why people are so offended about tracing.
America is one of the top 10 sickest nations in the world. That was before anyone heard of Covid19. We have the 9th highest obesity rate(a major Covid risk factor) in the world. Many Americans are on multiple prescription drugs(another risk factor). The Covid virus has been determined to be airborne so your “social” distancing and porous mask wearing is more of an illusion than any real protection. When you start with a sick population and introduce another factor, such as a virus(Covid or any seasonal influenza), you can expect deaths. It’s always been so. So somehow we now need to let the sickest in our country dictate the behaviors and policies for the rest of us? I suggest those who carry all those risk factors stay home, abandon their jobs, stay permanently wrapped in masks and gloves, constantly sterilizing their surfaces, slathering themselves with sanitizers. Let the healthy get back to opening their businesses and living their lives. Just remember, when you go to the hospital for your next Covid (many false positives) test, the average death rate from hospital acquired infection is 100,000 annually and from doctor caused errors is 250,000. Prescription drug deaths is 128,000. Just think if the media covered this the way they have covered Covid. Many more deaths than Covid happening daily. All preventable. To believe that all you need to do is wear a porous strip of cloth across your face and Covid will vanish(it’s here to stay) is really simplistic.
Amen and very well written, Robert.
There definitely is an argument to be made that America is a sick country in the ways you describe, and then some. That being said, it’s not a realistic public health response to tell “the sickest” to stay home. There are too many unknowns and gray areas. We have to deal with the public health crisis as a single community, and determine the best ways to get it under control. Testing, contact tracking, masks, social distancing are the best tools we have, and they have worked around the world. They haven’t worked in the U.S. as well as they should because so many people think America is different, doesn’t need to do the hard work based on science (except the Northeast, where citizens were scared enough by the terrible situation in March that they cooperated, and now have it under control).
No one who knows anything about this is arguing, as you say, “all you need to do is wear a porous strip of cloth across your face and Covid will vanish.” It’s just one of several tools. Once we’re done with the pandemic we will hopefully be moved to become more serious about dealing with the country’s chronic illness and poor diet.
Hear, hear, David!
Too many unknowns and gray areas in having the sickest stay home? But not with the testing, that’s known to be unreliable; not with the tracking, also unreliable, and intrusive; not with the masks, in which numerous studies have shown that they’re marginally “helpful” at best; not with distancing – and the arbitrary 6 ft distance. No, you state there are too many unknowns and gray areas with encouraging the sickest – the smallest percentage of Americans – to practice those measures, but apparently there are not too many unknowns and gray areas with SHUTTING DOWN the entire country, ruining the economy, destroying businesses and lives, resulting in vastly increased suicides/drug overdoses, domestic abuse, folks not going to the doc/hospital because of fear or hospitals eliminating “non essential” services (such as my friend’s completely essential live-saving heart surgery, for which she had to wait over 2 mos at home with a heart monitor, hoping she wouldn’t die)…I could go on. With a 99.9% (or something very close) survival rate, this has been an absolute crime. If anyone thinks things are ever going to be done with this and go back to normal, you’re delusional. This is about control, pure and simple. Wake up before our freedoms and rights have all disappeared.
Death rate globally is 4%, not 0.1%, as you state. Plus all the long-term after-effects that are appearing (like heart infections). This is not “the flu.” You deny pretty much everything else public health recommends, so not sure what kind of a discussion is possible. For data on number of cases, and deaths, check here at Johns Hopkins site:
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
The path that many governments have chosen with respect to this so-called pandemic demonstrates a gross lack of “concern” and foresight for their fellow citizens economic, physical and psychological well-being… Why should I have to abide by a fear driven doctrine that I do not agree with? This is all beginning to look and sound like an inquisition.
Look at this video please to see what the “peaceful demonstrators” have done to our cities. Is the media reporting this? The democrats seem to be delighted that all this destruction took place. Speaking of masks, he “peaceful demonstrators” are exempt from wearing masks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb5dkuINS1c#action=share
30% false-positive and 20% false-negative results for what? A fragment of viral RNA that someone arbitrarily decided was “SARS-CoV-2” but in truth could be any number of viruses within the family of coronavirus! Over and above its inaccuracies, the standard or point of reference against which the test is being assessed, is misleading as well…
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200717005397/en/CDC-Coronavirus-Test-Kits-Generate-30-False?fbclid=IwAR0qmu8I77U5ctq4aagRAlAVQZfuYUoJk9xY8FkPoRl9M3zskAAfI-2-s5I
whereas you say “there are an abundance of studies indicating the importance in masks slowing down transmission of the virus”… perhaps that’s true in Europe. But in Canada, we have 2 Court cases in which nurses prevailed against official demands they wear masks in hospitals. After all due consideration, judges rejected the rationale that masks were a necessary part of the work environment
the information at the Vaccine Choice Canada website overwhelmingly makes the case that masks are not only useless in containing disease agents breathed out, they certainly do hinder proper breathing. The analogy of a mosquito – droplets in breath – going through a chainlink fence – relative distance between fibers of a mask – make the point so a child can understand
yes, CoronaMadness is one of the evidences that the Empire of the US of A is spasming in its last stage. The Scam-demic has been perpetrated to distract the nation from implosion of the US dollar. But the panic being fomented 24 /7 by the media myth-makers, is utterly UN-reasonable, when scrutinized.
Get the facts and think for yourself.
As a retired paramedic….wearing a mask is not anything unusual. It is a simple and immediate method to decrease dose of pathogens.
When ever we had a sick patient, they got a mask and we got one also. No big deal.
The reason mask wearing has become a big deal is because of politics. Mask wearing has been sold to Americans as a method to divide us all.
When comparing the USA to other modern countries we are a mess. We are truly lost from
lack of strategy and centralized focussed leadership. This American mess cost us at least $7 trillion and counting. It has lost us human life, International trade and esteem. The losses are also counted in America’s team effect. We are now fighting one another. And this fighting is being cheerled by an idiotic moron that relishes the great divide he created.
I truly look forward to new leadership that joins us all together under a common strategy based on rational thinking and the big team concept. Everyone working in one direction with one common goal.
David….for some reason your blog has become quite the collection point of conspiracy theory believers. TCP is a real time social study of how Hitler came to power and how Rome fell. Leading by exploitation of fear is quite tragic.
Mark, I think this blog has long been heavy on people who are distrustful of public health and mainstream media. Many of the people commenting today became followers of this blog during the days of the American and Canadian government crackdowns on raw milk. While much of the rest of the world accepted the health benefits of safely produced raw dairy, the American and Canadian public health establishments were (and still are) heavily into denial. They went through all kinds of mind-bending research and questionable data analysis to try to “prove” their point that raw dairy is inherently unsafe.
I think what we have in the denial of this pandemic, via endless searches for research and data support of their positions, is many of the same people distrustful of public health and the mainstream media switching roles this time around. I wrote about this phenomenon back in March.
https://www.davidgumpert.com/is-public-health-partly-a-victim-of-its-past-arrogance
Reminds me a little of the story of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf”. Public health has been on the wrong side of health issues enough that, when it has a real crisis on its hands, it is having difficulty exerting strong leadership.
OK Mark, walk the talk. Who would you pick to be our next leader, Nancy P? Joe B? Gov Brown? Joe Kennedy? I have a feeling you will bash them no matter who is next.
Benefits of hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin therapy.
Outcomes of 3,737 COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin and other regimens in Marseille, France: A retrospective analysis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477893920302817?via%3Dihub
Clinical Efficacy of Chloroquine derivatives in COVID-19 Infection: Comparative meta-analysis between the Big data and the real world
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297520300615?via%3Dihubrg/10.1016/j.nmni.2020.100709
Treatment with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and
combination in patients hospitalized with COVID-19
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1201971220305348
Plus this summary article
https://c19study.com/
Reply to Ken Conrad. Good news. Walmart, Home Depot and other retailers are walking back mask mandates. https://www.theblaze.com/news/walmart-home-depot-mask-policy-stores?utm_source=theblaze-dailyAM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily-Newsletter__AM%202020-07-26&utm_term=TheBlaze%20Daily%20AM%20-%20last%20270%20days
The health bureaucracies are using retailers as their whipping boys… Hopefully, more retailers will have the wherewithal to stand up against these tyrants and their mask mandates.
