The real-world effectiveness of Covid vaccines has not matched the hype of the 95% efficacy claimed in manufacturer trials on the basis of which they were granted emergency-use authorisation. They’ve proven disappointingly leaky with a surprisingly swift waning of effectiveness, necessitating boosters every few months.
In many cases vaccine rollouts coincided with an upsurge in infections, substantiating the concerns expressed by many experts that a mass vaccination campaign in the middle of a pandemic will drive the evolution of vaccine-escape variants and generate self-perpetuating waves of infections from the mutating variants.
A study from Oxford University in June showed the infection risk increased by 44% in the double-vaccinated in England. An analysis in July by El Gato Malo showed that U.S. states with higher vaccination rates were experiencing higher Covid hospital admissions. By the end of 2022 the vast majority of Covid deaths in many countries were among the vaccinated and boosted.
This has discredited officials and health experts from President Joe Biden on down who claimed that the vaccines would prevent infection, onward transmission, severe illness and (initially) or (as a fallback justification) death. Hence their early but by now abandoned claims about the pandemic of the unvaccinated.
By contrast, by the end of 2022 stories like the video documentary Anecdotals, which simply give voice to the vaccine injured, and studies alleging a wide range of serious side-effects and injuries from the vaccines were challenging the official narrative of the vaccines being safe and effective.
Neither safe nor effective was the growing chorus instead. On November 25th 2022 the physician-scientist Dr. Masanori Fukushima from Kyoto University warned that “the harm caused by vaccines is now a worldwide problem” and that “given the wide range of adverse events, billions of lives could ultimately be in danger”.
There is nothing objectionable in principle to harnessing revolutionary new mRNA technology to improve public health. Major medical advances in the past have been made possible by technological breakthroughs. But a revolutionary technology increases the testing burden for ensuring safety, even while a raging pandemic heightens the urgency of accelerated vaccine development and manufacture. If granted emergency use authorisation to cater to the second demand, prudence strengthens the imperative to rigorous monitoring of short, medium and long-term side effects in numbers and severity.
This is where authorities have fallen short and caused significant long-term damage to public confidence in the major institutions. Attempting to force-vaccinate the whole world with a new and untested technology was the height of irresponsibility and ignoring the mounting evidence of serious adverse events amounts to criminal negligence.
The best, if not the only true measure of the whole of society impact of an epidemic or pandemic is excess mortality. Norman Fenton and Martin Neil subjected worldwide excess mortality data to linear regression models and found no significant link between excess deaths in 2022 and (a) Covid cases in 2020, (b) long Covid, (c) lockdown stringency, or (d) healthcare quality. But they did find “a statistically significant linear relationship between countries that are highly vaccinated and excess deaths”. Elliot Middleton calculates that in 2020, Covid deaths (meaning not all were from Covid) accounted for 42% of all excess deaths in the U.S.
Remember, this is before the announcement of a vaccine breakthrough and therefore the excess mortality toll is not affected by the count of vaccine injured. Thus, although Covid deaths comprised a substantial portion of the total toll, the lockdown component was still higher – and policymakers should have known this at the time in 2020 itself but chose to ignore it despite multiple warnings from credible sources.
Ziva Kunda’s influential 1990 article “The Case for Motivated Reasoning” has nearly 10,000 citations. Her thesis was that motivation shapes reasoning. Reliance on a biased set of cognitive processes means that people are more likely to arrive at conclusions they want to arrive at, by using the strategies for accessing, constructing and evaluating tools and data that are the most likely to yield the conclusions they desire. Very hot/cold/dry/wet this year? Climate science tells us it’s because of climate change and therefore the current weather conditions validate the science. Infected by Covid after the sixth jab? Be grateful for the six doses as otherwise you would most likely have died.
As the saying goes, you cannot reason people out of beliefs that they arrived at without the use of reason.
In December, a new ‘hindcasting’ paper from the Commonwealth Fund made claims for vaccine success that were simply too inflated even to be plausible: 3.3 million lives, 18.6 million hospitalisations and 120 million infections averted just in the U.S. alone in 2021-22! It was picked up and reported by the mainstream media. Unsurprisingly, the conclusions are derived from “a model pretending to be data” that cannot be replicated. It’s an internal self-referential circular argument in which the conclusions are contained in the assumptions whose details are not made public.
