It was an evening in mid-March 2020. Almost two years had passed since I retired from the University of Arizona, where I was a Professor of Epidemiology in the College of Public Health.
I was watching the news from Israel, the country in which I lived during the first three decades of my life. The reporters were broadcasting a forthcoming catastrophe, a doomsday in the making. It was all about a new coronavirus epidemic which erupted in China and had reached Israel, Europe and parts of the U.S.
Like everyone, I have been following the news from the Far East since the beginning of the year. Although infectious diseases were not my subject matter research, epidemiologists are trained to think critically, to question what many accept at face value. The picture that emerged was far from clear. A few observations did not fit well with the apocalyptic predictions.
So, I decided to write a short article in Hebrew and submit it as an op-ed to a newspaper in Israel. That’s how the series of essays now published as The Covid Pandemic: Unconventional Analytical Essays (2020-2023) started. It was supposed to have ended about three years later with my summary of what has actually happened in Israel (as opposed to the official narrative), but I added a few more later articles on Covid vaccines. In between, I wrote about many aspects of the pandemic, drawing upon data from Sweden, Denmark, Europe, Arizona, the US, the U.K. and Israel.
Forty essays are included in the book. The first one was titled ‘Hold off on that Apocalyptic Consensus About the Coronavirus’ (March 24th 2020). All of them were written for the public at large and were data driven. They were not based on ‘opinion’ or ‘intuition’. They are science, as best as I know it. If written in a formal, academic style, many of these essays could have been submitted to epidemiology journals. Whether they would have passed the guards of official narratives is a different question.
What will you find in the book?
Back in 2020, I devoted several essays to lockdown-free Sweden and showed, unequivocally, the futility of lockdowns and the misleading comparison of Sweden to neighbouring Nordic countries. The last one in this series, published in 2022, was titled ‘Sweden or the World: Which was a Cautionary Tale?’, paraphrasing headlines that claimed the opposite in the spring of 2020.
Several essays have estimated the death toll of panic-triggered responses to the pandemic. By September 2021, before the return of the flu, between 15% and 30% of the excess mortality in the U.S. may be attributed to the so-called mitigation efforts (‘The Mystery of Unaccounted Excess Deaths in the U.S.’). These were lives that were lost in vain — at least 115,000 deaths and possibly twice as many. The consequences of lockdowns and disruptions of normal life did not end in 2021. Lives have continued to be lost in many countries, including the U.K. Some of the mechanisms are described in my essay ‘Covid: The Death Toll of Panic’.
In numerous essays, I studied excess mortality and explained why trends should be examined over an entire winter (‘flu years’), not by calendar years. Using this approach, I estimated the excess mortality in Europe (‘How Severe was the Pandemic in Europe?’). In the first year (2019-2020), it was only somewhat higher than in a previous season with severe flu (2017-2018). The second year (2020-2021) was very harsh but far from apocalyptic – about twice as severe as 2017-2018. In both years, all-cause mortality would have been lower without lockdowns.
Over a dozen essays cover various aspects of Covid vaccines. I showed severe biases in influential studies from Israel and estimated the correct effectiveness against Covid death, which ranged from mediocre to zero or sometimes negative, in the frail elderly. Using data from the U.K., I showed the questionable effectiveness of the first booster and the futility of the second (fourth dose). In three essays, I estimated the short-term fatality rate of Covid vaccines, which was unacceptable but fortunately not as high as others had suggested. Long-term fatality is difficult to estimate. One essay describes unacceptable rates of side-effects, as found in a largely unknown official survey in Israel (‘Downplaying the Side Effects of Boosters’).
Did Covid vaccines save millions of lives? Not according to a comparative analysis of Israel with Sweden in the winter of 2020-2021 (‘Thousands of Averted Covid Deaths in Israel: Science Fiction’). Nor did they reduce the delayed death toll of Covid in Denmark (‘Lockdown and Vaccines: Lessons from Denmark’).
In the last essay, which imagines a future perspective on Covid vaccines, I wrote:
Twenty years later, we are still studying the long-term morbidity and mortality consequences of disseminated lipid nanoparticles (the mRNA carriers), self- manufactured toxic spike protein and aberrant proteins in various tissues, elevated levels of IgG4 antibodies after repeated injections, and the integration of foreign DNA fragments into the genome.