I don’t believe that COVID is a hoax; my own 13yo daughter recently experienced this illness and it is definitely real. It was quite different from other colds and flus she has had previously. Interestingly, she contracted it from an asymptomatic carrier, and also did not pass it to anyone else in our family (nor to my mother or our elderly neighbor). Presumably, the rest of us who are living in the same house are likely to have the antibodies now, although we haven’t had testing to confirm that.
Nonetheless, the media and government have absolutely created a perfect storm for people to be doubtful. As a former aerospace scientist who has now been a natural healthcare practitioner for 7 years, I’ve been watching the data closely since April. It has really been mishandled in terms of actually providing meaningful information for the scientific and healthcare communities.
From the CDC changing the way COVID deaths were counted early on, to multiple tests on the same person being counted as separate cases, to errors with antibody tests being counted with other positive tests, to places like NYC counting thousands of “presumed COVID” deaths when there weren’t even tests performed, to asymptomatic positives being lumped in with all the other positive tests, the data is an absolute mess. Add to that the fact that any non-standard opinions are being censored online and in social platforms, and the ground is ripe for people to start making all sorts of other conclusions and jumping down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
There is currently a hyper-focus on the mask issue in regards to people in stores and other places where transmission is really not likely to occur. We all know that by and large, transmission is happening through close contact with infected individuals. That has been well-understood since early on. Transmission rates and positive case rates were able to be “flattened” here in NM before the mask requirements were made mandatory, so the current narrative that “if everyone would just wear masks, we could kill this virus” does not make sense. Studies have even shown that, in households where there are symptomatic people, masks don’t seem to offer any real protection for the others in those households.
People are doubling-down on the mask issue, putting a certain segment of the population at risk from negative health effects from wearing the masks. We are in an unprecedented situation where we don’t actually have good data about the potential effects of the policies that are being imposed. I really hope someone is doing real scientific studies right now on the effects of masks on kids and the population at large. But those studies aren’t yet in existence, and that means that anecdotal evidence has some merit and deserves some consideration. Undoubtedly, real studies would be better, but we don’t have them for the population at large. The negative effects reported to me (including pleurisy, fainting, vomiting, panic attacks, etc) are not trivial and deserve some real consideration if we truly want to weigh the potential risks vs the potential advantages.
If you want to see the full chart of self-reported negative health effects I collected from people here in NM, it is here: https://www.nourishedandnurturedlife.com/post/are-masks-healthy
Interesting essay in today’s NYTimes about condescending public health, “How to Actually Talk to Anti-Maskers”:
“You cannot force public trust; you have to earn it by being humble and transparent, and by listening. And you can’t fake that care and maintenance — it’s the grueling and deeply human work of democracy, which is never finished.
“An epidemic is not only technical and medical — they are not cured only by science or vaccines,” Dr. Niang told me. His words have haunted me since. “Ebola was beaten back by many things, including building consensus inside communities and restoring dignity and trust. This is what we learned. Hopefully, it is not too late for you over there to learn it, too.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/opinion/coronavirus-health-experts.html
Well they certainly have got their work cut out for them David,
Being a member of a vaccine injury organization for the last 40 years, this much I can say with certainty… when it comes to defending their vaccine regimen, health bureaucrats are definitely not “humble and transparent”. Their overbearing attitude that it is either their way or the highway, and that there is no room for alternative health care options is not going to earn them any trust in the near future. Parents have had to fight “tooth and nail” in order to earn the right to exempt their children from receiving these unnatural toxic injections and the fact that health care bureaucrats continue in their attempt to dispense of that right and have the gall to marginalize these parents many of whom have had children that were injured or killed because of a vaccination, invoking a “greater good” philosophy, is unconscionable.
2 witnesses against the Mask Madness
a dispatch from what used to be known as “the real world” …
In 2014, nurses in Ontario Canada brought a grievance against their employer because most of them were refusing to submit to vaccination for the annual ‘flu shot’. The employers then compelled un-vaccinated nurses to wear masks ALL the time at work. The nurses’ experience on the verymost front lines of the healthcare system, had told them that getting vaccinated made them sick. While colleagues working alongside them who’d refused to get pricked, did not fall ill.
the matter made its way up to an arbitration finding : the crux of which was whether the nurses who refused vaccination, could be compelled to wear masks on the job. Read it for thy-self, particularly pages 44 to 49… where the arbitrator declares the health authority masking policy “illogical, UN-reasonable”, in light of the lack of evidence.
URL for the whole report, is
https://www.ona.org/wp-content/uploads/ona_kaplanarbitrationdecision_vaccinateormask_stmichaelsoha_20180906.pdf
The Kaplan report put the boots to the mask non-sense, but health care authorities in British Columbia refused to abide by it. So the Nurses union did the same thing in BC = applied to an arbitrator. It finally wound its way to a tribunal in 2019. The ruling of which was exactly the same as in Ontario…. Expert evidence submitted by the government side proved nothing but that industry-wide compulsory masks have no effect one way or the other on transmission of an influenza outbreak. So wearing a mask on the job is left to the professional judgment of each individual nurse.
for us still entrained in the basic mental programming given to us by God ( used to be called “logic” ) it’s puzzling why those who dictate mask-wearing seem so stupid as to ignore their own evidence. Of course the Powers-that-Be are not that stupid; so there is no other, more logical explanation for mask madness but that it is imposed for an ulterior, wicked purpose.
The sicknesses are not a hoax as to whether or not covid is responsible remains to be seen until they are able prove that this novel coronavirus that they claim to be SARS-CoV-2 actually exists, and is in fact responsible for all the illnesses and deaths that they suggest. It may very well be that a coronavirus is responsible for some of these illnesses and deaths, as they are each year. To date however, they have not been able to isolate the above so-called virus nor visualize it with an electron microscope and until they can show proof that this fragment of viral RNA they claim to be represent SARS-COV-2 is in fact a real virus, I remain skeptical. If the do manage to specifically identify the virus then my position remains the same with respect to viruses… They are hardwired to survive… They cannot be “eradicated” they cannot be “snuffed out”, and they will not “retreat”. Herd immunity is what we should be striving to achieve and that can only occur via uninhibited natural exposure of the virus to the general population. Most attempts used to control the spread of a virus, including the use of face masks are going to cause more harm then good.
Mark McAfee: be careful what you wish for with regards to “new leadership”. The Governor of NM, Michele Lujan Grisham, is on the list of potential VPs for Biden. I have serious concerns about the cognitive health of Biden and whether he would be able to actually serve a full term as President.
If our Governor is his VP, this could be truly terrifying. I cannot even begin to imagine what she would do as President during the current health crisis. Here in New Mexico, she has wielded her emergency powers like a sledgehammer:
-For the last 4 MONTHS, people have not been allowed to gather in any groups larger than 5, and that is even extended to large families not being allowed to go for walks all together. No funerals, weddings, celebrations, or family gatherings have been allowed for over 4 months.
-Our mask mandate includes wearing masks anytime you are not in your own home. Our Governor has a “zero-tolerance” policy on mask wearing. Masks are required when going for walks and hikes! There is no exemption for young children. There is no exemption for whether you are far away from others or even if there is no one around. Individuals can be fined $100 for non-compliance, and businesses can be fined for not enforcing the mask mandate in their customers.
-Anyone from out-of-state is denied access to our state parks. All travelers are required to quarantine for 14 days upon entering our state, and if any of us leave NM we are required to quarantine for 14 days upon return.
-New Mexicans are encouraged to snitch on each other and send photos to the Governor. She even recommends that people look for violations to report by searching on social media for any evidence that people have been in groups larger than 5 or have been no wearing masks. This is resulting in a huge divide in our community!
People are reporting on neighbors for having backyard BBQ’s. Businesses are reporting against their competitors for non-compliance with mask enforcement, etc. If you go for a walk unmasked, you’re now looking over your shoulder to see if someone is reporting you. Some people who cannot wear masks due to health conditions are being harassed and followed around in the grocery store, with people sending their picture and license plate # in to the Governor. Just last week, someone was shot and killed in Albuquerque after an altercation about mask wearing. And the Governor is threatening law enforcement officers with “civil and criminal penalties” if they do not enforce her mandates.