The authors hold that “The reported ‘mild’ nature of Omicron is in large part because of vaccine protection.” Without vaccines, they estimate that Omicron’s infection fatality rate (IFR) would have been 2.7 times higher than for the original variant.
Alex Berenson writes this is “the dumbest, most dishonest argument for Covid jabs” thus far, long after pretty much universal agreement that vaccines stop neither infection nor transmission but are, at best, modestly effective for a short transient period. According to Our World in Data, Omicron has killed around 450,000 people worldwide (including the U.S.) in the eight-month April-November 2022 period inclusive. Collating the empirical outcomes from Our World in Data and Worldometers, at the end of the year, Africa’s double-vaccinated were 27.5% of the population, compared to 69% in the U.S. and 66.9% in Europe. Their respective cumulative Covid deaths per million people (DPM) were <0.01, 1.00 and 0.71. Only four of 47 European countries have DPM below 1,000. By contrast, only six of 58 countries in Africa have DPM above 1,000, and of these six, five have higher vaccination rates than the African average.
Yet, we are expected to believe that somehow, the vaccines miraculously saved 1 million Americans in that six-month timeframe.
Away from the tautological conclusions of models, there is little reliable data to show clinical benefits of Covid vaccines in preventing hospitalisation and death and much evidence to the contrary.
Japan is among the latest countries to offer evidence of the ‘immunity debt’ phenomenon (Figure 2). Japan is a country where owing to congested conditions, and perhaps out of concern for the elderly in one of the world’s oldest societies (over-65s make up almost a third of the population), mask-wearing has long been a common cultural feature in the November-February winter months.
This was done whenever someone had the sniffles, or else feared catching the cold. It was a sign of consideration for others. Compliance therefore is not an issue for the Government and by all accounts since the pandemic facemasks have become a ubiquitous feature of public life in Japan.
Vaccine requirements were slower to be introduced there but they seem to be making up for lost time. I am due to travel to Japan later this month and one of the entry requirements is three doses of the vaccine or else a PCR test within 72 hours of departure. In 2020, Japan was heavily criticised for tardiness in not taking the novel virus seriously enough to impose restrictions. In an article for the Japan Times in January 2021, I pointed out that given their relative performances, instead of attacking Japan, the most locked down countries should envy its results. Ironically, with heavier restrictions and vaccine mandates, Japan’s Covid metrics have deteriorated substantially. Figure 3 compares it to Denmark where, it will be recalled, authorities dropped vaccine recommendations for under-18s from July 1st 2022 and for under-50s from November 1st. Sweden and Norway swiftly followed suit.
Will the penny drop in Japan, where their own data show they did hugely better before going down the route of heavier restrictions and higher vaccine coverage? That perhaps, just possibly, pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions might be driving sustained waves of the virus? Don’t hold your breath. Japan’s ability to look reality firmly in the eye, turn around, and walk resolutely in the opposite direction is no less impressive than in the Western democracies.
Japan isn’t alone. The graphic illustration of the ineffectiveness of Covid vaccines in preventing the infection and mortality tolls can be shown with several countries. All these charts (Figures 2-9) prove the pointlessness of vaccine certificates:
- In Japan, the total number of Covid deaths until 80% of the population was vaccinated on December 9th 2021 was 18,370. In little over one year since then, the death toll was 37,858. That is, more than twice as many have died with Covid in the 12 months since 80% of people were fully vaccinated than in the 19 months until then.
- Israel’s vaccination drive hit 50% of the population on March 28th 2021, on which date its Covid death toll was 6,185. Another 5,838 Israelis had died with Covid by December 28th 2022, meaning nearly half the total Covid dead came after half the population was fully vaccinated. Israel and Palestine are one example of different vaccination rates among adjacent communities (Israelis high, Palestinians low) having little impact on their death rates.
- In the U.S. too the 516,000 Covid deaths after reaching 50% double-vaccination coverage on July 9th 2021 represents 46% of all Covid deaths until December 28th 2022.
