Case Closed: Masks STILL Don't Work

(This is a repost of an article from February 2023, as we thought the reader might need a reminder now in light of current events involving mask zealots.)

A major new gold standard Cochrane review study has come to a conclusion that only the utterly brainwashed would consider at all shocking at this point:  masks don't really work to stop the spread of respiratory viruses.  Never did, and never will.  Not even the vaunted N95.  Handwashing is likely modestly effective, but masks are basically a joke overall, and not a very funny one either.

This concurs with over a century of research that came out overwhelmingly in support of the anti-mask side of the debate.  In fact, by 1919 it was practically settled science that these devices aren't anywhere near what they were cracked up to be, a consensus which prevailed until March 2020.  Then the pandemic narrative took over and turned the science upside down for nearly three years straight, while any studies were to the contrary were systematically file-drawered for far longer than those supporting the narrative.  And now the entire pandemic narrative has collapsed faster than formerly healthy young athletes on the field after being jabbed.

We recently noted how the ever-insightful Ian Miller has so thoroughly debunked, deboned, sliced, diced, and julienned the pro-mask arguments, and laid waste to their utterly scorched remains for good.  And be sure check out the excellent Fargo study from Josh Stevenson et al. about masks for kids as well, likely the very best one yet, with the very least biases or confounding.  Spoiler alert:  masks STILL don't work.  Not for kids, not for adults, not for no one.

Oh, and let's not forget the dreaded Foegen Effect as well.  And other harms as well, see here.  That literally makes masks WORSE than useless.  Jettison them!

To the anti-mask side:  you are now hereby overwhelmingly vindicated, and really always have been in fact.  You have literally passed the biggest functional IQ test in all of modern history.  To the pro-mask side:  we are still waiting for you to apologize.  Yesterday.  And to those who switched jerseys anytime after February 2022 (that is, only when it became socially acceptable to do so), you are fooling no one.

QED

UPDATE:  Some may pedantically point out that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", therefore "no one can really say" that masks don't work.  True, you cannot (definitively) prove a negative.  But given the totality of the research and real-world evidence, it would be slothful induction (if not magical thinking as well) to still believe that masks have any sort of net benefit at all. If they did have a net benefit, it would have been self-evident long ago.  We need to see the forest for the trees.

"But...but...they worked in Japan!" See here for a good debunking of that myth as well.

And in case the pro-masker zealots pathetically trot out the fatally flawed Boston school mask study in desperation, rest assured that Ian Miller has successfully laid waste to that one as well.  And so has the ever-insightful Emily Burns, as well as Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, one of the authors of the Fargo study. 

Oh, and another study found that masks in HOSPITALS make no difference to infection rates.  Thus, if they don't even work in hospitals with all of their universal multilayered precautionary measures, they simply don't work at all, period.

UPDATE 2:  A re-analysis of the infamous Boston mask study has now thoroughly debunked it.

UPDATE 3:  For more on the harms of masks, see here.

UPDATE 4:  And another school masking study can be found here as well, co-authored by the aforementioned Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg.  Again, surprise surprise, masks STILL don't work.  Period. 

UPDATE 5:  And that's before we get into the toxins that can be emitted from some types of masks, including the vaunted N95.

UPDATE 6:  Pushback works.  Contrary to Carl Jung's famous saying, what you resist does NOT persist, as long as you resist enough.  DO NOT COMPLY!

UPDATE 7:  Looks like masks are even more harmful than we thought, especially for children. 

And finally, see here about the ultimate success of one of the most anti-mask (and anti-lockdown) countries in the world, Sweden.  As a result, we think "Stockholm Syndrome" should really be called "Melbourne Syndrome", because #SwedenGotItRight.

(Mic drop)

Latest Mask Study Reaches A New Low (Which We Didn't Even Think Was Possible At This Point)

Just when you thought that The Science (TM) couldn't get any lower, it reached a new low today.  The latest pro-mask study, a preprint which has yet to even be peer-reviewed (though will probably be pal-reviewed at some point), is a classic example of cherry-picked junk science not even worth the paper it is printed on.

