Why Are They Asking This?

On Tuesday, PJ Media posted an article about a new question the Red Cross is asking blood donors.

The article notes:

How curious then, that the Red Cross is not only screening applicants for their vax status but also requiring them to undergo additional scrutiny if they self-report COVID vaccination: “Have you EVER had a Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine? If you answer YES to the question, please call 1-800-RED CROSS… before coming in to donate to determine if this will affect your eligibility.”

The article includes the following screenshot:

There is a ‘context’ note added at the end of the Tweet. The context note says:

They ask this question to make sure you haven’t received a self-replicating vaccine; and if you have, there is a two-week wait.

Most Covid vaccines are not replicating, and do not require a waiting period.

Generally speaking, when you give blood, you are not asked about vaccines. Why is this vaccine different?

How Safe Is The Covid Vaccine?

On \Wednesday, The American Thinker posted an article about the Covid vaccine and the incidence of heart disease among the people who have taken it.

The article reports:

On August 24, 2021, the secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, issued a memorandum, directing the secretaries of the military departments to “immediately begin full vaccination of all members of the Armed Forces under Department of Defense.”

This mandate was pushed even though Doe v. Rumsfeld (2003) clearly prohibits the DOD from mandating an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) vaccine.

The Military Department leads, instead of doing their due diligence and looking out for their troops, blindly followed and carried out what was arguably an unconstitutional and unlawful order.

The Florida state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, issued a statement on October 23, 2023 recommending against the COVID-19 booster, based heavily on the risk of subclinical and clinical myocarditis and other cardiovascular conditions.

French study using nationwide hospital discharge and vaccine data has shown “strong evidence of an increased risk of myocarditis and of pericarditis in the week following vaccination against Covid-19 with mRNA vaccines in both males and females.”

The article notes:

This leads me to the 248th Marine Corps Birthday Ball on November 10, 2023.  This year at the Ball for the Marine Corps Reserve and Marine Corps Forces, South, the commandant of the Marine Corps, General Eric Smith, was scheduled to be the guest of honor.  However, due to cardiac arrest on October 29, 2023, and a scheduled surgery, his presence had to be canceled.  General Smith is 58, in terrific shape.  He eats well and doesn’t drink.  He is one of the least likely people to ever suffer from cardiac arrest.

…The narrative being pushed is that the commandant has a congenital issue.

We saw the same controlled narrative when actor Jamie Foxx collapsed and was hospitalized.  Damar Hamlin collapsed and was hospitalized.  Bronny James, the 18-year-old son of basketball icon LeBron James, collapsed due to cardiac arrest.  Coincidentally, it was blamed on congenital issues.

It is worth noting that before the COVID 19 “vaccines,” in the European Sports Leagues, there were 29 cardiac arrests a year.  Since the introduction of the “vaccine,” there have been 1,500 cardiac arrests a year, and two-thirds of them have been fatal.  

As I write this, fewer Americans are getting the vaccine or the boosters. Hopefully this trend will continue as there are some valid questions as to the safety of the Covid vaccines. Meanwhile, it would be nice if the healthcare community would be honest about the risks involved.

Stopping The End Run Around The Second Amendment

It is no secret that there are number of blue states that do not support the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Many of those states have at various times passed laws to try to limit the Second Amendment rights of Americans or to find a way to take guns away from law-abiding Americans. In March 2021, I posted an article about one such incident. An article posted in May 2021 was about the Supreme Court decision regarding the incident.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported the following:

The Ninth Circuit federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the coronavirus lockdowns of gun stores in Ventura County, California, violated constitutional rights.

The case, McDougall v. County of Ventura, was appealed to the Ninth Circuit after the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rejected a claim that Ventura County’s coronavirus orders closing gun stores, ammo shops, and gun ranges violated Second Amendment rights.

The article concludes:

Vandyke and Kleinfeld also noted, “Not only did Appellees fail to provide any evidence or explanation suggesting that gun shops, ammunition shops, and firing ranges posed a greater risk of spreading COVID19 than other businesses and activities deemed ‘essential,’ but they also failed to provide any evidence that they considered less restrictive alternatives for the general public.”

Judge Ryan Nelson was the panel’s dissenting voice.

The case is McDougall v. County of Ventura, No. 20-56220 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

It should be noted that The Los Angeles Times reported the following in February 2020:

Trump has now named 10 judges to the 9th Circuit — more than one-third of its active judges — compared with seven appointed by President Obama over eight years.

“Trump has effectively flipped the circuit,” said 9th Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., an appointee of President George W. Bush.

…Trump’s rapid transformation of the circuit courts — three others went from a majority of active judges appointed by Democrats to Republican majorities — was accomplished with the support of Senate Republicans.

Nominations of appellate judges may no longer be blocked by filibuster, and Republican Senate leaders have declined under Trump to follow the practice of allowing an appointee’s home-state senators to veto the president’s choice.

“Trump has set all records for the number of appellate appointees,” said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.

The most important legacy of President Trump may be judges in the circuit courts who will protect the rights of Americans that are enshrined in our Constitution.

What Have We Done To Our Children?

On Monday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the effect the the restrictions implemented to control the coronavirus has had on our children.

The article reports:

The research, led by Professor Sharon Goldfield identified three broad areas of issues that need intervention: the child level, family level and at the service level.

Academically, remote learning has resulted in compromised student engagement, particularly in children already facing difficulties or belonging to families where parents have a lower level of educational attainment.

The authors wrote that “almost half of the Australian student population risks having their learning severely compromised due to COVID-19-related school closures, either because they are an early year’s student or are experiencing adversity.”

Reduced physical activity and increased screentime can also affect children’s lifestyle and physical health. In a longitudinal study conducted during the pandemic for Australia and 13 other countries, children on average had 55 more minutes of screen time per day and 81 minutes less per day for weekday outdoors activities.

At the service level, school closures due to the pandemic have affected children that needed the healthcare facilitated by the school such as free lunches and mental health care. The authors reported that “referrals to child mental health services reduced substantially, before an unprecedented rise that placed increased demand on already overstretched services.”

Amongst parents, some parents also reported the impact the pandemic has had on their mental health. A poll (pdf) conducted by the Royal Children’s Hospital had 46 percent of parents reporting that the pandemic had a negative impact on their mental health. However, the same poll also reported that 75 percent of parents felt their families were closer, and 42 percent said they are more connected to their child since the pandemic.