- Australia hit the 50% vaccination threshold on October 11th 2011, with the Covid death total being 1,461 on that date. The mortality toll was 16,964 on December 28th 2022. Thus 10.6 times as many Australians died with Covid in the 14 months since 50% were double-vaccinated as in 19 months until then.
- For what it’s worth, New Zealand’s experience has been even worse. Its Covid death toll as at December 28th was 2,331, 78 times higher than 30 at 50% vaccination mark, and 57 times higher than 41 at 70% vaccination.
How anyone can look at the Covid vaccination and mortality metrics of New Zealand, Australia, and Japan and still hold fast to the ‘safe and effective’ vaccine narrative is beyond comprehension. Instead, one more initially plausible hypothesis is that the behaviour of the virus is Covid vaccine invariant i.e., the vaccines make no difference to the virus, and a second hypothesis is that the vaccine may actually be driving infections, serious illness and deaths by some mysterious mechanism not yet identified by scientists – although some studies are starting to point the way.
Earlier, Gibraltar, Cambodia, (Figure 5) and the Seychelles were examples of countries where Covid infections spiked in 2021 despite substantial vaccination in their populations.
The weekly surveillance report from New South Wales (NSW) Health for the week of December 11th-17th, published on December 22nd, is the last one for the year. The next one will be published on January 5th but the reports will no longer include the vaccination status of people hospitalised, admitted to ICU or dead with Covid.
Until the week ending May 21st 2022, the reports lumped together the unvaccinated with those whose vaccination status was not known. Figures 8-9 therefore represent the entire data set for NSW Covid-related hospital and ICU admissions and deaths, from May 22nd to December 17th 2022 inclusive, for which these statistics are available by vaccination status. It’s worth noting that 83% of the state’s total population was at least double-vaccinated, which accounted for 75.3% of Covid-related hospital admissions (slightly underrepresented) and 83.1% of deaths (almost exactly the same as population share).
According to the federal Department of Health, by year’s end 96% of Australian adults (16+) were double-vaccinated, 72.4% had received at least three doses and 44.2% four doses. For NSW the corresponding figures were 95.8%, 70.5% and 45.6%. With all due respect (or not) to the Australian health bureaucrats, it is impossible to spin Figures 8 and 9 as graphic evidence for the vaccines being effective.
A study out in December 2022 in preprint of employees of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio from September 12th to December 12th 2022 found that effectiveness of the new bivalent Covid vaccine – authorised by the FDA on the basis of trial results from eight mice – was only 30%. The real shock was discovering that infection rates increase incrementally with each successive dose of a Covid vaccine.
The infection rates among those vaccinated with three or more doses was three times higher than among the unvaccinated. The authors said: “The association of increased risk of COVID-19 with higher numbers of prior vaccine doses in our study, was unexpected.” Prior infection is relatively more effective against reinfection, they found.
Ramesh Thakur is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy and a former UN Assistant Secretary-General. This article was first published by the Brownstone Institute.
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Good work Chris. More nails into the coffin of the anti-science, anti-reality Climate Cult. Fraud, deception, censorship. So much $cience. I doubt that even the Sheeple will believe that 20 parts per million human emitted plant food, most of which is recycled, causes El Nino.
Oh, they’ll claim it all right, simply to try and maintain the narrative, i.e, save face. At some point though, the populous will wake up.
Chris, any thoughts on cloud seeding and the odd trail patterns observed in the sky from time to time?
“We have experienced three strong El Niños in the last 25 years – 1998, 2016 and 2023”. In fact, the NOAA graph of the Multivariate ENSO Index shows the 2023 El Nino to be relatively puny, less than that of 2009 for example. I believe that the unprecedented spike in global temperatures in 2023 was due mainly to the 2022 Hunga Tonga undersea volcanic eruption which spewed massive quantities of water vapour, the most powerful greenhouse gas, high into the stratosphere.
Establishment meteorological authorities (e.g. the UK Met Office), the MSM and social media, politicians, COP28 activists and NGOs have conspired to suppress all news and views on Hunga Tonga which goes against the man-made global warming narrative in order to continue their puerile pretence that every rise in global temperatures is due to man-made CO2 emissions, no matter the true cause.