This type of “leadership” could be absolutely disastrous to the country at large.
(BTW, I do NOT support Trump, either.)
Sarah, you are making a lot of questionable assumptions here. You may have concerns about Biden’s cognitive health, but nothing has shown up in his physicals, which he makes public. You may be concerned about Gov. Grisham being VP, but she’s a real long shot, if only because she comes from a small state.
One of the reasons the pandemic has become worse in the U.S. than most any other major country has been the lack of leadership from the top. The big failing was refusal to take the pandemic seriously back in Feb and March, before it had arrived full force, via aggressive testing and tracing. Indeed, we have never gotten our testing regimen together like other countries that got their arms around the pandemic. For that failing, Trump must be held accountable.
The emergency powers you list for NM have been used in any number of states. In the Northeast, which was the original hotspot back in March, the combination of social distancing, masks, lockdown, no large groups, combined to bring Covid cases down to among lowest in the country. The trauma of being a hotspot has encouraged many people in this part of the country to continue abiding by such guidelines, even though certain of the orders were lifted as things got better. Now that much of the rest of the country is experiencing high rates, Massachusetts and New York have implemented pretty strict laws to keep people out from states with high rates of illness. By the way, most major countries of the world have orders in place to keep Americans out because things are so bad here. We are literally prisoners in our own country.
I hope our Governor is a long shot for VP, but she is being listed as one of the potential candidates. The measures she has taken here are far over and above what most states are doing, and by-and-large they don’t make sense given our state’s large size and low population density.
The only hotspots we’ve had have been on the Native American reservations in the northwest corner of the state. Those areas absolutely have needed extra attention and stricter measures to control the spread. But treating our entire state (population density of 17 people/square mile) as if it is as risky as NYC (population density of 27,000/square mile) or even Massachusetts (population density of 885/square mile) does not make any sense. We still have some counties that have not had a single confirmed case. Much of our state has had very few or zero deaths.
Other states have reasonable things such as mask exemptions for young children, masks being required in places where you can’t socially distance, etc. But our Governor has literally said that we need to wear masks anytime we step out of our homes, and she is applying this one-size fits-all approach to our entire state. That type of “leadership” has no place in the larger scale of ruling over our entire diverse country.
“White Coat Summit” today on Capital Hill. The doctors who have actually treated this disease. WATCH LIVE. . Frontline Physicians Aim to Dispel ‘Massive’ COVID-19 ‘Disinformation Campaign. Just like Joseph Heckman says, hydroxychloraquine is the treatment for this disease and it has been politically shunned by the media and politicians. Masks are a possible adjunct in certain situation, but not the answer. PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS SUMMIT. Summit is coming back shortly. Spread this link to everybody you know. Thank you David for your forum and freedom of speech!!! https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/07/27/watch-live-frontline-physicians-aim-to-dispel-massive-covid-19-disinformation-campaign/
Why is scientific and medical opinion from front-line physicians being deleted and erased?
IMHO it is censorship from the press and TPTB. McCarthyism Redux only worse this time.
This statement by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. provides a plausible explanation…
“When I was a boy, it was unthinkable that an American liberal would acquiesce to censorship. It was axiomatic that all the Nazi atrocities had begun with censorship and silencing of critics of government policies. Our civics teachers taught that the free flow of information —even inconvenient truths— was the lifeblood of democracy. My uncle JFK commented in 1962 that American “libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.” History will record that, in 2020, it was men who called themselves “liberal” who lead the clamor for censorship. Harry Truman warned us against such men: “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” In March 2019 Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff asked each of these powerful Internet titans to censor “vaccine misinformation”, a euphemism for any statement that departs from official declarations by Pharma and it’s captured regulatory officials. Each of these Silicon Valley tyrants is partnered in rich deals with vaccine makers. They were therefore delighted to comply. Today they openly silence the tragic stories of American mothers of vaccine injured children and all other unapproved criticism of pharmaceutical products. Where does Adam Schiff thinks this will end? Does he imagine Bill Gates as a friend of liberty? In one short moment, the worm will turn. To Schiff, I paraphrase St Thomas Moore’s query; “When you have obliterated the First Amendment to get at the Devil, and the Devil then turns on you, then where will you hide?”
“Beginning in 1933, Josef Goebbels presided over the Nazi censorship drives… Today the censorship czars are named SCHIFF, Zuckerberg, Pichay, Dorsey and Gates”.
I just looked at my Facebook page this AM and I had posted the same link on hydroxychloraquine here as on Facebook. On facebook it says “this content is not available right now”. This is the first time Facebook has censored one of my posts. David Gumpert did not censor this. Facebook did.
But it might have been because the link was from Breitbart. I reposted using Joseph Heckman’s link. We can see what happens. Also on my video notifications feed, the video of the event is posted under Informed Citizens United. So will just have to wait and see how and if there is further censorship.
I doubt it was Breibart. Zuckerberg and Trump are buddy-buddy. Facebook, after all, was Trump’s key to victory in 2016, and he’s counting on it again this time around
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/26/bidens-path-to-the-white-house-could-hit-a-dead-end-on-facebook?CMP=share_btn_link&fbclid=IwAR3smcyxVaNKQxjHc5eKO_qiVt0BdhkO7h2-PAYwNuVvCyYqXEGLqn9YPag
Search for American Frontline Doctors
https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.com/
FYI. American Frontline Doctors website has been Expired by Google. Go ahead and click on Joseph Heckmans’s link. This morning the link was there. Now it is Website Expired..
On Facebook I can no longer find the news conference on Informed Citizens United. My post of Joseph Heckman’s link is Website Expired. Believe me David Gumpert, Zuckerberg is not going to let Trump prevail. If he did last election, it was not intentional.
This is CENSORSHIP. You can all argue over whether masks or not masks , but meanwhile a therapy that can save thousands of lives is being disavowed and actively squashed.. Now on the Breitbart article, the video is unavailable. This is really scary.
Disinformation is being promulgated about the nature of the spread of the virus to induce unnecessary fear into people. It absolutely does not matter that David Gumpert allows the video to be posted on his blog, because Google has wiped out access to the video. These Frontline doctors are being silenced in the most heinous way.
Are we to remain cowards or are we going to speak up against this heinous censorship? That is my question to you.
This video is still available. Listen to it fast before they delete it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D7mxB1JQgw
Okay, let me try to explain a few facts of life.
First, the companies that have taken down the video of the docs (Facebook, YouTube/Google, Twitter, etc.) are private companies. They can do whatever the hell they want with their platforms in terms of setting rules about the content they allow or don’t allow. This is how media companies operate, going way back before the Internet. Newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television stations every day decide what content to include on their platforms or in their publications. In practice, they reject most of what they receive. The Internet is a different sort of media platform because it can handle nearly endless amounts of content, without the limitations of time and space. So we’ve all been conditioned to expect that everything we put up on Facebook and such is okay because these companies have welcomed our postings, which is known in the business as “user generated content.”
Second, this isn’t “censorship.” Censorship is when the government steps in and cuts content from media outlets.The government isn’t involved in taking your precious video down. In fact, the leader of our government seems to like the video in question. But he can’t force these companies to keep the video up because of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which prevents the government from interfering with what the media want…..or don’t want….to publish.
Third, this kind of content control was inevitable because abuses of the original any-content-is-permissible premise had to happen. Most vividly, the 2016 election was undermined because Russia flooded social media with “fake news” about the candidates. Similar abuses have continued. The social media have felt compelled to set limits for fear that their platforms will be overwhelmed with the equivalent of spam.
Fourth, if you want to do something about it, your best bet is to start your own platform, where you allow stuff that the other platforms don’t want to allow. Good luck!
David, Private or not censorship is an egregious crime… Yes, they are private companies, but to suggest that the government isn’t involved is absolutely incorrect. I have had three separate articles blocked questioning the effectiveness of masks… Why would a private company want to do that? Who is pulling their strings?