There have been other negative results from the masking requirements. Many people involved in education believe that children wearing masks and dealing with adults wearing masks are not able to grasp the visual ques that normally are part of their learning. A child looking at a masked adult is not really able to see a smile or an approving look. There is also the fact that children have never been a high-risk group for the coronavirus. We may have unintentionally slowed down the learning curve for the majority of American children during the past two years. Hopefully the children can quickly go back to normal learning and leave the masks behind.

In Case You Are Into Natural Cures

On January 17th, The Epoch Times posted an article reporting that there are natural cures for the coronavirus.

The article reports:

Contrary to what mass mainstream media would have you assume, coronaviruses aren’t uncharted territory. In fact, human coronaviruses are responsible for 15-30% of common colds each year. More severe cases of coronavirus infections were observed during outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS), two coronavirus infections that led to pneumonia in some individuals who were infected.

These outbreaks sparked interest from the complementary medicine community who began investigating natural solutions for treating SARS and MERS infections, the studies of which have been compiled in our comprehensive database on Coronavirus Infection and Coronavirus Disease.

These natural substances demonstrating viral inhibition of SARS-coronavirus are likely also effective against the 2019 coronavirus, considering the two are closely related and share the same angiotensin-converting enzyme II-mediated infection. In other words, SARS-coronavirus and the 2019 novel coronavirus are both structurally and mechanistically similar and can be targeted by the same substances.

This is the list of the natural substances:

  • Licorice root. Glycyrrhizin, an active constituent of licorice roots, has been shown to exhibit potent inhibitory activity against SARS-coronavirus replication. Additionally, glycyrrhizin appears to be more effective during the early stages of coronavirus replication.
  • Flavonoids. The activity of coronavirus proteases is a key factor in coronaviruses’ ability to propagate in cells. Flavonoids, however, directly inhibit coronavirus protease activity, resulting in decreased virus propagation (4). The flavonoids with the highest virus inhibitory power appear to be herbacetin, isobavachalcone, quercetin 3‐β‐d‐glucoside, and helichrysetin.
  • Chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata). In one animal study, Chameleon plant aqueous extract demonstrated significant antiviral activity against the SARS-coronavirus in vivo. The study also found that the herb stimulated the proliferation of mouse splenic lymphocytes in a dose-dependent manner, suggesting it also functions as an immunomodulatory plant.
  • Chinese medicine preparations. Chinese medicine has been frequently used as an adjunct therapy to treat SARS patients, as evidenced by a Cochrane systematic review that concluded Chinese Medicine as an adjunct therapy “may improve symptoms, quality of life and absorption of pulmonary infiltration, and decrease the corticosteroid dosage for SARS patients”. Another study has also proposed ShuFengJieDu Capsules and Lianhuaqingwen Capsule as a potentially effective treatment for 2019 novel coronavirus, considering previous studies demonstrating their ability to both treat and prevent respiratory infectious viruses.

Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical companies probably do not make huge profits on these substances, so don’t look for a lot of information on this in the mainstream media.

The Numbers Are In

On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article about the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.

The article reports:

COVID-19 was less lethal across nearly every age group in its first full year than previously thought, according to an updated review of global research from Stanford University’s Meta-Research Innovation Center (METRIC).

Between summer and Christmas 2021, METRIC’s estimates of deaths from infection fell by half in multiple age groups, including young people, and less sharply in others.

The international estimates, which have not been peer-reviewed, are not substantially different from the CDC’s own “best estimate” of COVID mortality in the U.S., last updated in March. They use different age ranges, making exact comparisons difficult.

The findings raise questions about ongoing COVID restrictions and mandates, particularly for schoolchildren and college students, who remain at the lowest overall risk from infection. 

The risk-benefit ratio of vaccine boosters is also under scrutiny, with international authorities souring on their wide deployment and a new Israeli study finding that a fourth dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines doesn’t stop the Omicron variant.

The article includes the following screenshot:

I don’t mean to be flip, and I say this as someone who is over 70, but your chances of dying from almost anything increase after age 70, and that’s not news.

The article also notes something that our government and its medical tyrants have chosen to overlook:

Using medical claims records from Change Healthcare and a study population “fully vaccinated” last spring, the researchers found subsequent hospitalization least likely for Moderna and highest for Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients.

But hospitalization was 50% lower and risk of death 75% lower among those with natural immunity “independent of age, sex, comorbidities, and vaccine type,” the study found.

Natural immunity is the best protection. If Omicron is a mild coronavirus and provides us that protection, then we are done with the pandemic.

Just a note–someone I know who is involved with a large organization told me that the organization currently has 85 coronavirus cases–5 of those are unvaccinated. None or those 85 cases required hospitalization.

Slowly The Truth Is Coming Out

Occasionally I post an article that includes information that I do not totally understand. This is one of those times. I am posting this because I think it is important, and I don’t think a lot of the media has given it the coverage it deserves.

On January 10th, Project Veritas posted the following headline:

Military Documents About Gain of Function Contradict Fauci Testimony Under Oath

The article reports:

Project Veritas has obtained startling never-before-seen documents regarding the origins of COVID-19, gain of function research, vaccines, potential treatments which have been suppressed, and the government’s effort to conceal all of this.

The documents in question stem from a report at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, which were hidden in a top secret shared drive.

DARPA is an agency under the U.S. Department of Defense in charge of facilitating research in technology with potential military applications.

Project Veritas has obtained a separate report to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense written by U.S. Marine Corp Major, Joseph Murphy, a former DARPA Fellow.

The report states that EcoHealth Alliance approached DARPA in March 2018, seeking funding to conduct gain of function research of bat borne coronaviruses. The proposal, named Project Defuse, was rejected by DARPA over safety concerns and the notion that it violates the basis gain of function research moratorium.

According to the documents, NAIAD, under the direction of Dr. Fauci, went ahead with the research in Wuhan, China and at several sites across the U.S.

Dr. Fauci has repeatedly maintained, under oath, that the NIH and NAIAD have not been involved in gain of function research with the EcoHealth Alliance program. But according to the documents obtained by Project Veritas which outline why EcoHealth Alliance’s proposal was rejected, DARPA certainly classified the research as gain of function. 

