We’re in the middle of 2024, and the ‘experts’ still won’t give up their ridiculous defence of Covid mandates.
By now, the evidence against the effectiveness of Covid policies and so-called ‘interventions’ is overwhelming. Mask mandates were a spectacular failure, with the most heavily masked populations often seeing worse results than cities, counties or countries with little to no masking.
Vaccine mandates and passports were an unmitigated disaster; coercion created mistrust, and resistance and in some cases may have led to unnecessary, damaging side effects.
School closures, as we have clearly learned, were a tremendous, world-changing disaster. And it was made all the more frustrating by the fact that we had examples across the globe showing that they weren’t needed.
None of that’s stopped those committed to maintaining the fantasy of Covid mandates from desperately seeking to validate their belief system. And that desperation just led to one of their most absurd claims yet.
Covid Social Distancing and Vaccines Saved 800,000 Lives, Don’t Ya Know?
Two researchers from formerly reputable institutions, the University of Colorado, Boulder and the University of California, Los Angeles, just recently published a paper claiming to have cracked the fantastical code on just how effective the social distancing, lockdowns, mask mandates and Covid vaccines were at saving lives during the pandemic.
And what do you know? They found that the policies they supported were tremendous, highly successful interventions! Who would have ever guessed?
According to the headline, they claim that: ‘Mitigating behaviour and vaccines saved around 800,000 American lives.’
How did they arrive at this awe-inspiring conclusion? With a model, of course!
Mechanism: Around 68% of Americans got vaccinated before first infection
First Covid infection much less dangerous after vaccinationBack of the envelope estimate of lives saved
Full structural model of epidemic with behaviour and vaccines
This is what we’re dealing with here; a model based on a “back-of-the-envelope” estimate of lives saved, with their esteemed educated guess as to how many Americans were vaccinated before becoming infected.
Well, ‘guessing’ might not be accurate… completely guessing is more like it. According to their methodology, they used serology data on the timing of infections and vaccinations, though, of course, without direct links between individuals who were infected and those who were vaccinated, there’s little we can learn from population-wide serology data.
Not to mention that to create their model on the benefits of vaccination, they examined data from just 30 states on “COVID-19 deaths by vaccination status”.
Serology data on timing of infections and vaccinations
30 states: COVID-19 deaths data by vaccination status
But as anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Covid data knows, this type of data is hopelessly corrupted.
Thanks to public health experts and their pharmaceutical company allies, most jurisdictions only count individuals as being vaccinated starting 14 days after their second dose. Those with just one dose are effectively viewed as ‘unvaccinated’ for purposes of data collection. This type of counting skews the reliability of deaths by vaccination status, as does the fact that there were mountains of mistakes made by public health administrators and jurisdictions regarding data collection throughout the pandemic.
But especially when it comes to deaths by vaccination status. Not to mention that the supposed efficacy of Covid vaccines is highly reliant on when the data were measured. Even the CDC’s own data in late 2023 effectively acknowledged that the original vaccination series had waned to reach zero efficacy.
Regardless, the poor methodology used to create this model is evidenced by one of their first examples of measuring combined and infection seroprevalence.
The blue dots in this photo represent “cumulative percent infected plus vaccinated without infection” while the red and yellow are “cumulative percent ever infected”.
First, these numbers rely on seroprevalence estimates, which while useful are hardly definitive. Secondly, the researchers apparently ignore that the percentage of infected skyrockets starting in late December 2020, accelerating significantly after the vaccines were introduced.
They also then suggest that behavioural modifications were responsible for saving nearly 800,000 lives because they delayed infections until after vaccination.
This though is nonsense.
The charts below use the blue line as the estimate of what would have resulted if behaviour had remained the same, with no vaccination. The red line is the actual course of the pandemic.
But these charts assume as a given that behaviour was responsible for lowering the curve of deaths in 2020 and early 2021, then use a faulty assumption of vaccine efficacy based on corrupted data from 30 states to suggest that there were hundreds of thousands of lives saved.
Their model relies on their assumptions being accurate when we know for a fact that they aren’t. How do we know? Because states and countries that did not have similar behavioural modifications often had better results.
They ignore this fact to create the model. Literally.
“Behavioural response had a lot in common across U.S. states,” they say. But we know that’s not true. People living in California, particularly in 2021 and 2022, had very different experiences than those living in Florida or Iowa. Mask mandates and vaccine passports continued in California and New York deep into 2022, while Florida banned vaccine passports and had virtually no masking by spring 2021.
They claim that behavioral modifications were responsible for “delaying deaths”, but there’s no evidence that that’s true since different areas with different responses often had similar results.