Ken, sorry but the government isn’t involved in running these companies. These are publicly held companies, owned by their shareholders. They file reems of data about their operations with the Securities and Exchange Commission (which is a government agency charged with overseeing the companies’ accounting and other reporting). Now, you might argue these companies are somehow pulling content because they fear the government will come down on them if they don’t. But the U.S. prez said today he liked the video that has been pulled. And as I said before, censorship, as you call it, has been going on since the first media came into being and decided in favor of publishing certain things and against publishing certain things. It’s really not censorship, but editorial discretion.
Okay, the government as a whole and as a matter of policy is not involved with the censoring that is ongoing and current. That said, there are individual officials (elected and unelected) within the government that have no qualms about requesting that these companies explicitly censor what they consider misleading information. These so called “private companies” are clearly being influenced by people with authority in government and that in of itself is a form of pulling strings and represents a blatant abuse of authority that needs to be reined in ASAP.
“Schiff Sends Letter to Google, Facebook Regarding Anti-Vaccine Misinformation”
https://schiff.house.gov/news/press-releases/schiff-sends-letter-to-google-facebook-regarding-anti-vaccine-misinformation
“Rep. Adam Schiff Sued by Physicians for Censoring Vaccine Debate”
https://aapsonline.org/rep-adam-schiff-sued-by-physicians-for-censoring-vaccine-debate/
There’s no question there is a back-and-forth between these social media platforms and government. As just one big example, the American government concluded at different levels (intelligence agencies, Mueller Report, legislative committees) that Russia used (or misused) the social media platforms to influence (and undermine) the 2016 election. These social media were put in an unfavorable PR spotlight, and threatened with new regulation. Clearly the attention to inaccurate and misleading content shared thousands of times is a result of all that government attention.
And these companies, like all other major corporations, spend huge amounts hiring lobbyists to try to make sure the companies aren’t regulated too heavily.
So sure, there is definitely governmental influence. I just don’t think it extends to the operational level, where government operatives are telling FB/Google/Twitter which posts to leave up and which to take down.
In the second paragraph of the first chapter in his book, “Don’t Burn This Book… Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason” (well worth reading) Dave Rubin states, “You don’t need me to go on for 250 pages about how the left has completely lost its mind. You already know this — At least on an intellectual level— and you can probably appreciate why I, a former lifelong lefty, have changed my allegiance.”
A review of the above book in the link below states, “Don’t Burn This Book empowers you with time-tested and common-sense principles that can turn the tide against authoritarians on both sides in this increasingly polarized world. This book is a rallying cry for anyone who wants to live freely, which is quickly becoming the most radical belief you could have”.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/49907457-don-t-burn-this-book
Here is one of many articles calling the HCQ doctors out as weirdos. All I can say is you have to judge for yourselves. I could remind you that those of you who have been consistently and even viciously attacked over the years for defending raw milk against pasteurized milk might be able to put yourselves in the shoes of these doctors .
https://www.bbc.com/news/53559938
“So were the think tank libertarians, including some still positing as conservatives. You saw them on Twitter, helpfully reminding you that this kind of censorship wasn’t really censorship because the government wasn’t doing it.
They didn’t explain why that distinction matters to anyone. In fact, censorship is always bad, whether it’s imposed by Congress, or by monopolies that only exist because they receive special carve-outs granted to them by Congress. It doesn’t matter. It’s always wrong. Censorship doesn’t improve public health. In fact, it threatens public health. The authorities responsible for containing this pandemic have failed. We know that. Some are trying their best, but they’ve frequently been wrong. We know that because it’s on tape. What we desperately in a crisis, especially in a crisis like right now, is we need are more voices in this conversation, not fewer. Remember when the Surgeon General told us this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME ADAMS: What the WHO and CDC have reaffirmed that they do not recommend the general public wear masks (edit) Wearing a mask improperly can actually increase your risk of getting the disease.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Masks are dangerous! That wasn’t very long ago. Now masks are mandatory. In other words, scientific consensus changes. That’s the point — as we learn more, our conclusions change. Legitimate scientists understand that. That’s called the scientific method. Big tech companies don’t care one way or another because their goal is to control the outcome of an election, not to protect public health. This isn’t about public health, and it’s not about science. It never was. It’s about power. And no one in the history of the word has had more power than Google and Facebook have right now.
We should have seen this coming. People who have power abuse that power and people who have absolute power abuse it absolutely, as we’ve learned.”
Full article here.
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/07/28/carlson-big-tech-engaging-in-censorship-on-coronavirus-to-help-biden/
David, You had said that you think there are more people who agree with what I was saying than agree with your view of things, but I think there are significantly more that agree with your view than my view. Thanks for the forum.
There is another video of the Front Line Doctors. My every attempt to post the link fails to post. Why?
Here is the link. Not sure why the comment didn’t post for you.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Op0k5vDpseUD/
David,
Thank You!
America’s Frontline Doctors website is now back on the web. I don’t understand how but the url now has “summit” at the end of it.
https://americasfrontlinedoctorsummit.com/.
Also Dr. Gold has now lost her job as an ER physician. Here is her interview with Tucker Carlson.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/emergency-room-dr-simone-gold-fired-hospital-attending-white-coat-summit-says-hired-lin-wood-represent-video/
Thank you to all of you who are conservative who are fighting the good fight against censorship in Canada and the US and other countries as well (i.e. China)
War Room Pandemic ep. 308. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5YC7icGOjE
Please be aware that most comments with links won’t post until I approve them. Has always been that way.
As it should be David. Some links can be poisonous weed them out.
Policy statement on censorship by Derek Sloan, one of four candidates running to lead the Canadian Conservative party…
“The right to freedom of expression is an indispensable Canadian right. It is foundational to our democracy, and defending that right is a basic conservative principle from which I will never retreat.
Unfortunately, in our political and popular culture these days, it is the left that writes the script of what you can believe, what you can express, and what you’re allowed to share.
There’s an ever-narrowing window of what’s acceptable to say, both in public and on social media.
Want a real border? You’re a racist!
Think balancing the budget is good? Why do you hate the poor?
The left throws around the word “diversity” a lot, but actual diversity of thought terrifies them. They’d rather ban ideas than engage in discussion about them, because they’re short on actual arguments.
Today, principled conservative ideas, ways of thinking that have informed the ascent of Western culture and civilization, are defined by the left as hate speech.
I’m concerned by online censorship and algorithmic bias used by tech giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to silence conservative voices. I will introduce legislation to make it illegal for these online platforms to ban a user unless that user has been documented breaking Canadian law.
Political correctness is a suffocating scourge; it is not the law.
To allow platforms to ban Canadians for political incorrectness is to allow only some political speech in the public square. It will be as fatal to our democracy to allow technology platforms to take this position as it would be to allow governments to do so.
We must guard against this kind of thinking and remember that earlier this year Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault spoke favourably of government regulation of news and other content on the internet.
I will also introduce legislation that specifically criminalizes “doxing”, the deliberate posting of contact information, including home addresses, of someone with the intent of inviting harassment and physical harm. This is a vile tactic often used to intimidate people who state opinions on social media deemed “unacceptable” by the radical left.
I am the only CPC leadership candidate dedicated to defending the foundational Canadian right of free expression in this way.
I have also committed to repeal Bill C-16 immediately and will fight against all attempts to impose “compelled speech” in Canadian life. I will make federal grants to universities conditional upon proof that all recipients respect free speech and free inquiry on campus”.
And here is a post to War Room Pandemic which discusses these doctors and HCQ as well. Hope it posts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5YC7icGOjE&t=594s
Thank you to all conservatives fighting in all countries, England, Canada, US and especially China.