For more, search for:
Joel Smalley substack, Net Zero climate change broadside
Chris seems to have a problem in his logic circuits. El Niño is not considered to be an effect of climate change. It is a partial short term alternative contribution to high temperatures. So lack of an El Niño is not any kind of evidence against climate change. What will be telling is if high temperatures persist despite the end of the El Niño.
Nothing wrong with Mr Morrison’s logic circuits:
‘Niño is a natural transfer of heat between the oceans and the atmosphere that starts in the Pacific regions. The effects of an El Niño are far from completely understood but they are essentially large heat transfers from the tropics to the northern hemisphere.’
But definitely something wrong with logic circuits in other circles (cults) as this article makes clear to anyone taking the time to read it:
‘……these…sudden spikes in ocean temperatures and unusual weather events……have been ruthlessly catastrophised by activist scientists, politicians and journalists seeking to nudge citizens to accept the collectivist Net Zero agenda.’
Apologies. That should read ‘Nut Zero agenda’
That’s not the point.
It is absolutely true that El Nino is one of the causes of sudden spikes in ocean temperatures and unusual weather events. And when these things happen they are sometimes ascribed to climate change. It doesn’t follow that the end of an El Nino is somehow evidence against climate change. In fact quite the reverse. If the El Nino finishes and high temperatures and unusual weather event persist then it cannot be the cause and it becomes more plausible that climate change is the cause.
“it becomes more plausible that furiously flapping pigs is the cause”
fixed it for you.
The difference being that there is a recognised causal chain from increasing GHGs to temperature rises and unusual weather events. Note that even sceptical scientists such as Roy Spencer, Judith Curry and Roger Pielke recognise this – they just dispute its extent and significance. As far as I know, you are the first person to introduce the flapping pigs hypothesis.
Everything plays some role. But on this issue we are confronted with the insistence that there is a “climate crisis” and a “climate emergency” and that millions will die, millions will migrate to Europe etc, and that none of this will occur if we simply decarbonise by 2050 even as the rest of the world doesn’t ——–This is as tall a tale as I ever heard and is totally evidence free.
And that’s it. There is ‘recognised, i.e., belief, and proven, i.e. evidence. The former abounds in great quantity, but the latter is still playing hide & seek.
Good come-back. I appreciate the dry humour.
Let’s constrain ourselves to the question of whether reducing carbon dioxide emissions will have an impact on the weather, and if it does whether that is a bad thing.
Of course, even if you could show that reducing GHGs was a good thing, possibly even a very good thing, then you still have to prove that the cost of reducing GHGs was acceptable. It very much is not and if the developing world is to, well, develop, then cheap energy, which means fossil fuels, needs to expand, not just a bit, but hugely. It is very much worth nothing here also that development is a precondition for being able to adapt to changing patterns.
Lastly, I’m very much in the camp of ‘no collective decision making for any reason whatsoever’, as any reason WILL be used disingenuously by those waiting in the wings of society for a chance to wield power.
I appreciate your politeness. I am afraid I am not going to play any more. You have really opened up every aspect of the climate change debate and that is more than I can digest right now.
Totally unscientific idea I had yesterday: Considering that some amount of plants end up turning into coal and other so-called fossil fuels, thus permanently withdrawing some amount of carbon from the atmosphere, could it be that life is not stable on this planet and that eventually, everything will die because of asphyxation unless an effort is made to restore this carbon to the atmosphere?
Well constructed.
I suspect the earth is on an elliptical orbit around the sun and its axis it not aligned with that of the star. That’s why we get Deadly Heatwaves® every year, the non-trademarked name of these being summer.
If El Nino is a naturally occuring thing why do you call the weather events it creates “unusual weather events”? ——Surely they are natural weather events created by a natural phenomenon. You just let a bit of confirmation bias slip into your language there.
Unusual is not the opposite of natural. Think about it.
But you are implying the events are unusual and purely as result of humans. Why do you class something that happens all the time “unusual” —-Activists cannot help themselves.
But you are implying the events are unusual and purely as result of humans.
Not at all. Some are. Some are not.
Why do you class something that happens all the time “unusual” —-
I don’t. What makes you think I do?