Somehow, they also then claim that people “would have gotten infected without protection of vaccines”, a nonsensical fantasy given we know that the vaccines provide zero protection against infection.
So they both credit behaviour with reducing infections and delaying deaths, based on nothing, but also credit vaccines with reducing infections, and thus deaths. Also based on nothing.
Their assumptions prove their results, a classic failure of modeling.
It also ignores the importance of more transmissible, less virulent variants. Omicron resulted in an explosion of infections, though with lower mortality rates. Testing also exploded in 2021 and 2022, meaning that more people could test positive and thus be counted as ‘Covid deaths’ without it being the underlying cause.
Of course, this also doesn’t account for the harms these policies caused: the increased deaths from lockdowns, despair and substance abuse and addiction, and the harms from increased obesity and learning loss, or physical abuse suffered by children no longer in schools.
This model is a farce; a politically motivated tool for media outlets to use to justify their advocacy and the activism of people like Fauci and organisations like the CDC. “Covid vaccines and masking and behaviour saved lives, because we assumed they did,” would be an accurate headline for the research paper.
Even though all the evidence suggests a much more complicated picture.
You’d think these efforts would have ended by now, given that we’ve reached the middle of May in 2024. But as long as there are researchers committed to upholding their ideological biases, we’ll continue seeing poorly reasoned, misleading publications.
And boy oh boy are there researchers committed to upholding their ideological biases, almost as if they’d put in place yet again the mandates for their next pandemic.
Ian Miller is the author of Unmasked: The Global Failure of Covid Mask Mandates. He writes a Substack newsletter, where this article first appeared. It was also published by the Brownstone Institute.
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Social credit score. Conspiracy theory. Discuss.
Hardly a conspiracy theory. Banks have been examining the concept openly for years.
See Shanghai video for “background info”.
Harry can stick his dirty towel up his ginger arse
Dirty Harry.
Farty Harry, more like.
Dirty Harry is quite masculine, unlike Farty, who is the dictionary definition of ‘technically a man’.
useful for dabbing dry when he’s been dunking his ginger nuts
A vivid image comes to mind!
Laughing so hard at this comment. This is precisely how so much tosh produced by such people should be greeted. Backlash, I salute you. (Still laughing)
NB – This should not be construed as an anti-monarchy comment. I’m not overly keen on most of them, but I won’t hear a word against the Queen or Princess Anne. Just throwing that in there.
I too am pro-royal, but the younger ones (and Charles) are succumbing to this woke cancer and in doing so they will lose most of their support.
“Girl Dad” – How long before he identifies as a woman? Obvious had no problem with the Covid Tyranny in New Zealand.
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‘How long before he identifies as a woman?’…
Well he’s certainly got the mamms for it considering the photo in the dm today.
deleted
Re the covid tyranny in NZ – take a look at this, that’s happening in one of its dependencies (and, apparently also in other islands in the South Seas). And note the name of the island’s ”Administrator”:
https://www.thedailyexaminer.co.nz/tokelau-house-arrests-now-include-children/
Wouldn’t Aus and NZ now be better off under China? At least they could blame Foreign Occupation for their misery, rather than their Home Grown WEF psychopaths..
Just a pathetic, henpecked hypocrite, of limited intellect; the last, a hereditary attribute.
About sums it up, under the thumb of trailer trash. How degrading
Mmm, not sure we know what the intellect of his father is. It’s not ole jug ears that’s for sure.
I think we should have a referendum on having the ginger tosser and jug ears complete a paternity test, when it’s proven he has absolutely no ‘blue’ blood in him at all we can finally be rid of him and he can be the plain, ordinary Mr he wants to be
Don’t forget that his mother had ‘blue blood’ too – despite all the efforts made to make her seem like a poor little nobody who didn’t know what The Firm was all about. Anyway – this twerp looks exactly like his grandfather D of E.
So …who does Prince Andrew really look like then?
His “brother” is not much better.
Yep – out of Diana, by that Captain fellow!
I can only dream of having the same “carbon footprint” as the ginger twat. I wonder how many minders ginge has with him in first class whilst travelling?
I can only hope that the monarchy comes to an end when the queen dies. I understand that Australia and NZ will split from the UK once that happens.
The younger royals can see what is coming down the road (well, their advisers can, anyway). The traditional base of ordinary, run of the mill Brits are thinning out and so Windsor. Inc. have decided to turn their backs on them and make a play for the next generation.
The next generation are woke, committed to fighting climate change and in a deep trance under the spell of the WEF, corporate bio tech oligarchy, who are actually a very natural ally of an entirely decorative, rent seeking monarchy.