Here’s my blog post on HCQ, so much good research on it: https://vitalityhealthworks.com/hydroxychloroquine-works/
Well researched article…
LOCKDOWN LUNACY 3.0—It’s over.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/lockdown-lunacy-3-0-its-over/?itm_term=home&fbclid=IwAR3JVJkFxdSAhcJOwMlLjmKUjVDSX-AEwjnQYhRaa0OpQvOwSfw-WltZDmk
“Lockdowns don’t work. Getting politicians involved in trying to fight the normal course of a viral illness will hopefully (b)e seen by historians as one of the silliest things we ever chose to do. In simple terms, a virus is gonna be a virus. As Dr. Gupta explains, “The epidemic is an ecological relationship that we have to manage between ourselves and the virus. But instead, people are looking at it as a completely external thing.” Said differently, like every other virus, COVID-19 is here to stay. Lockdowns provide politicians with an “illusion of control” but the data is rolling in that they have been useless, and even The Lancet, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, has weighed in. Titled, A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes, their conclusions are pretty stark, and depressing for those of us who have undergone lockdowns:
“Government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.”
White Coat Supremacy and Cancel Culture
Anthony Fauci’s record of attacking dissenters and suppressing the truth.
Long before he attained celebrity status with the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Anthony Fauci pioneered what is now called “cancel culture.” The victim was a medical scientists far more qualified than Fauci himself.
Anthony Fauci earned a medical degree but his bio shows no earned PhD in molecular biology or biochemistry. In 1984 as head National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Fauci contended that AIDS was caused by a virus known as HIV. Peter H. Duesberg, professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, found no scientific evidence for that claim.
Web search it if you wish to read more of this article about Fauci
“How declaring virus pandemics based on PCR tests can end in disaster was described by Gina Kolata in her 2007 New York Times article Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic That Wasn’t.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html
“Dr. Cathy A. Petti, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Utah, said the story had one clear lesson… “The big message is that every lab is vulnerable to having false positives,” Dr. Petti said. “No single test result is absolute and that is even more important with a test result based on P.C.R.””
If one wishes to understand the PCR test. how misleading it can be and why it should not be used for diagnosis, then they would do well to read the following article… As the The author of the article writes, “I am in the rare position of having known, spent time with, and interviewed the inventor of the method used in the presently available Covid-19 tests, which is called PCR, (Polymerase Chain Reaction.) His name was Kary B. Mullis…
“The Corona Simulation Machine: Why the Inventor of The “Corona Test” Would Have Warned Us Not To Use It To Detect A Virus”
https://uncoverdc.com/2020/04/07/was-the-covid-19-test-meant-to-detect-a-virus/
The author correctly states “The people who have taken all your freedoms away in recent weeks, they’re social engineers, politicians, globalist thought leaders, bankers, WHO fanatics, and the like. Their army is composed of “mainstream media,” which is now literally a round-the-clock perfect propaganda machine for the Gates-led Pandemic Reich.
“Kary Mullis was a scientist. He never spoke like a globalist, and said once, memorably, when accused of making statements about HIV that could endanger lives: “I’m a scientist. I’m not a lifeguard.” That’s a very important line in the sand. Somebody who goes around claiming they are “saving lives,” is a very dangerous animal, and you should run in the opposite direction when you encounter them. Their weapon is fear, and their favorite word is “could.” They entrap you with a form of bio-debt, creating simulations of every imaginable thing that “could” happen, yet hasn’t.”
“Kary Mullis was a scientist. He never spoke like a globalist, and said once, memorably, when accused of making statements about HIV that could endanger lives: “I’m a scientist. I’m not a lifeguard.” That’s a very important line in the sand. Somebody who goes around claiming they are “saving lives,” is a very dangerous animal, and you should run in the opposite direction when you encounter them. Their weapon is fear, and their favorite word is “could.” They entrap you with a form of bio-debt, creating simulations of every imaginable thing that “could” happen, yet hasn’t. Bill Gates has been waiting a long time for a virus with this much, as he put it, “pandemic potential.” But Gates has a problem, and it’s called PCR”.
When gthe author asked Dr. Rasnick, bio-chemist, protease developer, and former founder of an EM lab called Viral Forensics, what advice he has for people who want to be tested for COVID-19.
“Don’t do it, I say, when people ask me,” he replies. “No healthy person should be tested. It means nothing but it can destroy your life, make you absolutely miserable.”
“I conducted a two-hour interview with David Crowe– Canadian researcher, with a degree in biology and mathematics, host of The Infectious Myth podcast, and President of the think-tank Rethinking AIDS. He broke down the problems with the PCR based Corona test in great detail, revealing a world of unimaginable complexity, as well as trickery.
“The first thing to know is that the test is not binary,” he said. “In fact, I don’t think there are any tests for infectious disease that are positive or negative.”
The entire article is worth reading…
Sweden’s approach is indeed more sustainable… and sensible.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/sweden-unveils-promising-covid-19-data-as-new-cases-plunge-1.1471871
Tegnell also broached the subject of face masks, which the World Health Organization recommends people use when social distancing isn’t possible.
“With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” he said.
Tegnell has consistently argued that Sweden’s approach is more sustainable than the sudden lockdowns imposed elsewhere. With the risk that COVID-19 might be around for years, he says completely shutting down society isn’t a long-term option.
Meanwhile, many countries that thought they’d brought the virus under control are now seeing second waves. Tegnell called those developments “worrying.”
“The positive trend is reversing, with an increase in the number of cases in Spain, Romania and Belgium, among others,” he said.
“Face masks, lies, damn lies, and public health officials: “A growing body of evidence””
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343399832_Face_masks_lies_damn_lies_and_public_health_officials_A_growing_body_of_evidence
“A vile new mantra is on the lips of every public health official and politician in the global campaign to force universal masking on the general public: “there is a growing body of evidence”. This propagandistic phrase is a vector designed to achieve five main goals: – Give the false impression that a balance of evidence now proves that masks reduce the transmission of COVID-19 – Falsely assimilate commentary made in scientific venues with “evidence” – Hide the fact that a decade’s worth of policy-grade evidence proves the opposite: that masks are ineffective with viral respiratory diseases – Hide the fact that there is now direct observational proof that cloth masks do not prevent exhalation of clouds of suspended aerosol particles; above, below and through the masks – Deter attention away from the considerable known harms and risks due to face masks, applied to entire populations The said harms and risks include that a cloth mask becomes a culture medium for a large variety of bacterial pathogens, and a collector of viral pathogens; given the hot and humid environment and the constant source, where home fabrics are hydrophilic whereas medical masks are hydrophobic. In short, I argue: op-eds are not “evidence”, irrelevance does not help, and more bias does not remove bias. Their mantra of “a growing body of evidence” is a self-serving contrivance that impedes good science and threatens public safety. I prove that there is no policy-grade evidence to support forced masking on the general population, and that all the latest-decade’s policy-grade evidence points to the opposite: NOT recommending forced masking of the general population. Therefore, the politicians and health authorities are acting without legitimacy and recklessly.”
The greater good utilitarian rational compelling the use of vaccines is indeed ethically and morally corrupt…
“Thousands of Irish orphans were used as ‘drug guinea pigs’”
https://www.rt.com/news/164884-irish-baby-scandal-vaccines/amp/?fbclid=IwAR1whsdaczHnhhI84CKVZPri_wqWUjvwWE6bqY1M1B30jOWHu-xEHNQD9Lg
Over 2,000 care-home kids were secretly vaccinated against diphtheria in the 1930s in medical trials undertaken by international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome, Irish media reveal. Among the testing sites was a recently discovered mass grave
Ken, thought you might appreciate this, just released from the Trump White House:
‘Only a Safe, Effective Vaccine Will Get Our Approval’
“The framework in the United States to support a covid-19 vaccine is now in place. Testing is underway and manufacturing capacity is rapidly expanding. But let’s be clear: The development effort must adhere to standards that will ensure any covid-19 vaccine’s safety and effectiveness,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn writes in The Washington Post.
“Large-scale clinical trials already have begun for several promising vaccine candidates.”
(I am on the media distribution list for White House press releases.)