These days, a group of scientists is studying cancer cells from vaccinated patients to determine if foreign DNA is present there. Chances are that you will not find much on this topic or on other vaccine-related effects in mainstream media. So, keep following the Daily Sceptic and Brownstone, as I have been doing for a long time. No end is in sight to the saga of Covid vaccines.
Dr. Eyal Shahar is Professor Emeritus of Public Health at the University of Arizona. His new book The Covid Pandemic: Unconventional Analytical Essays (2020-2023) is available now.
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Did I read that correctly?
He left with a payout rather than face his accusers? i.e. he profited?
Welcome to Guardian World.
Lefties always regard themselves and other lefties as virtuous.
Time is showing that the virtuous types run their own lives by different standards and values to those they expect others to have!
I think Sunak is experiencing a glitch here. Can somebody turn him off then on again? Seriously idiotic, how he’s talking;
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1663489680090845186
Sounds just like Anthony Blinken “cooperating” on releasing gain of function documents.
Wow. That is disturbing. Has this puppet been re-programmed already?
Presumably, had he been grooming the young male interns he would have been ‘stunning and brave’ and bumped up a pay grade.
When he departed, he was praised by his bosses for his “incisive” and “brilliant” journalist – such as this piece entitled ‘It is only a matter of time before we turn on the unvaccinated’ ..
I am not sure this piece is journalism, more a nasty man’s opinions, and certainly not describable as brilliant.
Like so much that is published by the Guardian it is unpleasant and vindictive with obvious bias.
“As the pandemic slows down, they (the poor) will continue to suffer the highest death rates along with new variants of the old plagues of racism and snobbery.”
So ends the Cohen article.
Well this chap got a couple of things correct – he spotted the oncoming problem of failed cancer diagnoses and digital ID’s.
Apart from the above this article is vicious, mean and extremely totalitarian in its tone. This is a man who has clearly done no research whatsoever because by Feb 21 the mortality figures of 2020 were known and there was no excess, that was about to hit in 2021 as the poisonous injections were ruled out. He failed also to appreciate that BAME communities also have an historical antipathy to ‘white man’s injections.’ Some how he also manages to squeeze in a left / right diatribe regarding those of us refusing the poisons.
Clearly an ignorant, crude, lazy, know it all bully with not an ounce of ability or talent. A perfect fit for The Groan.
I expect ‘poor white people, ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews, black or south Asian men and women’ have fared much better than ‘good citizens who taken their jabs’ with regards to excess deaths from April 2022.
Very pleasing to see that Toby has been gifted this opportunity to treat Cohen to some payback. Straight in the goolies.
Hypocrisy at the Grauniad?
What a surprise!
If there’s something even less interesting than that someone reported an alleged sexual harrassment which happened 22 years ago 17 years after it allegedly happened, can someone please not tell me about it?
They didn’t all wait for 17 years before reporting it:
“Some of his alleged victims have accused GNM of failing to act on complaints they made to managers over a period of years.”
Over the course of seven years, he allegedly inappropriately touched a woman in a public house about every 17 months, the most recent of these alleged occurences happening 8 years ago isn’t less BS than the more prominent alleged incident I wrote about. I’d consider myself lucky if was only groped by a gay guy every 17 months instead of by at least 17 every 12 months and no one gives a shit about that because it’s always just for fun. And this doesn’t even include more mundane assaults.
That you happen to dislike this guy (I don’t particularly like him, either) doesn’t mean it’s ok to target him with methods you also very much dislike if you sympathize more with the target, eg, Trump’s Just grab them by the pussy.
One thing at a time:
Firstly, I was commenting on you referring to the fact that one woman reported alleged sexual harassment 17 years after it happened. But there is no indication that any of the other women waited a long time before reporting it. What happened was that GNM took no action, which isn’t the women’s fault.
Secondly, if this is true, I don’t think it’s acceptable, regardless of whether I like the man or don’t like him:
‘The NYT said Mr Cohen’s reputation was “widely known in the newsroom”, to the extent that some of his female colleagues used a different entrance to a pub near the office “to avoid being groped by him”.’