Do a little thought experiment. —–Just imagine humans don’t exist and so there was no Industrial revolution and no human emissions of greenhouse gasses. —-In that world there would still be El Nino’s. But you said that this causes “unusual weather”——-You said this” It is absolutely true that El Nino is one of the causes of sudden spikes in ocean temperature and unusual weather events”. ——If these events happen all the time as result of something called El Nino that is entirely natural then whatever it is that occurs is not at all “unusual” is it? So why are you calling something “unusual” when it isn’t?
This is precisely where the muddle starts.
You say Mr Morrison’s logic circuits have a problem, insinuating that he is arguing that the end of an El Nino is evidence against climate change.
Quite clearly, he is not.
His point is that Nut Zero jobs have ascribed El Nino effects to climate change caused by human activity.
He mentions that UAH temperature records confirm the El Nino effect.
Maybe unusual weather events, higher temperatures, will occur in the future, quite separate from El Nino.
We very much look forward to you keeping us updated; but, for the moment, if it’s OK with you, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, many of us will continue to argue that the Nut Zero agenda is total and complete lunacy.
Yes and actually the entire climate system exists to distribute heat about the planet.
Can you specify which climate has changed please? As there are specific characterizations of all of the Earth’s 30 or so climates, such as Hot, Arid; or Polar, then what are the characteristics of Earth’s climate that need protecting?
Good question and I am waiting for the answer. ——tick tock tick tock
The article was about El Niño effects being (ab-)used as evidence of man-made climate change or rather, the upcoming problem of finding an alternate source of convenient weather events, always due to climate change except when they’re not suitable for that. In this case, they’re “just weather”, as per the usual have-cake-and-logic: Whatever happens is only relevant when it fits in our preconceived theories about what should have happened. Actual events can prove us right but never wrong.
“If high temperatures persist”———Persist relative to what?. ——The temperature record is a dogs breakfast of adjusted and manipulated data. Then ofcourse just because something warms does not mean humans warmed it. There have been very similar warm periods before eg 1920’s and 30’s before we were emitting much in the way of CO2. —-The climate complex assumes a lot of stuff. This isn’t science. It is politics or “Official science”
If global temperatures stay high when the El Nino wanes it will be due to the continuing impact of the Hunga Tonga undersea volcanic eruption, see my comment above (currently second-best rated).
There are three main reasons why 2023 was much hotter than 2022:
Notice I don’t include climate change because that applies to 2022 as well. What climate change does is explain why the 2023 temperature was higher than expected given all these effects. To see if the other three explain the observed temperatures you have to do the sums which are extremely difficult, require a computer, and cause opponents to shout “model”. I am sorry but there is no short cut. Once you do the sums you find that these three together are not sufficient to explain the observed temperature.
There’s one reason why some average of temperatures readings calculated in 2023 was higher than an average of different temperature readings calculated in 2022: The people doing the calculations want that. The calculation is nonsense and there’s no reason why anyone should seek to explain its result by speculating about the effects of some random set of natural events we happen to know about.
But the sums aren’t done very well, are they…..
‘For more than 20 years climate scientists—virtually alone among scientific disciplines—have used TLS to estimate anthropogenic GHG signal coefficients despite its tendency to be unreliable unless some strong assumptions hold that in practice are unlikely to be true.’
‘……why is the TLS so popular in physics-related applications? Good question! My guess is because it keeps generating answers that climatologists like and they have no incentive to come to terms with its weaknesses. But you don’t have to step far outside climatology to find genuine bewilderment that people use it instead of IV.’
Climate attribution method overstates “fingerprints” of external forcing, Ross McKitrick Dec 2023
That’s a pretty obscure technical point. Many years ago I exchanged e-mails with McKitrick (via a friend of his). He is inclined to get a bit obsessed with relatively unimportant academic points (in this case it was his claim that all types of average are equally relevant to climate change).
Or not really
‘despite its tendency to be unreliable unless some strong assumptions hold that in practice are unlikely to be true.’
In other words assumptions made that are nonsense on stilts dressed up as science.
As the man said: ‘…you don’t have to step far outside climatology to find genuine bewilderment…..because it keeps generating answers that climatologists like and they have no incentive to come to terms with its weaknesses.’