Can’t say I’m not surprised David… The writing has been on the wall ever since this so-called pandemic was predicted and eventually declared. Canada is heading in the same direction by partnering with a Chinese pharmaceutical company called CanSino Biologics, which is absolute insanity considering the unethical way in which the Chinese Government conducts overall medical and scientific research, including vaccine research and development. There is not a safe vaccine on the market and these genetically engineered corona vaccines that have been fast tracked for approval are no exception. Thirty plus years ago a Supreme Court ruling in your country declared, based on the science, that “vaccines were unavoidably unsafe”. A premise that was based on the fact that an unsafe product was mandated by the government for use.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but when empirically proven facts with respect to the safety and effectiveness of vaccines are systematically censored then we had better be on our guard. The same can be said about these arbitrarily mandated covid-19 restrictions…
The never-ending narrative of contradiction and shifting goal posts in regards to this so-called coronavirus pandemic…
https://www.rebelnews.com/two_weeks_or_two_years_covid-19_power_grab?utm_campaign=el_aug5els_8_6_20&utm_medium=email&utm_source=therebel
Following the money…
“Fact-Checking a “Fact-Checker”: A Response to HealthFeedback.org”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/06/fact-checking-a-fact-checker-a-response-to-healthfeedback-org/?fbclid=IwAR3HMFw940TTzOXWsQtG46e93xP-wv-9C8NXU-bX0H_U0YhYB01nvVd4Djs
“AstraZeneca is one of the biggest players jockeying for the lead in developing and selling vaccines against COVID-19.
‘Also, the company will not have financial responsibility in many countries for injuries and deaths from the vaccine it’s developing against COVID-19 — and which it’ll deliver billions of doses of, starting as early as December, without having to first show the vaccine is safe or effective.
‘This indemnity reportedly is being granted because the company, which is the UK’s second-largest pharmaceutical firm, “cannot take the risk” of compensating people for the “side effects” they experience from the vaccine.
‘Among the major backers of the AstraZeneca vaccine are the US government, the UK government, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.”
“Dentists say ‘mask mouth’ can cause serious health complications, including strokes”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mask-mouth-dentists-warn-prolonged-use-of-masks-leading-to-poor-oral-hygiene?fbclid=IwAR1pXb3ylDft9_tQjwfQ7HyBXIUWetPODLDDvdXMiaEdDhjfEspGkbu6IQc
Dentist and co-founder at One Manhattan Dental, Rob Ramondi, said 50% of his patients are suffering from negative health issues due to mask-wearing.
“We’re seeing inflammation in people’s gums that have been healthy forever, and cavities in people who have never had them before,” Ramondi said. “About 50% of our patients are being impacted by this, [so] we decided to name it ‘mask mouth’ — after ‘meth mouth.’”
“Meth mouth” is a term used to describe poor oral hygiene typically associated with chronic meth users.
The dentists said that the face coverings increase mouth dryness and contribute to a buildup of bad bacteria.
“People tend to breathe through their mouth instead of through their nose while wearing a mask,” Sclafani said. “The mouth breathing is causing the dry mouth, which leads to a decrease in saliva — and saliva is what fights the bacteria and cleanses your teeth.”
‘Masks Make Us Slaves’
“Massive protests in Berlin, Germany over the weekend as reports of tens of thousands up to possibly a million or more people took to the streets to protests COVID lockdowns. What are the people truly asking for? Some say, a return to Democracy.”
“….possibly a million or more….” Sure. Here’s what an Associated Press story said:
“Police estimated about 17,000 people turned out. The demonstrators were kept apart from counterprotesters, some of whom chanted “Nazis out!”
“Protesters continued to a subsequent rally on a boulevard running through the city’s Tiergarten park, which police estimated drew 20,000 people. Police declared that event over as organizers again failed to get demonstrators to wear masks or keep their distance.
“Protests against anti-virus restrictions in Germany have drawn a variety of attendees, including conspiracy theorists and right-wing populists.
“Unlike the U.S., Brazil and Britain, Germany’s government has been praised worldwide for its management of the pandemic. The country’s death toll — just over 9,150 people out of more than 210,670 confirmed virus cases as of Saturday — is five times less than Britain’s, which has a smaller population.”
https://www.goskagit.com/community/health/thousands-protest-in-berlin-against-coronavirus-restrictions/article_aa81b448-2e39-5e25-a623-cf3d54f9db8b.html
Tough to protest against success.
A Letter From a Friend in Germany
Dear Mr. Kennedy and CHD,
“As you have already heard, there was a massive protest in Berlin August 1, 2020. I have been waiting to report on it until I had a complete picture about it and what happened afterwards.
‘Health freedom was a big part of the protest — more and more people are waking up to the fact that they do not want to be guinea pigs for Gates’ experimental vaccine. But it was also mainly about our freedom and human rights, against draconian measures put on us by the government, against lockdown, social distancing and masks.
‘The numbers that were reported vary greatly. The mainstream media in collusion with the Berlin mayor tried everything to cover up and lie about it. They snapped a picture of the “protest” in the early morning, many, many hours before it actually began and used this picture to say there were “17,000 people” at the protest. The mayor himself told police that the people were acting “against the democratic principle” (?) and ordered police to end it. Mainstream media proclaimed many hours before the protest that it was made up of a few crazy “Nazis, conspiracy theorists and corona-deniers” then dispersed by the police.
‘People – normal people—concerned citizens, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, doctors, lawyers, business owners – streamed to Berlin by the hundreds of thousands—the official numbers from the police were 800,000 to 1.3 million, with 2-3 million people in the general vicinity.
People attending said that the energy was unbelievable and felt like “a bomb of light and love and peace and freedom” had exploded in Berlin.”
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/rally-in-berlin/?fbclid=IwAR1vPw8ep-7Wfyaps4GWlhbSDoya27svm4Bbhj3IwgkIV76ILSIuseNNeQ4
if you’re going to apologiz3 for your colleagues in the Lugen-Presse, Mister Gumpert, you have a very hard row to hoe. The outstanding reason that Donald Trump won the presidency, is because his handlers knew how to exploit the disdain ordinary Americans have for your profession. Everybody knows that = the communications media are nothing but propaganda outfalls for the Central Party Line
one small anecdote will suffice. On July 1st 2020 we had a gathering on the lawn in front of the Legislature building in Victoria British Columbia, WITH official permission from the protocol officer. 12 speakers were briliant, , critiquing the government handling of the Scam-demic. 30 yards away, was another gathering of the local anti-fa/ BLM / freaks.
My old man was a cop ; he taught me to always count the house. So I know there were over 150 of us and about 200 of the BLM/ Indigenous crowd. Within earshot of each other .. them comically taunting us all afternoon via their sound system as “White supremecists” … for putting together an ad hoc, amateur celebration of Canada’s national holiday, when the Powers-that-Be wouldn’t.
Next day the local rag – the Victoria Times Colonist – devoted half a page to the BLM Indigenous / professional Indians bunch, tossing in a half a line of print, sneering that we had “about a dozen supporters”.
Same thing happened in Ottawa Ontario. The CBC reported that ‘the capital was empty’. Meanwhile livestream video from friends of mine who were there to support Norman Traversy, showed many THOUSANDS in the streets and on Parliament Hill … the majority of them carrying the flag of Quebec
…. > just a couple of snippet of from the real world, exposing what passes for “reporting” in this day and age versus what used to be called “the real world”
but not to despair : the globalist narrative about re CoronaMadness is coming unglued by the hour.
This is turning in to one of the great “Teachable moments’ of all time
an excellent article = the epitaph for your generation of journalists.
explaining how the mainstream media’s obsession with Donald Trump for President shot itself in the foot
http://americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/the_mainstream_media_is_at_the_point_of_no_return.html?fbclid=IwAR1fAx3foo0lVlFDIDot8PE_9x77sZRT9sdw55Al6ce5ms9_uS7RJ3TZN7s
A recent landmark poll of 20,000 citizens undertaken by the Knight Foundation and Gallup found that Americans’ hope for and trust in an objective media is all but lost. They see not only an ever-growing partisanship in news reporting but a determination by the mainstream media to push a political agenda instead of honestly disseminating the news. While generic faith in the media has been gradually declining over recent decades, the precipitous drop in trust and questions about what motivates the mainstream media can be traced to June 2015 and Donald Trump’s entry into the presidential sweepstakes.
“Shot themselves in the foot”? Gee, that statement sounds familiar…They are not the only ones that have shot themselves, and keep shooting themselves in the foot.