The ever-insightful Ian Miller of Unmasked does an excellent job of taking it down here.  In a nutshell, the so-called "systematic review" study took 1732 mask studies, and only looked at a whopping....13 of them.  That is less than 1% of all of the studies done to date, so why did they disregard over 99% of the evidence that they found?  Probably because it wasn't exactly flattering to the pro-mask side, that's why.  And the 13 studies they did include, with a combined sample size of only 243 people, of course yielded implausibly (and laughably) high estimates of mask effectiveness.  This clearly has "cherry picking" written all over it.

And that's before we even get into the obvious fatal flaws in at least some if not all of those 13 studies (lack of generalizability, not done in real world conditions, no comparison group, and of course small sample size).  Also, all studies after July 2020 (!) were arbitrarily excluded, because reasons.  This is apparently what passes for The Science (TM) these days, and it has gotten increasingly desperate now as the narrative has thoroughly collapsed by now.  We are now seeing naked Lysenkoism without so much as even the pretense of scientific integrity anymore.

We recently noted how the same Ian Miller so thoroughly debunks, debones, slices, dices, and juliennes the pro-mask arguments, and lays waste to their utterly scorched remains for good.  And check out the latest new study from Josh Stevenson about masks for kids as well, likely the very best one yet.  Spoiler alert:  masks STILL don't work.

A recent Australian study confirmed via experiment that surgical masks (and by extension, cloth masks as well) are utterly useless against aerosolized viruses, as are even N95s unless they are properly fit-tested and NO mistakes are made.  The latter, of course, does NOT apply to the general population, as Germany unfortunately learned the hard way when their general N95 mandate failed so spectacularly to contain or control their Covid outbreak.

Masks didn't work in 1918, and they clearly didn't work in 2020 or 2021 either.  So anyone who thinks they will somehow work in 2022 or beyond, clearly has their head in an anatomically impossible position.  Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is a functional definition of either insanity or Lysenkoism (same difference).

UPDATE:  Looks like masks may be even worse than we thought.  From the Foegen Effect to the various questionable chemicals and microplastics in the masks (as well as in the Covid tests and disinfectants too), these things may very well be exacerbating, perpetuating, or even causing Long Covid as well (to say nothing of the jabs).  Plus there is also the issue of bacteria and mold growing on the masks, as well as impaired O2/CO2 exchange.  An excellent article that makes such a case can be found here.  For all of the times that the TSAP had ever foolishly advocated masks to any extent back in 2020 before belatedly changing our stance, we certainly do apologize.

2023 UPDATE:  Still further evidence against masks, especially for kids, can be found here as well.

Over 400 Studies On Our Side

BREAKING NEWS:  According to Dr. Paul Alexander, here are now over 400 studies that expose the utter failure of all of the COVID-related mandates and compulsory restrictions in the real world, and ZERO studies of even halfway-decent quality that show the opposite with any real confidence.  Once you exclude all of the fatally-flawed and poorest quality studies, and look at enough real-world data points, one can firmly conclude that all of these measures have done far more harm than good on balance.  And they should NEVER, EVER, EVER be repeated.  Like, ever.

Dr. Alexander's article discusses compulsory non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns, shelter-in-place, school closures, masks and mask mandates, etc. and essentially debunks them all.  Scratch that, he debones, fillets, slices, dices, and juliennes each and every one of these sacred cows, and pretty much lays waste to their remains.  However, his article does not touch on the most recent addition to the mix:  the now ubiquitous "vaccines" and the disgustingly tyrannical mandates and passports of same.  That is where the ever-insightful Steve Kirsch comes in, noting that these jabs literally kill more people than they save, and a fortiori for children to the tune of 117 to 1.  And that data was largely before the boosters became widely used, so that is most likely a lower bound for the adverse effects going forward if we continue on the path we are on.  They are also known to be very "leaky" (i.e. they don't stop transmission), and are thus NOT fit for the purpose of mass vaccination even if they were somehow perfectly safe (which they're not).

Thus, to put it in medical terminology, "the therapeutic window is closed" for all of these mandates and restrictions, period.  We must scrap the whole lot of them, cold turkey, never to repeat them again.  And the same is clearly true for these "vaccines" themselves, with maybe the exception of some extremely vulnerable and high risk individuals who still have yet to receive them for whatever reason.  Plenty of early treatments and prophylactics exist that completely obviate any need for these jabs, we just need to stop denying and censoring them, and start using them.  And yesterday is NOT soon enough!