Luckily for all of us, we are at a point in history where what Harry, William or Charles thinks is almost 100% inconsequential. I’d almost say they’re bordering on Tony Blair territory where their support for an issue probably has a negative effect.
Australia and new Zealand are already colonies of China.
Indeed – but also members of “Five Eyes” run by the US Deep State and the CIA.
The case for a British and/or English Republic is stronger with each passing day.
Klaus will not like that idea. You will be on the naughty list!
Prince Harry Launches New Eco-Project Telling People Who Fly to New Zealand to Save the Planet by Re-using Their Towel.
Something has been lost in translation.
trowel?
Words fail me.
I’ve commented on a lot of things on this site, but this, seriously?
People, if you cannot see it now when will you ever see it?
I saw the words “Read More”; and just couldn’t.
Or me. The tiny piece I saw under the headline was more than enough – filled with more wokery in the photo alone than a person can stomach in a full day!
How stupid does he think we are (by him I mean Hazza)?
How stupid do TPTB think we are?
and finally, How stupid are the people who actually do suck this stuff up?
Will no one rid us of this turbulent fool?
(With apologies to Henry 2nd.)
Aargh, my toes have curled up so tightly watching half that video, I can’t uncurl them. I had to turn it off.
Yep, so cringe from the ginge!
That’s some serious masochism right there.
It never even occurred to me to watch it. I hate throwing up.
How does it use ‘less carbon’ to track and chase a man who dropped a lolly wrapper 4 years ago, by using 4 thicko New Zealanders with walky talkies and a fossil-fuel burning van?
I had New Zealand on my list of places to visit a few years ago, but they are all beginning to look permanently stupid down there, and I don’t think there’s much point in flying all that way to be surrounded by a bunch of spastics.
Here’s a better video of life in that part of the world (I know it was posted a day or two ago, but it’s not bad):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJYaXy5mmA8
What a tit!
(Apologies if I’ve offended any other tits out there)
How many more downticks can I get with another crass
Mmm… Tits…
(.)v(.)
His misses is vastly More Fraudy than Froody
I try to tell myself that they mean well and no not what they do but it doesn’t really help anymore. I don’t bear any of them any ill will I just wish I had the power to cast out the spell that has captured the minds of many. It has no particular bent except that the mainstream must be right because it is the mainstream. Although there have been encouraging trends in recent months with major mainstream news networks suffering huge audience losses. Maybe we just have to hang on a little bit longer and a tipping point will be reached.
Does anyone who reads this website want to read this drivel. All it does is annoy us and reinforce an existing opinion that he is unworthy of his status and a pain in the arse.
If Harry wants some more stars stamped on his arm, he wants to come round here and pick up discarded face masks.
Isn’t he just trying to get revenge for a tortured life under the spotlight of the media?
Given that he’s had to live his entire life including his childhood being constantly judged by everyone in a very public way, so he now wants all of us to be surveilled and judged for every tiny little action. The New Zealand holiday is just a way to get the scheme started.
In short, the guy had a very tough childhood and has grown up into a completely mental adult. My guess is that he needs to be institutionalised.
Prince Harry is try and failing to find a reason to become relevant again.
Living in Los Angeles is about as exciting as living in South Shields.
at least there’s a decent curry house in shields.
OH, I don’t know. You can go to Hollywood parties and have 14 year old jailbait serve you cocktails wearing next to nothing….not sure if Meghan would let him go to too many of those, you know. Too much danger of him being badged with his Uncle Andy.
It’s the awareness that we are ruled by the least among us and we have no clear pathway out of this nightmare. They will rule by politics or mind control or by the dreadful power of the purse. And this time is harder to bear because of the lack of an alternative vision and a sense that the West has run out of gusto.
There are plenty of alternative visions, they just don’t get any coverage because the jackboot stamps on anything which is contrary to the narrative. You must know that.
You have to, in a certain way, have a bit of admiration (grudging of course) for the political class who can manage to undertake a global coup over their populations, in such a way that their populations don’t realise that they have been at war for the last 2 years with their own governments.
That is a tricky war to wage and it is even harder to fight back in an “invisible” war like that.
Once again, voodoo cultism masquerades as science, of course lockdown is part of green ideology, of course lockdown is mediaeval superstition, abandoned centuries ago as policy but revived by the mediaevalist philosophy of environmentalism.
“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”
I grew up in LA and spent most of my life there. No one who truly wants to live a “sustainable” existence would choose LA as a home. There is nothing sustainable about the LA lifestyle. Even LA’s water has to be brought in from hundreds of miles away (transforming the once verdant Owens Valley into a desert).
