Back in March, I wrote a post noting that excess mortality data from Europe and Israel were hard to reconcile with claims of 90% vaccine effectiveness against death. However, I also noted that some countries data were consistent with very high vaccine effectiveness against death.
The two examples I gave were Australia and Iceland – both countries with very high vaccination rates. By the end of 2021, each country had double-vaccinated 77% of its population, compared to only 70% in the U.K. and only 63% in the U.S. (see below).
At the time I wrote the post, Iceland had only seen a minor uptick in excess mortality, while Australia had not seen any at all – despite both countries experiencing major outbreaks in the winter/spring of 2022. If countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Israel had seen deadly post-vaccination waves, why hadn’t Iceland and Australia? That was the puzzle.
It appears that ‘puzzle’ is now solved – we just needed to wait for more data. The latest figures from Iceland and Australia show sizeable upticks in excess mortality. First, let’s look at Iceland:
After bouncing around the zero mark for the first two years of the pandemic, excess mortality jumped to 74% in the first week of March. And it has now been above zero for eleven of the last thirteen weeks. Next, let’s consider Australia:
Over the first two years of the pandemic, excess morality averaged roughly zero – dipping lower in the summer and rising higher in the winter. Yet since the start of October, it has been consistently positive, jumping to 26% in the third week of January.
It should be noted: these upticks in excess mortality are not as large as those seen in European countries during 2020 and 2021.
However, they indicate that even very high vaccination rates are not sufficient to prevent mortality from rising when there’s a major outbreak. And they cast further doubt on claims that the vaccines are 90% effective against death. If they were 90% effective against death, excess mortality should hardly have risen at all in Iceland and Australia.
Given that 77% of the entire population was double vaccinated before the latest outbreaks began (and that’s the entire population, not just over 16s), you’d have to believe that excess mortality would have been many, many times higher in the absence of vaccination to rescue the claim of 90% effectiveness against death.
What’s probably true instead is that the vaccines do reduce mortality from Covid – but not by 90%.
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This is where ‘democratic’ socialist fascism leads.
Was it Hu or Xi who was in charge during the Wuhai panic?
I have read (in Ben Irvine’s book “The Coronapanic Debacle”) that there was a panic among the local popoulation/officials in Wuhai to lockdown the whole whole place, and they blackmailed Hu/Xi into producing those absurd videos we all remember of people dropping dead in the middle of the road they were crossing. Or something, perhaps more wicked than that. Part of this was to spread enough panic worldwide to hide what they were upto. In the west, our betters saw that there was an opportunity to exert the same control over our populations. Ferguson, and the behavioural scientists piled in with masking mandates, lockdowns, etc to spread and exploit the hysteria.
3 years and several destroyed economies, here we are, at the mercy of our betters. I’m curious as to whether people here know Ben’s book, have read his arguments and research, and what opinion they have of the manipulated dystopia from which (please God) we may have a chance of emerging.
If there is any truth in Ben’s analysis (I doubt I am conveying it in a way of which he would approve), what (urgent) action is now necessary?
It was Xi, or as he is colloquially known, Xinnie the Pooh. He REALLY hates that! LOL
Its one of a number of plausible explanations of how we went from there to here. I think the ‘opportunism’ explanation is pretty much on the mark, but how Covid appeared in the outside world and where we go next are, I think, linked…
One can only hope!
Check out the latest gems from the lockdown-loving, usually CCP-loving, fearmongering, true believer (or not) World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). If even THEY are mad at China, then China must be doing something right for once!
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/18/pkyw-j18.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/21/gkzt-j21.html
Of course, they also predictably blame the “imperialist” USA, their allies, and Davos for pressuring the CCP to do a volte-face on their utterly failed Zero Covid policy. Well, we know the WSWS has long hated America, but if they are so mad at Davos (aka the WEF) too, then Davos must also, like a stopped clock, be right twice a day! A WEF double bluff perhaps?
And of course the WSWS would NEVER criticize the jabs at all…..
And of course they have long since denied the lab leak theory:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/29/pers-m29.html
If it DUCKS like a QUACK….
Another stopped clock being right twice a day: the WSWS supporting the use of UV air disinfection:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/14/teda-j14.html
That being said, they are still quite wrong about it being possible to eradicate Covid. It is:
Too contagious
Too airborne
Too subtle and stealthy
Too prone to mutation
Too many animal reservoirs
And above all, it’s too late.
Come, come. ‘Suppression’ of dissent? Dissent? Public discourse is alive, well, and effective in China. Riots get suppressed, usually non-violently, and the government’s own figures show 50,000-100,000 yearly public protests.
YouTube has footage of Hu at his retirement, twelve year ago. As you see, he could barely walk. A remarkably humble man, he had been crushed by the burdens of office, and his fight with unruly and dishonest officials. It is a tribute to his health team that he was able to attend the Congress and, if you watch footage of his arrival, of Xi escorting him, you’ll see that.
Thanks to Xi, Chinese life expectancy zoomed past America’s since Covid arrived. With only 5000 deaths and 35,000 Long Covids, GDP 400% faster than America’s, with 1.1 million deaths and 3.5M Long Covids.
Covid has burnished Xi’s reputation, not damaged it.
LOL at anyone who believes the CCP’s numbers at face value. Are you a bot?
Could the last person out of the door please switch off the lights?
‘Following the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, Beijing introduced a new, wide-ranging national security law in 2020. The vaguely worded law criminalizes any acts deemed as secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion, with these crimes punishable by a maximum sentence of life in prison.’
‘A record exodus of Hong Kongers over the past 12 months is raising concerns that the island’s status as a global financial hub may be at risk.
More than 113,000 residents left the territory in the past year, marking a 1.6% population decline. It is Hong Kong’s biggest population drop since record keeping began more than 60 years ago.
From 2020 to 2021, 89,200 people — or 0.3% — left the city, and 20,900 people decamped from 2019 to 2020. The city’s population has now dropped from 7.41 million in mid-2021 to 7.29 million in mid-2022, according to the latest data from Hong Kong’s Census and Statistics Department.’
https://www.voanews.com/a/hong-kong-exodus-may-threaten-city-s-global-financial-status-/6709210.html
This is where ‘democratic’ socialist fascism leads…….