FINAL THOUGHT:  If anyone still thinks that vaccine mandates or passports are somehow necessary OR sufficient to prevent another lockdown, well, we've got a nice bridge over the Danube River we'd like to sell you.  As they are now learning the hard way in Europe, you cannot bargain with the devil and hope to come out in one piece!  Cold turkey is the only way out of this mess for good, period.  When you try to meet insanity and tyranny in the middle, you will always lose, each and every single time.

UPDATE:  Looks like Sweden, who famously eschewed lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates, has ultimately been vindicated after all.  Their cumulative all-cause excess mortality per capita (by far the best indicator of all) was well below the European average, and believe it or not, not very different from their neighbors when you include all of their neighbors.  And Brazil, who had a reputation for being lax, and even Belarus, Nicaragua, and Tanzania, who largely ignored the pandemic, also fared quite similarly to their much stricter neighbors as well in terms of excess deaths.  And here in the USA, we see that Florida's excess death rate was roughly equivalent to California's despite the latter being much, much stricter overall than the former, AND despite the former also having a much older and fatter population as well.  Game. Set. Match.

Another study finds that babies born during the pandemic have stunted development compared to babies born before the pandemic.  Interestingly, no significant difference was seen between babies born to mothers who contracted the virus during pregnancy and those who did not.  Rather, it was the mothers' stress from all of the panic and lockdowns that had a toxic effect on the babies across regardless of the virus itself.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Now add in all the ubiquitous antisocial distancing and masks they experienced during early childhood as well, and it gets even worse still.

As for the Nu Xi Omicron variant, it is looking more and more like an intellectual checkmate for the purveyors of the official narrative.  Both "Team Vaccine" and "Team Zero Covid" are about to eat some serious crow, while the inevitable transition from pandemic to endemic has been greatly accelerated.

And now, the CDC has finally decided to pull the plug on the fraudulent PCR test, effectively December 31, 2021.  Because they know that the gig is up, the narrative has been completely laid waste, and effectively ending PCR testing is literally the only way they can declare "victory" over Covid at this point.

Don't forget to check out this deep dive by the ever-insightful Julius Ruechel too.

WTF Happened To The Left ?

That is the trillion-dollar question we should all have been asking all along.  From the moderate liberal left to the progressive left to the socialist far left, we saw far too many were either silent or went along with the neoliberal pseudo-left in pushing these illiberal, authoritarian, totalitarian, dystopian, and technocratic restrictions--lockdowns, shutdowns, school closures, mass quarantines, mask mandates, travel restrictions, gathering restrictions, and now even vaccine mandates and "passports".  That was one of the most shocking observations in history. 

There is literally nothing progressive or "woke" about these draconian measures that arbitrarily revoke individual human rights and civil liberties, destroy economies, destroy family and community cohesion, disproportionately harm the poor and people of color, disproportionately harm women and children, and quite frankly don't even work to stop the virus in the long run.  Up until March 2020, it was largely a consensus even in the medical community that doing these worse-than-useless things would do far more harm than good on balance, thus blatantly violating the Hippocratic oath of "first do no harm", and the left generally felt the same way.  So what changed?

From the ACLU to Vox to Noam Chomsky to the UN to the WSWS to Jacobin to Ms. Magazine to the AMA to the AAP to the AARP to nearly every left-wing or left-leaning political party in the world (outside of Sweden, Belarus, and Nicaragua), some of the last people one would expect to carry water for such a horrible agenda of the oligarchy and Big Pharma ended up doing exactly that.  Was it simply fear?  Was it generous payola from the oligarchy and Big Pharma?  Was it manipulation and coercion from them?  Was it blindly taking orders from Beijing, like the WHO is known to do?  Was it activation of some latent (or not-so-latent) authoritarian tendencies estimated to be present in 20% of the general population?  Was it what started as a merely silly "Orange Man Bad" political take that simply metastasized throughout the entire body politic?  Or perhaps a deep-seated desire to destroy capitalism (and/or industrial civilization) once and for all at any cost, regardless of the collateral damage?  