Dodgy assumptions:
‘…..most of the climate alarmism is based on unrealistic scenarios like (shared socioeconomic pathway) SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0, which result in overestimation of future projected warming
…..the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) should be between 1 and 3 °C. Unfortunately, the IPCC AR6 relied heavily on Global Climate models with ECS ranging between 2.5 and 4 °C (likely range), which overestimates future projected warming.
models expect that the troposphere will warm faster than the surface, not less. As a result, the warming rate of surface temperature records should be questioned. In this case, all CMIP6 GCMs (Global Climate Models) are running “too hot,” indicating a very low actual value of ECS (1-2 °C)
‘……a vast body of research indicates that the CMIP6 GCMs are incapable of reproducing natural climate variability because they ignore multiple well-known climatic cycles at all time scales. There is a quasi-millennial climate oscillation with a likely solar origin that characterizes the entire Holocene and is responsible for the well-documented Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, which models are unable to reproduce (as timidly acknowledged by the IPCC AR6 figure 3.2).
Other natural oscillations were also detected, such as the quasi-60-year oscillation seen in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation signal, as well as many other oscillations classified as solar/astronomically driven in previous studies.
While GCMs suggest that over 100% of the observed warming is manmade, these oscillations could have contributed significantly to the warming recorded in the twentieth century. Introducing cyclical natural variability predicts low ECS values (1-2 °C) and that the GCMs grossly underestimate the solar impact on climate.’
Nicola Scafetta Dec 2023
I think you will find McKitrick suggested that when it comes to averaging of climate data that it would be difficult to know which averaging type to choose. He also pointed out that when it comes to averaging, some things loose their meaning when you average them and temperature is one of those things.
Yes that was it. It is many years ago so I can’t remember or find the details but I vividly remember thinking this man is a bit divorced from reality. However, without the relevant details to hand it is not worth pursuing.
“This leads to sudden spikes in ocean temperatures and unusual weather events.”
Small correction please.
“This leads to sudden spikes in ocean temperatures and changes in weather events.”
I note a passing reference to the Chuckle Brother Doppelganger Jim Dale. He even sounds like them except his proclamations are more preposterous, espousing as he does, the ‘tipping point’ (scaremongering) belief. He doubtless honed his presentational ‘skills’ in the RN and now is a ‘hired gun’ for the AGW brigade, heading up as he does the somewhat grandiosely titled ‘British Weather Services’ (which he founded). Risible!
Dale is a recipient of millions in renewable subsidies, about £100 million so far.
Can you give more info on that, or is it parody?
Are you thinking of the other unflushable, Dale Vince?
Hurrah! Our ruthless exporting of jobs, manufacturing and carbon emissions to China is working!
On another note, Prof Cliff Mass should really be a geologist rather than an atmospheric scientist.
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/net-zero-nuts/
And this piece by Roger Watson at The New Conservative is the perfect accompaniment to the Nut Zero lies.
If TPTB can’t be bothered why should we although in fairness Dr Watson does admit to sharing the conviction that climate change blah, blah, blah is a load of Bollox?
Dale and McCarthy.——- The Alias Smith and Jones of mainstream climate advocacy news programs. Two activists that are like a hammer that sees everything as a nail. They claim at all times certainty where none exists. They take themselves so seriously and are convinced with the huge dose of confirmation bias that they swallow everyday that every single thing they say is all ultimate truth and everything that occurs is all due to humans and our emissions of CO2. Not only do they assume there is dangerous climate change afoot all based on modelling rather than observations or empirical evidence, but they also know the solutions to it all. Yet Dale calls himself a “Meteorologist”. But if that is the case why is he dabbling in economics? Why is he onboard with every turbine, solar panel, heat pump, electric car etc. Why does he not just stick to telling us what the weather is going to be doing in a weeks time because that is all he is qualified to do. ———Dear Mr Dale and Mr Mcarthy, when everything that happens is due to your theory, you are not indulging in science you are indulging in politics.
Except Dale is only Navy trained to be a meteorological ‘observer’. He’s NOT a qualified meteorologist.
Thanks for that. ——A more irritating pompous twit you could not get, except possibly that other twerp Mccarthy.
No mention of weather manipulation, Geoengineering or chem trails we see in our skies. Three months of grey wet weather is not normal in anyone’s book. Ask the farmers. Food shortages coming in the UK which cannot even grow enough food for its own during “normal weather”