The article includes links to the specific documents involved. Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

The article concludes:

Project Veritas reached out to DARPA for comment regarding the hidden documents and spoke with the Chief of Communications, Jared Adams, who said, “It doesn’t sound normal to me,” when asked about the way the documents were shrouded in secrecy. “If something resides in a classified setting, then it should be appropriately marked,” Adams said. “I’m not at all familiar with unmarked documents that reside in a classified space, no.”

In a video breaking this story published on Monday night, Project Veritas CEO, James O’Keefe, asked a foundational question to DARPA:

“Who at DARPA made the decision to bury the original report? They could have raised red flags to the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress, which may have prevented this entire pandemic that has led to the deaths of 5.4 million people worldwide and caused much pain and suffering to many millions more.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci has not yet responded to a request for comment on this story.

There may not have been evil intent originally, but the cover-up resulted in many unnecessary deaths worldwide. Someone needs to be held accountable.

Things That Just Don’t Add Up

In an article posted Monday, WND reported:

The head of a $100 billion insurance company says all-cause deaths have spiked an astonishing 40% among people ages 18-64 compared to pre-pandemic levels.

It’s an unprecedented rate that is four times higher than a once-in-200-year catastrophe, said Scott Davison, CEO of Indianapolis-based OneAmerica, during an online news conference last Thursday reported by the news site Center Square.

…Meanwhile, the daily number of deaths from COVID-19, according to the state dashboard, is less than half of what it was a year ago.

…However, Dr. Robert Malone, who has three decades of experience at the highest levels of vaccine development, said in an interview Monday morning that the insurance CEO’s statistics point to vaccine injuries.

Davison, Malone told Steve Bannon on “War Room,” is talking about a working population of people “who are likely to be highly jabbed because they’ve been under employer mandates.”

“And what you need to do is compare that event rate that he is reporting to the event rate of death and COVID-related death in the general population,” Malone said.

Malone noted that the reported COVID death rate in Indiana was lower than the death rate for people with employee-based insurance.

“This suggests that these people that are under the insurance mandate, are highly jabbed, have an enormously increased mortality rate compared to the general population,” Malone said.

He cautioned that a causative relationship can only be inferred, but “there is no question that the federal policies are an abject failure.”

On Monday, Daniel Horowitz at The Blaze reported the following:

1) 96% of all Omicron cases in Germany among vaccinated

2) Omicron among vaccinated outpacing unvaccinated by 28% in Ontario

3) In Denmark, 89.7% of all Omicron cases were among fully vaccinated

4) Just 25% of the Omicron hospitalizations in the U.K. are unvaccinated

5) 33 of 34 hospitalizations in Delhi hospital were vaccinated

6) Vaccinated exponentially more likely to get re-infected with COVID

Please follow the link above to read the details. Either scientists know a whole lot more about the coronavirus than they are telling us, or they have no idea how the coronavirus works. Either way, I wouldn’t recommend rushing out to get your vaccine or booster real soon.

Scaring Us To Death In Order To Maintain Control

On Monday, Townhall posted an article about the Biden administration’s latest statement about the coronavirus. The comment made by White House Wuhan Coronavirus Coordinator Jeff Zients is not only frightening, it is totally misleading.

The article reports:

“We are intent on not letting Omicron disrupt work and school for the vaccinated. You’ve done the right thing, and we will get through this,” White House Wuhan Coronavirus Coordinator Jeff Zients said during a recent press briefing. “For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.” 

Merry Christmas.

That statement is totally misleading. Many Americans who have recovered from Covid have natural immunity. Many people who are vaccinated are not only coming down with Covid, they are also spreading the disease. The vaccines may (or may not–the jury is still out) lessen the severity of the symptoms. The vaccine does not prevent the disease or the spread of the disease.

The article at Townhall notes:

The statement from Zients is jarring, and given that vaccinated individuals also spread the disease, his remarks are unscientific. Further, doctors from South Africa and the UK have repeatedly said cases of the latest variant are mild among the vaccinated and unvaccinated. The variant is also not causing hospitals to be overwhelmed.

It is becoming obvious that the Biden White House is not interested in uniting Americans. When they can’t divide us along racial lines, they will divide us along vaccinated and unvaccinated lines. In either case, if we are focused on our differences, we won’t notice that our freedoms are being slowly taken away.

 

 

Following The Science?

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made to the Health and Human Services Department.

The article includes the response from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

So the letter states that the CDC has no information on whether people who have recovered from Covid have become infected again or have transmitted the disease to other people. It seems to me that in the world of looming vaccine mandates, that might be important information.

The article links to a substack article which states the following:

You would assume that if the CDC was going to crush the civil and individual rights of those with natural immunity by having them expelled from school, fired from their jobs, separated from the military, and worse, the CDC would have proof of at least one instance of an unvaccinated, naturally immune individual transmitting the COVID-19 virus to another individual.  If you thought this, you would be wrong.

My firm, on behalf of ICAN, asked the CDC for precisely this proof (see below).  ICAN wanted to see proof of any instance in which someone who previously had COVID-19 became reinfected with and transmitted the virus to someone else.  The CDC’s incredible response is that it does not have a single document reflecting that this has ever occurred.  Not one.  (See below.)

In contrast, there are endless documents reflecting cases of vaccinated individuals becoming infected with and transmitting the virus to others.  Such as this study.  And this study.  And this study.  And this study.  It goes on and on…

But it gets worse.  The CDC’s excuse for not having a shred of evidence of the naturally immune transmitting the virus is that “this information is not collected.”  What?!  No proof!  But yet the CDC is actively crushing the rights of millions of naturally immune individuals in this country if they do not get the vaccine on the assumption they can transmit the virus.   But despite clear proof the vaccinated spread the virus, the CDC lifts restrictions on the vaccinated?!  That is dystopian.   

At some point, Americans are going to have to realize that this is not about the vaccine or the virus and begin to reclaim their freedom.

Do Harsh Coronavirus Measures Work?

Fox News posted an article today that included the statistics on coronavirus cases in California and Florida. California has mask mandates and other mandates impacting the freedom of the unvaccinated. Florida has no mask mandates and has pretty much been open since the original ‘two weeks to slow the spread.’

The article reports:

Watcher (Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of the medical department at the University of California-San Francisco) added that with low booster shot rates and waning immunity, “the end result is that we’ve plateaued in our improvements, both nationally and in California, and it’s likely we’ll soon see some significant upticks.”