Most likely, it was all of the above.  Either way, the vast majority of the Left has SOLD OUT.  

The Democratic Party is beyond repair now.  News Flash:  The ubiquitous hashtag #DemExit is trending, and going viral.  Somebody needs to answer the Clue Phone, and fast!  Otherwise, 2022 and 2024 will thus be a bloodbath at the polls for the Dems.

Meanwhile, the ever-insightful British organization Left Lockdown Sceptics has consistently been a prinicipled beacon of sanity and reason on the genuine Left, no matter how far off the rails and utterly unhinged the rest of the self-proclaimed "Left" (whether (neo)liberal, progressive, or radical) have become lately.  They have truly stood the test of time, and their integrity will not be forgotten.

The time for the increasingly compromised and increasingly phony "Left" to genuinely repent cold turkey and make amends is yesterday.  Scratch that, the best time was 21 months ago.  The second best time is RIGHT NOW!  What are they waiting for?

UPDATE:  We would be remiss if we did not also note how egregiously ableist (in addition to being racist, sexist, ageist, adultist, eltist, and classist) these draconian measures have been, and still are in the places that continue to impose them.  People with disabilities and chronic illnesses have clearly gotten the brief end of the stick in countless ways, from worsening isolation to denial of services to interference with communication to denial of freedom of movement and more.  And it created a truly massive and persistent mental health crisis on top of it all.  All while the zealots who promote these measures have cynically and disgustingly used such vulnerable members of society as a fig leaf for these measures, with all of their empty rhetoric about "protecting the vulnerable", a promise that has been utterly broken time and again.  Thus, the overall intersectionally oppressive system known as the kyriarchy has clearly only gained strength all the more since from the very same "woke" pseudo-left who hypocritically claims to be dismantling it.

Also, it seems that organized labor (which has historically been quite left-leaning) has sold out as well, or at least some unions in the USA and UK, alas.  Particularly the teachers' unions, from the start.

Cold Turkey Is The Only Way Out

We at the TSAP have said it before, and we will say it again, shouting it from the rooftops.  The ONLY way out of this madness is to go cold turkey from all of these restrictions and mandates.  Period.  And yesterday is not soon enough!

That means, effective immediately:

• No more lockdowns, hard or soft
• No more curfews 
• No more business closures or capacity restrictions (unless voluntarily)
• No more closures of anything 
• No more mask mandates, anywhere
• No bans or restrictions on gatherings or events, public or private
• No restrictions on places of worship
• No more travel restrictions, whether international or domestic 
• All schools fully open, in-person, no antisocial distancing, masks optional
• All colleges fully open, in-person, no antisocial distancing, masks optional
• No more mass testing of anyone without symptoms.  Otherwise, use rapid testing first.  For the PCR test, reduce the cycle threshold to 25
• No more quarantines of anyone without symptoms 
• No vaccine mandates, coercion, discrimination, or Covid "passports" of any kind, anywhere, period

And never again, no matter how bad it gets.  Really.  The TSAP will accept nothing less than 2019 true normal going forward, with NO more compromises.

And as long as there is no major outbreak locally, hospitals and nursing homes should also return to normal as well 100%.  It is LONG past time to stop denying visitors, and stop artificially and arbitrarily delaying and cancelling so-called "elective" procedures and treatments.  And with the proper early treatment and prophylaxis, hospitals will NOT be overwhelmed anymore than during a typical flu season.  As for the staff, aggressive rapid testing should be done regularly regardless of vaccination status (as vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus), and preference should be given to staff who are naturally immune because they have already had the virus and recovered (and are thus the very least likely to catch and spread the virus).  That's it.

Heresy, I know.  But it has been nearly two years now, and for better or worse, the virus is here to stay.  It cannot be eradicated at this point, as that train has left the station long ago.  We really only have two choices now and forever:  1) learn to live with the virus, and be honest about it, or 2) learn to live with the virus, and pretend otherwise. 

It has been observed that it is historically extremely rare for any respiratory viral pandemic to last longer than 18 months.  And they seldom have more than two major waves, three tops.  Yet here we are.  So all of our trying in vain to outsmart the virus, and/or hide from it, only served to drag it out that much longer, more painfully, and with out-of-season waves as well.  And plenty of collateral damage on top of all that as well.