Reminds me of the bubble boy… They are treating these children as if they have no immune system and if they continue with this insanity the children’s immune systems will eventually have immune system problems. The flawed nature of their thinking won’t come to light until these children start developing breathing issues as well as oral complications such as “mask mouth”, a similar condition to “trench mouth”. This is not how we are designed to live; it is not natural and it disregards our symbiotic relationship with the microbial community.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/coronavirus-thailand-school-safety-measures?fbclid=IwAR14FNMTog9wF7UNOeNYKtvEs6k8crJZil5_RqUIGT8u1Iu_fHHSZbsAvuU
A pertinent letter by Randy Hilliar MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) for Ontario
August 04, 2020
“The COVID road, lies somewhere between Dogma & Conspiracy
‘The surreal and polarized world following the COVID panic can be difficult for anyone to fully understand and comprehend. On the one hand, a great many people have accepted without question or thought that fear and apocalyptic consequences can only be averted with egregious intervention.
‘On the other hand, there are those who question this dogma, and instead are left to search out alternative theories of what we are going through, including conspiracies between politicians, mainstream media, Big Pharma, and Big Tech.
‘I don’t agree with either of these two groups; I’m confident in saying that there is no Grand Conspiracy, while also stating COVID is not the apocalypse that justifies the end of our freedoms, our democracy, nor our prosperous economy.
‘I’ve been involved in partisan politics and an elected member in Canada’s largest provincial legislature for almost 14 years, through 4 terms of office. I’ve been in opposition, in government and now am an Independent member without partisan affiliation.
‘While Canada and Ontario are in the midst of and experiencing our worst ever public health crisis, it is not the result of COVID or conspiracies. Hundreds of thousands of medical procedures have been postponed, access to healthcare is no longer universal, it’s become non existent, the growth, development and education of our youth is being obstructed through lack of social interactions while our prosperity and standards of living are diminished. It is due to incompetence, ignorance, and the immutable truth: politicians never admit failure, and governments, by their very nature, always seek more powers.
‘It was excusable, and maybe even prudent, to implement harsh measures early in March of 2020 due to the vast uncertain, conflicting, and confusing information regarding this new virus. Instead of being truthful and admitting their unnecessary overreach which became apparent a month later, politicians doubled down on the overreach without understanding or considering the downstream consequences for society.
‘The singular political priority was not to improve the public outcomes but to improve their leaders’ popularity, enhance their party’s poll numbers and hide their incompetence, so that no one could blame them for the excessive overreach.
‘All governments have now dug themselves into a COVID hole, so deep they cannot escape, but what’s even worse, is the public cannot escape either without recognizing the COVID pandemic is not nearly the problem we thought it would become, and accept some humility for our role in being duped into apocalyptic alarmism. It is a bitter pill we must all swallow if we are to ever regain our standards of living, freedoms, democracy, self-respect, and respect for one another.
‘I understand that people may default to ascribing this COVID spectacle as a conspiracy, but to do so give politicians and governments far more credit than they deserve. In fourteen years I’ve never known any politician or political staff to keep a secret; leaks from political parties are constant and unending. However, the predisposition and proclivity for politicians and political parties to be incompetent, scandalous, and sketchy, knows no limits within the party apparatus.
‘While there are exceptions to every rule in life, consider this: most political leaders are chosen due to their charisma, personality, appearance or good looks, and/or party affiliations; very few are elected because of their intellect, convictions, or independence. That is a fact we can all take to the bank.
‘While I find the actions and response to COVID by political parties particularly disturbing, it is the actions and responses by the mainstream media to be most reprehensible, for they have lost sight of their primary responsibility to the public. They have remained silent as big tech has repeatedly censored differing opinions, while turning a blind eye to government incompetence and lack of transparency in order to gain access. The days of objective truth are behind us, it seems, led largely by the distracted press, and the gratuitously rude mob on social media.
‘The only conspiracy we are experiencing is the conspiracy to leave our faculties, critical thinking, and discourse unused during a most critical time. We have become victims of self-censorship, imposed upon us by fear, a fear that if we think differently, we are wrong. This leaves us unable to have the necessary conversations we used to have with our friends and neighbours…about decisions, about life, about taking care of one another. Instead, we find ourselves thrust into a dystopian world beyond anything we imagined possible, where hyperbole is law, and facts are subjective.”
We need more sensible leaders like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem who explains her decision to ignore demands to shut down state amid coronavirus concerns…
“Coronavirus restrictions killing 10,000 children per month and ‘wasting’ and ‘stunting’ millions more”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/study-coronavirus-restrictions-killing-10-000-children-per-month-and-wasting-and-stunting-millions-more?fbclid=IwAR1ANmkgn_kG5mzmle2bEz-2y-SRiIBKIZjK88LDW_a0gCLnrGBXERUw2M8
“It’s been seven months since the first COVID-19 cases were reported, and it is increasingly clear that the repercussions of the pandemic are causing more harm to children than the disease itself,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said. “Household poverty and food insecurity rates have increased.”
“The study, conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and published in the Lancet medical journal, said that hunger stemming from coronavirus restrictions is causing the deaths of 10,000 children per month and stunting the growth of another 550,000 per month.”
“Evaluation of the virulence of SARS-CoV-2 in France, from all-cause mortality 1946-2020”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343775235_Evaluation_of_the_virulence_of_SARS-CoV-2_in_France_from_all-cause_mortality_1946-2020
“We analyzed historic and recent all-cause mortality data for France, and other jurisdictions for comparison, using model fitting to quantify winter-burden deaths, and deaths from exceptional events. In this way, COVID-19 is put in historic perspective. We prove that the “COVID-peak” feature that is present in the all-cause mortality data of certain mid-latitude Northern hemisphere jurisdictions, including France, cannot be a natural epidemiological event occurring in the absence of a large non-pathogenic perturbation. We are certain that this “COVID-peak” is artificial because it: i. occurs sharply (one-month width) at an unprecedented location in the seasonal cycle of all-cause mortality (centered at the end of March), 2 ii. is absent in many jurisdictions (34 of the USA States have no “COVID-peak”), and iii. varies widely in magnitude from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in which it occurs. We suggest that: • the unprecedented strict mass quarantine and isolation of both sick and healthy elderly people, together and separately, killed many of them, • that this quarantine and isolation is the cause of the “COVID-peak” event that we have quantified, • and that the medical mechanism is mainly via psychological stress and social isolation of individuals with health vulnerabilities. According to our calculations, this caused some 30.2 K deaths in France in March and April 2020. However, even including the “COVID-peak”, the 2019-2020 winter-burden all-cause mortality is not statistically larger than usual. Therefore SARS-CoV-2 is not an unusually virulent viral respiratory disease pathogen. By analyzing the all-cause mortality data from 1946 to 2020, we also identified a large and steady increase in all-cause mortality that began in approximately 2008, which is too large to be explained by population growth in the relevant age structure, and which may be related to the economic crash of 2008 and its long-term societal consequences.”
The following is the best review I’ve seen or read (based on science) on the effectiveness of masks to prevent the spread of microbes… Masks are worthless and potentially dangerous… Indeed, science doesn’t care what anyone has been indoctrinated to believe.
Those who “believe” that wearing face masks in the general population is effective and not harmful are living in a fool’s paradise.
https://themodelhealthshow.com/maskfacts?fbclid=IwAR3J9ZDch4xGi9vZjsV0NpDc3at885yqX5BV4qPNCJPxAwI74dlomH2CtA0
A coincidence… perhaps.
Robert F Kennedy Jr. will speak in Berlin to an anticipated over 1 million people from across Europe “protesting Bill Gates’s bio security agenda, the rise of the authoritarian surveillance state and the Pharma sponsored coup d’etat against liberal democracy”, just as Tyrant Chancellor Angela Merkel is imposing increased draconian measures on “all” non-mask wearers…
https://www.facebook.com/ChildrensHealthDefense/photos/a.1806802292900517/2722962387951165/
This from the BBC about the rally:
“Police in Berlin have arrested 300 demonstrators during protests against Germany’s coronavirus restrictions.
Some 38,000 people took to the streets in the city for mostly peaceful demonstrations.