“California has done very well over the past few months, but we still have too many unvaccinated people,” he added. “People are spending more time inside and being more active, and masking is going down.”

Florida, meanwhile, hit another new benchmark last week. The first hospital in the state to treat a COVID patient last year, Doctor’s Hospital, announced that for the first time since the pandemic, it has no virus patients in its care.

“This is great news! For two weeks and counting, Florida has had the lowest rate of new COVID-19 cases in the entire country – with no mandates, vaccine passports, or lockdowns. Overall, COVID hospitalizations have been declining for more than 70 days straight, and we’re at an all time low in terms of the number of COVID patients hospitalized statewide,” Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw, told Fox News on Monday when asked for comment about Doctor’s Hospital in Sarasota.

The article also notes:

Cases in California are no longer falling, with the rate increasing to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s red “high” level of virus transmission stemming from the delta variant, the outlet reported.

But Southern states such as Texas and Florida – where state leaders do not enforce face mask policies or support other strict mandates – are in the CDC’s orange “substantial” transmission level.

California’s vaccination rate is higher than states such as Texas and Florida, but that still hasn’t stopped the outbreaks. Sixty-two percent of California’s total population is fully vaccinated, while Florida reports 60% and Texas 54%.

Maybe it’s time to rethink the ‘science.’

 

How Many Times Does Someone Give You Wrong Advice Before You Stop Listening?

Townhall posted an article today about some of the recent advice given by Dr.
Anthony Fauci. It seems as if Dr. Fauci  has gotten a bit out over his skis lately in telling Americans what they should and shouldn’t do.

The article reports:

Since the start of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been preaching about avoiding crowds, so when football season at the NFL and collegiate level kicked off this year, he feared we could be stuck in “outbreak mode” with thousands of maskless fans packed together in stadiums across the country. 

“I don’t think it’s smart,” he told CNN last month. “Outdoors is always better than indoors, but even when you have such a congregate setting of people close together, first you should be vaccinated. And when you do have congregate settings, particularly indoors, you should be wearing a mask.”

Fauci wasn’t alone, of course. MSNBC host Joy Reid, looking at the crowds, told Fauci during an interview that she “thought COVID is about to have a feast.”

“I thought the same thing. I think it’s really unfortunate,” he replied.

The article shares some basic facts that contradict the prediction:

“Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths now all down nationwide,” Brewster said. “Cases are now in steep decline in every college football state across the south, including Florida, where hospitalizations fell 64 percent last month, even as some 90,000 fans packed the [University of Florida] Gators’ stadium.”

…Last month, Outkick founder Clay Travis also pointed out that packed stadiums haven’t led to surges in Covid-19 cases.

“There’s been a 35% decline in Georgia, 32% decline in South Carolina, 30% decline in Mississippi, 22% decline in Arkansas, 23% in Alabama, 9% in Texas. Every single SEC state where millions of people have gone to college football games has not led to a feast of COVID as Doctor Fauci predicted,” Travis said, reports Fox News.

COVID is a virus. It is probably a man-made virus, which may account for the fact that it doesn’t seem to follow all of the rules that viruses follow. However, it does seem to follow the basic rule of viruses–it seeks its own survival. It is quite possible that COVID is going to be similar to the annual flu–it will be with us indefinitely, it will be serious, and for some people it will be fatal–but it will not remain the pandemic it was last year. It’s time for all of us to come out of our houses, get the shot or don’t get the shot according to our own conscience, and get on with our lives.

The Problems With The Lack Of Border Enforcement

Just the News recently reported (updated yesterday) that the Biden administration has lost track of 40% of the more than 114,000 unaccompanied children who entered the U.S. illegally. Great. Yesterday Breitbart reported that more than 16,000 migrants who tested positive for COVID-19 while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody were released into the United States.

Just the News reports:

So far this year, unaccompanied minors arriving at the border have hit record numbers.  In June, there were 15,234 encounters with unaccompanied children, in July, 18,958 encounters, and in August, there were 18,847 encounters, according to Customs and Border Patrol data.

Once processed by Border Patrol, unaccompanied minors fall under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families. The agency reportedly works with a network of 200 shelters in roughly 24 states, according to a report by the Associated Press. Shelters are often set up inside military bases, stadiums and convention centers, referred to as “emergency intake sites.”

At its peak, HHS had 20,339 children in its care in April, with an average shelter occupancy rate of 76%.

…”The Biden administration wasn’t prepared,” Judd (Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd) wrote in a Fox News op-ed, and agents were “forced to hold a good number of these children long past what the law allowed. Instead of creating a long-term solution, the Biden administration merely cut back on the vetting process of the sponsors to whom children were being released.”

The decision to weaken the vetting process contributed, in part, to the Biden administration’s loss of contact with 40% of the more than 114,000 unaccompanied children who entered the U.S. illegally, according to a report by Axios. The report is based on data received through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The article at Just the News concludes:

According to Bloomberg Law, illegal alien teens were allegedly trafficked to agricultural or poultry processing facilities in Alabama and Oregon. DOJ’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit said it was aware of labor exploitation and/or potential labor trafficking of unaccompanied minors in several jurisdictions and was investigating with others in law enforcement.

But even before then, by April, reports of sexual abuse and violence against children were reported at two facilities in El Paso and San Antonio, Texas, prompting Gov. Greg Abbott to call on the Biden administration to close the facilities.

Abbott sent a letter to Biden demanding answers about the treatment of the children, and directed Texas state troopers and rangers to intervene where possible. “The Biden administration  is presiding over the abuse of children,” he said.

Abbott never received a response from Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Breitbart reports:

More than 16,000 migrants who tested positive for COVID-19 while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody were released into the United States, according to an agency law enforcement source. The Biden administration did not mandate any of the migrants to be vaccinated before their release. The source informs Breitbart Texas that the figures only include those migrants who were tested by ICE.

I think we need a President who will protect the American people both from human trafficking and from people entering the country carrying the coronavirus.

 

The Joys Of Herd Immunity

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about the Amish community and the coronavirus. I recommend that you follow the link and read the entire article. It has a number of really good points. There is a lot of common sense in the Amish approach to the coronavirus that the rest of America and some of the American medical community has not yet discovered.