This only ends when We the People finally stop complying with these mandates, cold turkey.  Or at least when a critical mass of people do so.  

So what are we waiting for?

The Progressive Case For Mask-Free Kids And Schools

WARNING:  You may wanna sit down when reading this, as this article will slaughter so many sacred cows that it will lead to the mother of all barbecues!

It's September 2021, back to school time for millions of children and teens, and if your thought we would not still be having this inane and insane masks for kids debate 18 months after the start of the pandemic, you would unfortunately be very wrong indeed.  The debate is greater than ever before, and largely split along party lines (Republicans against forced masking, Democrats in favor) because reasons.  I mean, you KNOW things are bad when Ron and Rand Paul end up sounding like the voice of reason!

The progressive left is VERY foolish to cede the moral high ground to the right on this issue.  And it WILL come back to bite them, perhaps as soon as the 2022 midterms.  Just like it always does eventually.  

There are of course some genuine progressive voices desperately shouting into the wilderness to "Unmask Our Kids" yesterday, but they keep on getting silenced and censored by the thought police.  A prime example is this excellent article (preserved in archive on the Wayback Machine) in Forbes online magazine by a progressive teacher (and founder of Zigazoo) named Zak Ringlestein.  He notes how traumatic and toxic it is to children's mental health to subject them to prolonged forced masking, antisocial distancing, and the whole New Abnormal agenda in general.  And he also notes how utterly classist it is in its effects towards poorer children, if not its intent.  The cowards over at Forbes abruptly took the article down, of course, because well, you already know why.

As we have noted before in previous articles, there is absolutely NO scientific reason to support forcing anyone to wear face masks in general, and that applies a fortiori for children.  Not as PPE, not as source control, not as anything at all beyond mere symbolic window dressing and placebos, since we know now that the COVID virus is truly airborne just like cold and flu viruses.  Not only have mask mandates (in schools or in the community) not done a LICK of good in stopping the virus or even making a noticeable dent in the epidemic curves for anyone in the real world, but for children (who are at less risk from COVID than they are from the flu, and are statistically unlikely to be COVID superspreaders either), masks are likely to be more harmful to their physical and mental health and social development when used regularly for prolonged periods of time.

You really want to reduce airborne virus transmission in schools?  Ventilate, ventilate, ventilate!  If you lack high-tech air system upgrades, don't wait, just open the damn windows and doors.  Problem solved.  Next.

"But we can't do that!  What if there might be an active shooter at some undefined point in the future?" Well, unless all windows and doors are literally bulletproof, which they usually are not, keeping them closed 24/7 is really just security theater.  Kinda like how masks are really just public health theater.  And neither one sees the forest for the trees.

Friendly reminder to adults who are still scared:  N95 or greater masks are currently abundantly available for self-protection, and are at least somewhat effective in that regard if fit-tested and used properly.  And any adults who still feel the need to use them as an extra layer of protection when around children are perfectly free to do so.  Voluntarily.

Clearly, all of these mandates fail the Martian test:  that is, could you explain it to a Martian without sounding like an idiot? (You can't.)  And they also fail the 2030 test:  that is, would you still be willing to follow these mandates in 2030, since the virus is endemic and will almost certainly still be around in 2030, 2040, 2050, and beyond?  And given the long-term health, developmental and economic consequences already baked into the cake from the past 18 months of restrictions, all of these mandates also fail the Iroquois seven generations test as well.

There is nothing at all even remotely leftist or progressive about forcing masks on anyone, especially children.  Unless by "leftist" you really mean totalitarian, and by "progressive" you really mean technocratic, of course.  Nor is it even particularly communitarian either, given how utterly corrosive it is to genuine community, unless of course by "communitarian" you really mean communist or antisocial. And it is certainly not in any sense utopian, unless by "utopian" you really mean, well, dystopian.

There is nothing green either about producing billions or trillions of disposable "paper" (actually, polypropylene plastic) masks only to see a good chunk of them end up in the Earth's oceans.  Unless by "green" you really mean greenwashing and ecocidal.