Later hundreds of protesters, many from the far right, tried to storm the Reichstag, the home of Germany’s federal parliament.
A number of people were arrested and German politicians condemned the attack as “shameful” and “unacceptable”.
Some of those involved had insignia from the far-right Reichsbürger (Reich Citizens) movement. Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “Nazi symbols as well as Reichsbürger and Imperial German flags have no place in the German Bundestag.” ”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53959552
Because of its recent history, Germany is very sensitive to Nazi influences. It’s worked hard to provide restitution to Holocaust survivors and otherwise establish itself as a reliable member of the world community. I would venture that Bobby Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s father, would not have been happy about his son’s involvement with this event.
After all the good work you’ve done for a long time, it’s disappointing to see you peddling the Central Party Line … smearing the enormous authentic Anti-vaxx movement by focussing on a few bad actors who’re along for the ride. From 30 years’ experience in the political realm, it’s obvious to me that those guys were agents provocateur put up to it to muddy the discourse.
of course you appreciate that the Campaign for REAL MILK Is inter-twined with the awakening going on, about the racket of artificial vaccination which is based in science-falsely-called.
best use of your forum is: educate all-concerned as to how raw milk is an essential building block for strong individual immunity
For the last 3 months, America has been under violent attack by un-appologetic co-ordinated mobs = domestic enemies of the Republic = yet you haven’t made the same criticism of them as the “far-leftists Marxists” whom they certainly are. I was puzzled why it was taking so long for the righteous indignation of white Christians to ‘break over’ in to the IN-evitable hot conflict. A 17 year old kid found himself ‘way over his head, Personifying what needed to be done. You and all the Eastern Establishment media can say what you want : when it mattered, Kyle Rittenburger stepped in to the gap and became an American hero … and you can never take that away from him.
all the snowflakes who were emboldened by cowardice on “the right” got a short sharp lesson in what’s UN-doubtedly WILL happen, should they continue their IN-sanity. And that was just one lone kid, ill prepared … the fools making violent revolution in the streets better think long and hard as to what a platoon of men, who’ve seen actual combat, will do to them when push comes to shove. As it will after November 3rd. It won’t take more than one such per state, to clean house. The founders of the Republic knew what they were doing. They authorized the militia for this very situation
So those committing violence are “agents provocateur” when they attempt to storm the German parliament as part of a rally in Berlin, and “an American hero” when they murder peaceful protesters in the U.S. (Germany, as you know, has very bad memories involving agents provocateur burning its parliament building to the ground in 1933.)
America’s violent mobs can’t be condoned. It’s not clear at this point how many of them are, as you say, “agents provocateur” sent in by our prez. But be that as it may, given the provocation (ongoing murder of unarmed black men by white cops), violence is nearly inevitable. Historically speaking, it’s not as awful as it has been. And not a problem in most cities, where the protests have been large and peaceful. In 1968, after Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated (pretty provocative), entire sections of Chicago, Detroit, LA, etc. burned to the ground by black rioters. Military had to be sent in to quiet things down. Things so peaceful this time around that the military essentially refused orders from Trump to send troops to DC in April (after which he walked to the church with the Bible). So, compared to 1968, and other racial riots, this isn’t so bad. The problem is that once you have serious racial provocations like those going on over the last few years, the violence is difficult to police.
David,
This overall fear driven madness with respect to a so-called virus is causing and is going to increasingly continue to cause far more harm than the alleged good of attempting to avoid a microbe… People’s lives are being ripped out from underneath them due to poorly thought out and arbitrary decisions made by politicians and bureaucrats, and I dread to think what will happen if the powers that be attempt to mandate the use of a vaccine (fast tracked or not).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8676559/German-court-allows-Berlin-protests-against-coronavirus-curbs.html?fbclid=IwAR3V0CCmJPrfs3r2zi-deo-bHrbON3CmvTtOlg5rkm1PlCUJCG5z2UmV4dU
David, I think Bobby Kennedy would have been proud of his son’s courage to stand up and defend the principal of freedom…
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Berlin 29 August 2020
“Fifty years ago, my uncle John F. Kennedy came to this city. He came to this land, because Berlin was the frontline against global totalitarianism. And today again, Berlin is frontline against global totalitarianism,” said Kennedy Jr. to a roar of approval from the crowd.
“During his opening remarks, Kennedy Jr. said that the corrupt American mainstream media are telling people he came to Berlin “to speak to about five thousand Nazis.“
“But I look at this crowd and I see the opposite of Nazism. I see people of democracy. People who want open government. People who want leaders who are not going to lie to them. People who want leaders who will not make up arbitrary rules and regulations to orchestrate obedience of the population.
“We want health officials who don’t have financial entanglements with the pharmaceutical industry, who are working for us, not Big Pharma.”
“I look at this crowd. I see all the flags of Europe. I see people of every color. I see people of every nation. Every religion. All caring about human dignity, about children’s health. About political freedom. This is the opposite of Nazism.”
“Governments love pandemics. They love pandemics for the same reason they love war. Because it gives them the ability to impose controls on the population that the population would otherwise never accept.“
I was waiting for Robt. Kennedy Jr. to say “Ich bin ein Berliner”. When he did, it choked me up along with 40,000 people in that crowd.
below is the URL to President JF Kennedy’s epic speech in West Berlin … who would’ve guessed that 6 decades later, the Chancellor of Germany would be someone who’d been a cardcarrying commie, growing up on the other side of that bloody Wall. The folks who showed up at rallies around the world, yesterday, broke the back of the CoronaHoax
This interview of constitutional layer Rocco Galati on suing the Canadian and Ontario governments is well worth listening to David… It will be interesting to see how these Canadian governments (Federal, Provincial and municipal) scientifically justify their arbitrary decisions to rule by decree (used primarily by dictators) in order to restrict movement and mask wearing!
This is a better and a more detailed interview of Canadian Constitutional Lawyer Rocco Galati about his lawsuit against the Federal and Provincial governments etc… I really hope you are watching this David?
Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves
recent investigations of illnesses from drinking raw milk
https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2020/09/research-looks-at-e-coli-and-campylobacter-on-farms-and-in-raw-milk/
worth bearing in mind, is = that this is on a website sponsored by Marler Clark lawfirm which specializes in litigation around food safety
more noteworthy = despite these “oubreaks”, sale / distribution of raw drinking milk for human consumption remains perfectly legal in Finland
Irrational fear coupled with a control freak mentality breeds outright stupidity…
“ WestJet grounds flight after attendant attempted to force face mask on 19-month-old baby”
https://thepostmillennial.com/watch-westjet-grounds-flight-after-attempting-to-force-face-mask-on-19-month-old-baby?fbclid=IwAR1MqV0Eu6aEL7OzC5KXsVIztoWxQx2d5LCOn5Z3Bo8VVY_tl5rGJQXpcDs
David, I spent many years in Japan (13, over 4 separate periods), and I appreciate your accurate conveyance of aspects of Japanese culture. Consideration for others and for the harmony of the whole society is markedly higher than in the U.S. Americans can individually be very nice, but find it harder to work together, it seems. Since I lived there for the first time so long ago, about 1977-1978, I have long been familiar with the culture of wearing face masks when one has a cold. I was told it stemmed from cultural memory of the 1918-1919 global flu pandemic. The store is similar in other Asian countries to some degree or other. The 1918-1919 flu pandemic hit the US, as well, and then as now, there were those who were more concerned with their “freedom” than making a tiny sacrifice for the community, and who didn’t believe the public health officials. Sadly, Americans are just as stubborn and resistant to science and to being told what to do, even when it’s in their and everyone’s best interests to cooperate.
This year has been rough on everybody, and for most people, doesn’t seem to have brought out our best. But I salute the healthcare workers and other essential workers who’ve put their own safety on the line to save lives. My own home state of Utah is, sadly, one of those failing to come to grips with the reality of Covid-19 and our hospitals and ICUs are swamped because people won’t stop getting together. Most grocery stores require masks, and I wear double masks when I go out, because there are too many idiots who, once they’re in the store, pull their mask down around their chins. I count myself lucky to be able to work from home.
Stay safe, everyone!