Here are a few highlights from the article:

Contrary to assurances that hospitals would be overwhelmed and bodies would be piled up in the street unless everyone locked down, masked up, and got a Covid vaccination, the Amish community – a technology-eschewing Christian group generally distrustful of government – actually managed through the pandemic just fine after a brief shutdown in early 2020.

“There’s no evidence of any more deaths among the Amish than in places that shut down tight,” Attkisson (Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative reporter and host of “Full Measure”) said. “Some claim there were fewer here. That’s without masking, staying at home, or vaccines.”

The article notes that some of the Amish customs may have created herd immunity:

…When they take communion, they dump their wine into a cup and they take turns to drink out of that cup. So, you go the whole way down the line, and everybody drinks out of that cup, if one person has coronavirus, the rest of church is going to get coronavirus. The first time they went back to church, everybody got coronavirus.

The Amish had a remarkable attitude toward the coronavirus:

Even those who believed that they had Covid tended not to get tested. Their approach tended to be, “I’m sick. I know I’m sick. I don’t have to have someone else telling me I’m sick.” Or a concern that if they got a positive test, they would then be asked to really dramatically limit what they were doing in a way that might be uncomfortable for them. So, we don’t have that testing number.

…Yeah, all the Amish know we got herd immunity. Of course we got herd immunity! The whole church gets coronavirus. We know we got coronavirus. We think we’re smarter than everybody. We shouldn’t be bragging, but we think we did the right thing.

The article concludes:

‘Herd immunity.’ The medical establishment will tell you there’s no such thing, yet somehow it’s working for the Amish, who are now thriving while much of the rest of the world still languishes under Covid tyranny.

Maybe it’s time we stop thinking of the Amish as ‘backward.’

 

The Numbers Tell The Story

Any parent can tell you that young children are very efficient spreaders of disease. It doesn’t matter what disease–they will spread it. It has to do with the fact that they have not yet learned the concept of personal space or some of the basic health rules. There is a reason most of the childhood acquired diseases are acquired in childhood. However, even though the coronavirus does not seem to be focused on the younger Americans, there are those who insist on putting masks on them. There are a number of reasons why that is a bad idea, but let’s just look at the science.

Yesterday Townhall reported the following:

NEW PEDIATRIC CASES:

New COVID-19 cases for children ages 5-17 – the vast majority of the school-aged population – have decreased 79% in the month of September, in the 54 Florida counties where school districts have no masking policy or are following state law by honoring the parental opt-out rule.

For comparison, COVID-19 cases for children 5-17 in the 13 districts that imposed forced-masking in schools have decreased 77%, on average.
 
POSITIVITY RATES:

The 54 districts with opt-outs or no mask policy have seen an average decrease of 65% in positivity from week ending Aug. 19 (when school started) to the week ending Sep. 30.

The 13 districts that broke the law to impose forced-masking have seen an average decrease of 67%.
 
That is to say, the data for this school year to date shows no impact of forced masking in schools on pediatric COVID-19 prevalence. This is not surprising, since there were no statistically significant differences in case rates in forced-masking versus mask-optional schools during the 2020-21 school year in Florida.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to decline across the state, despite largely maskless schools and no governmental vaccine mandates (via press release).

The article concludes:

As usual, the hard data supports sanity and normalcy not just in America’s schools, but for everyone else as well.

It is quite possible we are seeing the end of this epidemic. I am not so sure we will ever see the end of the government’s quest to use fear as a tool to acquire more power.

Blocking The Truth

Yesterday Just the News posted an article about some of the politics in the medical profession regarding the coronavirus.

The article reports:

Medical professionals are facing threats to their careers and livelihoods for challenging COVID-19 orthodoxy, while an oft-censored Harvard Medical School professor is facing his latest Big Tech kerfuffle.

The University of California put psychiatrist and bioethics professor Aaron Kheriaty on “investigatory leave” after he sued the university system for refusing to recognize natural immunity such as his among exemptions to its COVID vaccine mandate.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Kheriaty had previously invoked the post-Nazi Nuremberg code in urging universities to abandon their mandates.

In his personal newsletter Wednesday, Kheriaty said he’ll lose half his income while on so-called paid leave, because he’s banned from “seeing my patients, supervising resident clinics, and engaging in weekend and holiday on-call duties.” 

His contract also bans him from working as a physician outside the UC system to recoup his revenue loss. “The University may be hoping this pressure will lead me to resign ‘voluntarily,’ which would remove grounds for my lawsuit,” Kheriaty wrote.

UC’s action came a day after a court refused to issue a preliminary injunction, functionally declaring a draw between each party’s scientific arguments about different forms of immunity and what risk vaccination poses for the recovered.

The article concludes:

Harvard Med’s Martin Kulldorff, a pioneer in vaccine safety and coauthor of the year-old Great Barrington Declaration, had his second tangle with LinkedIn over an article he wrote.

The Microsoft-owned professional social network removed two of his posts this summer as misinformation. He had said mandates feed vaccine hesitancy and noted Iceland’s top epidemiologist recommended natural immunity to complement vaccination.

This time LinkedIn removed posts that shared Kulldorff’s most recent article on why hospitals should welcome nurses with natural immunity rather than firing them, according to the Brownstone Institute, which published the article. Kulldorff’s own posts also disappeared.

After a few hours, the network allegedly shifted to removing the preview image, headline and description of the Oct. 1 article, so that only the URL remained, likely reducing reader engagement. 

Just the News confirmed Wednesday the link is still bare when shared on LinkedIn, with the disclaimer: “Cannot display preview. You can post as is, or try another link.” LinkedIn didn’t respond when asked why it continues throttling Kulldorff’s new article.

…Kulldorff initially moved over to LinkedIn because of a monthlong Twitter suspension for questioning the protective power of masks. He previously told Just the News he is more guarded on Twitter for that reason.

At one point you have to wonder who has the power to silence these doctors and why they are doing this. I am sure money plays a role in this, but I suspect there is a deeper root cause.

What We Are Not Being Told

CBN News posted an article today about an Israeli doctor who has been doing research on Ivermectin as a treatment for the coronavirus.

The article reports:

Professor Eli Schwartz is with the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, considered one of the world’s top hospitals. For decades, Prof. Schwartz has traveled the world fighting outbreaks like Dengue Fever and Ebola. He also began the Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease Institute at Sheba. At the beginning of the pandemic and months before any vaccine, Israel’s Defense Ministry assigned Schwartz to find a medical solution for COVID-19.