Firstly, I was commenting on you referring to the fact that one woman reported alleged sexual harassment 17 years after it happened. But there is no indication that any of the other women waited a long time before reporting it.
In other words, you were writing about a different topic than the one I had been writing about and just pretending this was somehow a reply to my text. Thank you, I noticed that. The tactic – change topic whenever one would otherwise have to concede a point – isn’t that clever or uncommon.
We have no information regarding how long these other women waited for reporting their incidents and in any case, policing behaviour of people in pubs is not the business or responsibilty of the Guardian News and Media Corporation, not even if it happens the employ these people. That’s a matter for pub management and for the police. Regardless of what you do or don’t consider acceptable, Cohen hasn’t been found guilty of a crime (sexual harassment is a crime) and as far as can be told from the text, nobody ever even tried to report him for allegedly having committed a crime. That doesn’t exactly make these dated allegiations look terribly credible.
Lastly, there’s a massive issue of double standards here.
I’m having difficulty understanding you. So I’ll just make it crystal clear what my first comment was about. It was in reply to this comment from you:
“If there’s something even less interesting than that someone reported an alleged sexual harrassment which happened 22 years ago 17 years after it allegedly happened, can someone please not tell me about it?”
You specifically mentioned that someone had reported an alleged sexual harassment 17 years after it allegedly happened, and so I simply pointed out:
‘They didn’t all wait for 17 years before reporting it:
“Some of his alleged victims have accused GNM of failing to act on complaints they made to managers over a period of years.”’
I don’t understand what your problem is with what I pointed out.
I have no problem with you repeating the same irrelevant text like a broken record without ever addressing any points raised against it.
Since you seem to have a problem with complaints from the distant past, it seems strange that you dredge up ‘Trump’s just grab them by the pussy’ comments.
Maybe it’s true what people say, and that Guardian supporters are not averse to a bit of hypocrisy.
Might also be worth your while refreshing your memory on that quote too? You’ll find that Trump didn’t say what you think he said, and that rather commenting on his own behaviour, he was merely making an observation on the morals of some women when they found themselves in the company of rich and powerful men.
I thought we didn’t like people going into the deep past digging for dirt to destroy careers?
I have many reasons for disliking the Guardian. Not participating in a pile on on one of its reporters is not one of them.
“The NYT said Mr Cohen had grabbed her bottom, and that five other women had described similar encounters happening in pubs between 2008 and 2015. A seventh said that Mr Cohen had repeatedly offered to send her explicit photographs in 2018.”
Are you calling 2008-2015 and 2018 “the deep past”?
And there’s a difference between digging into the past for politically incorrect tweets and sexual harassment.
Furthermore, a reading of this delightful piece – thanks John – should be enough to convince anyone that this miserable example of humanity deserves little sympathy. And he used to work for The Groan. Case closed.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/27/it-is-only-a-matter-of-time-before-we-turn-on-the-unvaccinated
I’ve never grabbed a bottom in my life. It’s not something I would do, nor send explicit photographs or request them.
That said, there are far worse things going on in the world. And if this sort of character flaw is enough to end someone’s career, I don’t think there are enough flawless characters out there to do all the jobs that need doing.
Quite frankly, I think we’ve lost our minds.
Dodgy actors (newspaper barons and those who pull their strings) who want to spin the news a certain way, and indeed get pieces written in The Graun etc to stick the knife in, say, to call for the victimisation of unvaccinated, would probably choose a compromised sex-pest handsy journalist to churn out the vitriolic stuff. How could he or she argue?
After that, they pay off said fictional journo and let him/her/they go. A possibly hypothesis if you buy the kompromat theory of corrupt institutions and professions, as I do.
Sadly, I am NOT surprised one iota by this.
https://off-guardian.org/2023/05/31/bbc-verify/
And here’s a piece of real journalism from the always excellent Iain Davis at Off-G. For a change he also has a good laugh at Spring and Verify.
I bet BOTH the Guardian readers were outraged. Cohen was the reason I unsubscribed from the Spectator Overrated scribbler who has gotten his just desserts