As Elon Musk pointed out when promoting his Boring Company scheme, just moving around from place to place in LA means sitting in traffic among hundreds of cars belching out carbon monoxide and other poisons.
Yep, car is king in LA.
They aren’t famed for their bicycling and cycle paths are they?
There are arguments for frugality in terms of spiritual purificaton. St Francis saw his mission as an embrace of poverty not solely an attempt attempt at its alleviation.. I’m all for it if it comes from the heart in a genuine spirit of renunciation. But this is something entirely different. They got their hobby horse gift in 1992 and have been developing more and more devious ways to monetise it. As if these people are sadhus or renunciates, they are utterly soulless and fly around on private planes. It was all meat on the menu at the COP summit.
Harry – proof that money and brains don’t always go together
Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of that about at the moment.
Lewis Hamilton, Raheem Sterling
Because the best person to lecture us about sustainability is a globe trotting hasbeen with a carbon footprint bigger than Yorkshire.
It’s as if their only purpose in life is to rub our faces in it, with a shit-eating grin to top off the weapons grade hypocracy.
What are you going to do just wash your dick once a week? Maybe have recycled toilet paper hanging fromn your walls and used condoms drying out in the aering cupboard. This is not the way.
The whole lot of them are turning into money grubbing bores
Tone deaf uneducated scruffy whinger, he’s lost the plot.
Is he really now the harbinger of the coming end of the Monarchy- not through ‘revolution’ but through self- destruction?
Die-hard Royalists had better make the most the Jubilee!
Some very interesting and apparently well-known stories about Prince Andrew and Lord Porchester circulating.
It is the final stage of the shark feeding frenzy. Where they have devoured all the prey and then they start biting at each other. In the end they are in such a frenzy that they start biting at their own stomachs. Orson Welles gives a good description of it in The Lady From Shanghai
The rich and pontificate are the biggest threat to the planet with their profligate lifestyle, biggest carbon footprints and lack of real knowledge
Ya, great idea -reusing a towel and get your man to put out a change of underwear once every two days ( except weekends!).
because we’re all just dying to travel to “the democractic republic” of NZ.
It will be horse face on your arrival, horseface in your dreams and nightmares, and horseface when you leave. She will make sure that you never forget her.
In New Zealand No One Can Hear You Scream
Every one an “implant” by the WEF?
I was just thinking, how has she got so many teeth? and how come they are so much bigger than mine are? I don’t seem to have half that number!!!
Air miles Harry (A.M.H).
Yes, but Andrew had a reason for his ‘journeys’.
Bill Gates has huge man-boobs, a big belly, a wrinkled prune-face, and wants to control the world’s health by mandating frequent injections for the peasants.
Harry and Bill Gates want us to live in tiny high-rise apartments, stop flying, stop eating meat, and give up our cars.
We should mock them, laugh at them, and ridicule them at every opportunity.
Having done that ..then what do we do?
Atta boy…
bullshit.
a plane does emit the same amount of co2 regardless of the flight class.
Infantilism at its extreme: stamping stars on your arm for not running the tap whilst teeth brushing… what is he, 2 years old??!!!
Okay we all know the prince is a silly Billy. On another subject, perhaps you might right an article about Bath City Council censoring the BETTER WAY CONFERENCE scheduled on May 20-22 by cancelling the venue where it was to take place. This is HUGE UK!!!! Your rights to free speech being stripped from right under your noses. It is only one example. Wake up UK before it is too late. Fortunately Dr Tess Lawrie, organiser of this conference has found another venue. World renowned scientists, doctors and data analysts will be speakers at this international conference. Join us. (Bath City Council felt the conference would cause vaccine hesitancy. No, that has already happened when every single person realised they are not working).
He’s one of the ”global elites”, is he? Nothing ”elite” about this little creep.
He may have been ”elite” when he was a soldier, but my! how things have changed since then.
His ‘hero’ image was manufactured by the Media.
The same Media now lying to us about everything!
Can we please not give the two patronising g1ts known as the Duke and Duchess of Netflix any more publicity than they already get.
It would be great if The Daily Sceptic declared it a Sussex-free zone.
Seconded. It would be nice to have tiny corner of internet where it was free of them.
I totally agree that the difference in using only 1 towel vs flying to New Zealand is farcical. But how does a first class flight produce 8x the amount of Co2 vs economy? Sure they get a bit more room and a higher ratio of flight attendants, but the main component is weight they add and 8x seems too much to me?