“Since Ivermectin is one of the drugs that we are using in daily life in the Tropical Institute, I knew it. I know the safety profile of it. And since there was some hints of in-vitro studies, which show the efficacy against specifically, even against COVID-19, we decided to go for it.”

That meant putting the drug through a clinical trial that lasted ten months.

“Our study, which was done here, it’s a randomized controlled trial, double-blind. It’s really, I would say, this is the best method that you are doing studies. And our conclusion is that it really has antiviral activities,” Shwartz told CBN News.

From his international experience in the field, Schwartz knew Ivermectin targeted parasites. Since its development in 1987, nearly 4 billion doses with few side effects and at low cost have protected millions of people from insidious parasitical diseases like River Blindness and Elephantiasis.

That success won its developers the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2015. Schwartz’s study made headlines in Israel when his trial showed Ivermectin to also be anti-viral.  

“This is the first drug to show antiviral activity. And then, I think, there’s a good reason to continue with a much more thorough investigation to see, for example, whether people who are at high risk, may not deteriorate to be hospitalized, to be mechanically ventilated, or to death.”

Schwartz’s clinical study found that by day four, 86% of his patients who took ivermectin recovered. By day six, 94% recovered.

“The bottom line is that … Ivermectin decreased faster the viral load, and also sterilized the culture much better compared to the placebo,” he said.

Schwartz explained to CBN News this means Ivermectin killed the virus and his patients were non-infectious. Schwartz says this could save lives and reduce quarantines by days.

“It’s a huge change in life. It’s a huge change for the patient. It’s a huge change for his family. And from the economical point of view, it’s a dramatic change. You know, it’s how much money you can save for the economy of the country, if you can shorten the isolation time,” he said.

But ivermectin is not accepted by the global health establishment. A major FDA concern is that a number of people have tried to self-medicate using a form of the drug intended for livestock.

“Don’t do it. There’s no evidence whatsoever that it works and it could potentially have toxicity, as you just mentioned, with people who have gone to poison control centers because they’ve taken the drug at a ridiculous dose and wind up getting sick,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The World Health Organization advises “that Ivermectin only be used be used to treat COVID-19 within clinical trials.”

The doctor notes the problems with getting this drug into general use against the coronavirus:

The National Institutes of Health says, “Ivermectin is not approved by the FDA for the treatment of any viral infection” and that “well-conducted clinical trials are needed to provide more specific, evidence-based guidance on the role of ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.”

For studies to be accepted by the broader medical community, it must be peer-reviewed and published in a medical journal. That’s where Prof. Schwartz hit a roadblock.

Several journals turned him down, but one is currently reviewing his study.

“It’s something really very odd. I mean, in my career, I published, I think at least 300 papers and chapters, and I never heard the story that they have with Ivermectin. I think that this kind of international campaign, anti-Ivermectin; same that we have anti-vax, anti-vaccine, we have anti-Ivermectin. I don’t understand,” said Schwartz.

Schwartz added that while many health agencies want better studies, no large-scale trials on ivermectin happened until Oxford University began one in June of this year.

“I mean, it took them 18 months from the beginning of the pandemic to try to do it. I mean, people dying all over the world. And you have drug under your hand and you have to wait so long until you get any conduction of a good study,” he said.

Now, the pharmaceutical company Merck, which developed Ivermectin, and Pfizer are in a race to produce an oral anti-viral drug for COVID that some believe is what Ivermectin could do already.

We need the answer to some very basic questions regarding the coronavirus–

Who makes money if vaccines are mandatory?

Who makes money if new drugs are discovered rather than using traditional drugs?

Who gains if Americans continue to isolate and shop online?

Who gains if small businesses in America fail?

And finally, can anyone disprove to me that the way the coronavirus has been handled can be totally understood by the phrase ‘follow the money’?

Returning To “Normal”

The Epoch Times reported yesterday that Norway will end all COVID-19-related restrictions starting Saturday, Sept. 25.

The article reports:

“It is 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime … Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life,” Prime Minister Erna Solberg told a news conference on Friday.

The virus can now be considered as one of several respiratory illnesses with seasonal variation, said Geir Bukholm, the assistant director for the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, according to local media. In Norway, COVID-19 has been classified as a generally dangerous disease, but the official classification could change soon, he said.

“We are now in a new phase where we must look at the coronavirus as one of several respiratory diseases with seasonal variation,” Bukholm told news outlet VG, referring to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

“This is because the vast majority of those at risk are protected,” Bukholm said, referring to the country’s vaccination campaign.

Norway will no longer require businesses to implement social distancing measures, and it will also allow sports and cultural venues as well as restaurants to use their full capacity, the prime minister’s office said. Nightclubs can also reopen under the new guidelines.

So it has been approximately 561 days since “two weeks to flatten the curve.”

The article concludes:

Nearby Sweden earlier this month announced it will remove most of its COVID-19 restrictions.

An announcement from the Swedish government on Sept. 7 said that restrictions on public venues such as restaurants, theaters, and stadiums will be removed on Sept. 29.

“The proposal means that any participation restrictions that may be needed for public gatherings and public events with 15,000 or more participants should not apply if the system of vaccination certificates is used,” said the government’s statement. “This means that the organizer shall not be obliged to limit the number of participants in premises and delimited areas or spaces that the organizer has at its disposal if there are restrictions regarding this.”

According to the Norwegian Institute for Public Health, about 67 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

Covid-19 is a virus. Viruses mutate. Viruses generally mutate to be less dangerous to the people they infect because the viruses want to live to see another day. It is quite possible that there will come a time in American when the coronavirus (whatever mutation) will simply be looked upon as another flu that shows up in the winter. It will be interesting to see how much of the population who has already recovered from the coronavirus will be immune to the new mutations.

Coming To America If We Don’t Stop It

The Conservative Treehouse is reporting today that Australia is setting a new policy for dealing with the coronavirus.

The article reports:

Apparently the internet has been turned off for people in Australia.  That is the only reasonable explanation for how their political leadership can keep claiming that vaccinated people cannot contract the COVID virus.

This claim is empirically refuted by every other nation who is seeing vaccinated people contracting COVID and “some” being hospitalized regardless of their vaccine status.

On a weirdly positive note, it appears they have abandoned the regional Australian plan of “COVID-ZERO,” which was a plan to lock-down the entire nation, on a state-by-state basis, until they never had a single case of COVID and then re-open society.

The article explains the new policy:

In a press conference yesterday from Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews proclaimed that vaccinated citizens in the state of Victoria will be allowed out of lockdown in the near future. However, freedom as defined by access to medical treatment, the ability to work, shopping, attending events and engagement in the economy writ large, will not be permitted for any non-vaccinated citizen. Anyone who is not vaccinated will remain in locked-down isolation as enforced by the state.

…The justification for withholding access to life in Victoria is based on a premise that vaccinated people do not contract COVID, therefore the coronavirus is a “virus of the unvaccinated.”  That statement is a completely false position.  As seen in the U.S., and all other nations around the world, the vaccinated population contracts COVID in the same way as the non-vaccinated.  Some studies have even shown the vaccinated population are susceptible to carrying higher loads of the virus than non-vaccinated individuals.

The vaccine provides zero-benefit from avoidance of the virus.  Any claim to the contrary is totally devoid of reality, science or empirical evidence.

In some nations -like Israel- there is more than a 90% vaccinated status, and yet the COVID virus is still infecting, spiking and creating large issues with hospitalization for those at greatest risk. A large percentage of that Israeli population is now triple-vaxxed; and yet the issues continue.   Conversely, in Sweeden and parts of the U.S, the economy and society is largely open, and the variant viruses are running through the vaccinated and non-vaccinated population without a significantly disparate outcome.

This is a degree of government control that should never be tolerated in a society that claims to be free. Unfortunately, we will probably see some sort of policy similar to this in America if the Biden administration gets its way. Notice that there is no allowance for those who have natural antibodies because they have survived the virus. Science be d***ed, the government wants control!

Good News From The Supreme Court

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse reported that the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the Biden administration is required to reinstate the “remain in Mexico” policy put in place by the Trump administration. The policy requires people seeking asylum in America to remain in Mexico while they await hearings in the United States. Theoretically this prevents the problem of asylum seekers simply not showing up for their hearings, disappearing into the country, and working illegally. This policy also provides a small degree of protection against the continued spread of the coronavirus.

What has been happening is that people coming across the border illegally have been flown to various parts of the country and released. Because there is very little, if any, corona virus testing of illegals, we were essentially seeding the coronavirus throughout the country. Requiring people to remain in Mexico will limit some of this.

There is, however, the matter of whether or not the Biden administration will abide by this decision. The Biden administration does have a history of ignoring the law when the law is in conflict with their desired policy. The moratorium on evictions was illegal–it was government interference in a contract–and the Biden administration still declared it law. There are a lot of reasons to impeach this President, but unfortunately impeachment (even if it were possible) would install a President even less able to do the job.

 

My How Things Have Changed

On September 1, 2020, CNN posted an article titled, “Past vaccine disasters show why rushing a coronavirus vaccine now would be ‘colossally stupid’.” Wow.

The article reports:

Vaccine experts are warning the federal government against rushing out a coronavirus vaccine before testing has shown it’s both safe and effective. Decades of history show why they’re right.

Their concern that the FDA may be moving too quickly heightened when FDA Commissioner Dr. Steven Hahn told the Financial Times that his agency could consider an emergency use authorization (EUA) for a Covid-19 vaccine before late stage clinical trials are complete if the data show strong enough evidence it would protect people.

The commissioner has the authority to allow unapproved medical products to be used in an emergency when there are no adequate or approved alternatives. An EUA is not the same as full approval and it can be withdrawn.

The article reports:

Markel (Dr. Howard Markel, a pediatrician, distinguished professor, and director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan) said people’s mistrust of the system makes the idea that the FDA would rush this process before late stage clinical trials are complete “colossally stupid.”

“This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard this administration say,” Markel said. “All it takes is one bad side effect to basically botch a vaccine program that we desperately need against this virus. It’s a prescription for disaster.”

FDA Commissioner Hahn said that the vaccine decision will be based on data, not politics, but Kinch (Michael Kinch, a professor of radiation oncology in the school of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis) shares Markel’s concern.

“This could do substantial damage,” Kinch said. Kinch, who is a patient in one of the vaccine trials himself, said the clinical trial process needs to be followed to the end. A too-early EUA for a vaccine could cause a “nightmare scenario,” for a few reasons.

One, the vaccine may not be safe. Two, if it is not safe, people will lose faith in vaccines. Three, if a vaccine doesn’t offer complete protection, people will have a false sense of security and increase their risk. Four, if a substandard vaccine gets an EUA, a better vaccine may never get approval, because people would be reluctant to enroll in trials and risk getting a placebo instead of a vaccine.

“People are going to die unnecessarily if we take chances with this,” Kinch said. “We’ve got to get this right.”

If you notice that this is an unusual point of view from CNN, look at the date of the article–it was posted when Donald Trump was President. The mainstream media did everything it could to undermine the vaccine and question its effectiveness. The irony is that they were actually right–there are legitimate questions about the vaccine’s effectiveness and safety. However, I posted this article so that people would see the contrast between what the media was saying then and the media’s current support of vaccine mandates. Unfortunately the coronavirus is political. It has been from the start.

 

 

Spreading Covid Throughout America

The Epoch Times posted an article today about the Covid crisis at our southern border.

The article reports:

Four in 10 illegal immigrants released in a city last week near the U.S.-Mexico border tested positive for COVID-19, according to officials there.

“That was very high,” Pete Saenz, the mayor of Laredo, told The Washington Examiner.

Dr. Victor Trevino, the Laredo health authority, confirmed the numbers with the paper.

Officials in Laredo, a Texas city that is located across the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, did not return requests for comment, but they offered a similar positivity percentage in a federal lawsuit last month.

Officials said in the complaint that Customs and Border Protection officials have been dropping off immigrants in the city despite large numbers of them testing positive for COVID-19, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

The surge in illegal immigrants crossing the border amid the COVID-19 pandemic presents a safety concern, Republican lawmakers and others argue.

“Americans are sick and tired of endless mandates while watching COVID-19 cases surge at the border,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said on Twitter this week.

The Laredo case numbers are the highest recorded along the border, but officials in McAllen said last week that out of 7,000 immigrants released by federal officers into the city the week before, 1,500 tested positive for COVID-19.

Americans are being threatened with vaccine passports while we are importing the coronavirus into our nation at the southern border. How does that make sense?

The article concludes:

On Thursday, a spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email that “the border is not open” and that the agency is operating under Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for the pandemic.

“CBP is making every effort to remain within CDC guidelines and mitigate long periods of processing and holding to minimize potential exposure to our workforce, those in custody, and the community.  Once processing is complete, these individuals will be expeditiously transferred out of CBP custody,” the spokesperson said.

The lawsuit was dismissed on Monday after the parties entered an agreement.

Saenz told outlets that the agreement includes the city not accepting immigrants who have been dropped off by Border Patrol. Instead, the city is hiring a charter bus company to immediately bus them to other cities, including Austin and Houston.

“We entered into an understanding that we would drop the lawsuit, which we did, and then Border Patrol would deliver these migrants, about 200 or so per day, to a city facility that we leased and then we, in turn as a city retained a bussing company to transport these migrants farther north here in Texas,” Saenz told Border Report.

The statement that “the border is not open” does not ring true in view of the actual number of people crossing our southern border illegally. I wonder how many would be crossing if the border were open. Meanwhile, Americans are dying because of the spread of the coronavirus by illegal immigrants who are not subject to the same rules as American citizens.

Does The Vaccine Work Or Not?

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about breakthrough cases of the coronavirus in Massachusetts. The article notes that according to the Mayo Clinic vaccine tracker, Massachusetts is the second-most vaccinated state in the country. Vermont is first and Maine is third.

The article reports:

Data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) released on Monday shows the average age of vaccinated individuals who have died from coronavirus is 82.5 years old and that 73 percent of those who died had underlying conditions.

The new data revealed 395 hospitalizations and 100 deaths have occurred from breakthrough coronavirus cases, according to a Boston Herald report. Breakthrough cases refer to individuals who have been infected with the virus after being fully vaccinated.

The article notes:

Massachusetts’ pandemic low occurred in June 2021 when the seven-day average of new overall cases was down to 64.

The department said in a statement that the latest breakthrough case numbers were “incredibly low” and “even lower” for those who were hospitalized or died.

“All available data continue to support that all 3 vaccines used in the US are highly protective against severe disease and death from all known variants of COVID-19,” DPH stated. “The best way to protect yourself and your loved ones is to get vaccinated.”

More than 4.3 million Massachusetts residents out of the state’s population of about 6.9 million have been vaccinated. One hundred breakthrough deaths, therefore, represent 0.002 percent of all fully vaccinated individuals.

The 82.5-year-old median age of the deaths is about five years older than the U.S. average life expectancy, which is 77.3 years old as of last year.

Every life is important, but the last sentence illustrates how ridiculous the fear-mongering about this virus is. If you choose to be vaccinated, that’s fine. If you have had the coronavirus, research indicates that you have immunity. There is no reason to be vaccinated. Take basic precautions–wash your hands, avoid sick people, and practice basic hygiene. However, don’t give up your freedom because of a pandemic that has a very low death rate.

 

 

Fear Is A Powerful Tool That Government Bureaucracies Use Well

On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article about the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. At this point there have been a lot of mixed messages and a lot of confusion about the seriousness of the virus and how the treat it effectively. Actually, the information on how to treat the virus effectively has been pretty much left out of any news you hear about the virus.

The article reports:

Well, take a break from being mad and read what Johns Hopkins doctor Dr. Marty Makary wrote about new studies about natural immunity which is ignored by Fauci and company. He also rehashed an old Fauci statistic that shreds the current push for new mask protocols and possible lockdowns (via WSJ) [emphasis mine]

The news about the U.S. Covid pandemic is even better than you’ve heard. Some 80% to 85% of American adults are immune to the virus: More than 64% have received at least one vaccine dose and, of those who haven’t, roughly half have natural immunity from prior infection. There’s ample scientific evidence that natural immunity is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.

Only around 10% of Americans have had confirmed positive Covid tests, but four to six times as many have likely had the infection. A February study in Nature used antibody screenings in late summer 2020 to estimate there had been seven times as many actual cases as confirmed cases. A similar study, by the University of Albany and New York State Department of Health, revealed that by the end of March 2020—the first month of New York’s pandemic—23% of the city’s population had antibodies. That share necessarily increased as the pandemic spread.

[…]

Natural immunity is durable. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis reported last month that 11 months after a mild infection immune cells were still capable of producing protective antibodies. The authors concluded that prior Covid infection induces a “robust” and “long-lived humoral immune response,” leading some scientists to suggest that natural immunity is probably lifelong. Because infection began months earlier than vaccination, we have more follow-up data on the duration of natural immunity than on vaccinated immunity.

[…]

Skeptics of natural immunity point to Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, where reports in January suggested a wave of re-infections despite herd immunity. But the initial estimate of those infected was incorrect because it was based on antibody testing among those who donated convalescent plasma—an unrepresentative subgroup of the population. A follow-up study debunked the re-infection hypothesis and found only three confirmed re-infections in the entire state, whose population exceeds four million. Other studies have confirmed that re-infections are rare and usually asymptomatic or mild.

Some health officials warn of possible variants resistant to natural immunity. But none of the hundreds of variants observed so far have evaded either natural or vaccinated immunity with the three vaccines authorized in the U.S.

Should the previously infected be vaccinated? My clinical advice to healthy patients with natural immunity is that one shot is sufficient, and maybe not even necessary, although it could increase the long-term durability of immunity. A University of Pennsylvania study of people previously infected with Covid found that a single vaccine dose triggered a strong immune response, with no increase in that response after a second dose. A separate study from New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine concluded that “the antibody response to the first vaccine dose in individuals with pre-existing immunity is equal to or even exceeds the titers found in naïve”—never-infected—“individuals after the second dose.”

[…]

Dr. Fauci said last Aug. 13 that when you have fewer than 10 cases per 100,000, “you should be able to open up safely and clearly.” The U.S. reached that point in mid-May. It’s time to stop the fear mongering and level with the public about the incredible capabilities of both modern medical research and the human body’s immune system.

When was the last time you heard anyone who was pressuring people to get vaccinated talk about the natural immunity that comes from having recovered from the disease? When was the last time you heard anyone who was pressuring people to get vaccinated talk about the inexpensive treatments for the coronavirus? It’s time to have those discussions.