And contrary to a very poorly written article in Ms. Magazine of all places a year ago, there is certainly nothing at all feminist about forcing anyone to cover their faces.  Unless by "feminist" you really mean "inadvertently emulating certain countries and groups that one claims to dislike, to one degree or another", and not seeing the irony of it all.

And finally, take a look at the rest of the world.  The USA is one of a very few countries that forces masks on children under the age of 12, let alone as young as two!  And many of those few other countries that did at some point have now since relented (and hopefully repented!), making the USA a rather lonely country in that regard.  But in one way that is sadly not a surprise, given the great American pastime of scapegoating children and teens for adult problems.  And yes, that even includes Florida at the local school district level, with "rebel without a clue" teachers and administrators openly defying their governor, Ron DeSantis, who is doing his very best to put an end to this complete and utter madness once and for all.

Make no mistake, at this point, no one can intellectually honestly say that these mandates are really about science.  They are all about power and control above all else.  And worse, they are ultimately a convenient segway into COVID vaccine mandates for kids as well.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is truly scary indeed, given how woefully undertested these experimental gene therapy "vaccines" really are, particularly for children.  If there was ever a hill to die on, this absolutely has to be the one!

UPDATE:  When the pro-mask crowd inevitably trots out this slanted review of their favorite cherry-picked studies, be sure to point out that those studies are either 1) modeling studies and not real-world studies, 2) look only at adults and say literally nothing at all about children or schools, 3) have very weak effect sizes and/or low-quality, 4) have not been consistently replicated, 5) conflict with literally decades of research evidence to the contrary, 6) short-term studies that found short-term effects that did not really pan out in the real world in the long run, 7) do not address the potential long-term harms of prolonged forced masking, or 8) all of the above. 

Take a look instead at this excellent article that sums up the latest actual science on the matter of masks for kids.  Spoiler alert:  it does NOT make the pro-mask side look like winners at all, to put it mildly. 

As for the latest cherry-picking CDC "study" of the effects of mask mandates in schools, well, let's just say that if you torture the data enough, they will confess to anything.  There are so many confounding variables not controlled for, not least of which are contact tracing (or lack thereof) and virus testing rates, since according to the CDC's own rules, if both people were wearing masks at the time, that is not considered an "exposure" and thus not automatically tested.  Yes, really.  And more tests generally means more "cases", particularly if there are no symptoms.  

This is what passes for "The Science" these days.

Also see here as well.  And lest you still think masks somehow work for and eradicated the common flu (!), see here as well.  We really got a nice bridge we'd like to sell you.

FEBRUARY 2022 UPDATE:  Seriously, this needs to end, and yesterday is not soon enough!  To any teachers and staff reading this who are still worried, there are indeed some very cheap and low-tech ways to fight airborne viruses in classrooms that do NOT depend on masks or antisocial distancing.  Build a DIY Corsi-Rosenthal box air purifier, open the windows/doors for fresh air, and relax and take a chill pill already!  (And UV air disinfection also works well too, which has been known for over 80 years now.)

Oh, and now we see that the actual data from the updated version of the widely-acclaimed Bangladesh mask study shows that masks simply don't work at all in the real world, period.  That, plus the Danish mask study, plus the past 100+ years of research are enough to conclude that any perceived benefits were basically spurious all along.  We already knew they didn't work in 1918, and they sure as hell don't work now.

How To Achieve (Functional) Zero COVID In TWO WEEKS Without Lockdowns, Masks, Or Vaccines (Updated For Delta)

DISCLAIMER:  The following article references third-party sources and is intended for general information only, and is NOT intended to provide medical advice or otherwise diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, including (but not limited to) COVID-19.  Consult a qualified physician before beginning any sort of treatment or prophylactic regimen and/or if you know or suspect that you currently have COVID-19.  Anyone who takes or does anything mentioned (or alluded to) in this or any other TSAP article does so entirely at their own risk and liability.  The TSAP thus makes absolutely no warranties, express or implied, and is not liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages resulting from any act or omission on the part of the reader(s) or others. Caveat lector.

See also our previous articles here, here, and here as well.  Also, special thanks to Bill Sardi, Dr. Gareth "Gruff" Davies, Dr. Dmitry Kats, Dr. Mikko Panunio, and Swiss Policy Research, et al. whose research this article draws upon and cites in the links throughout.

(Editor's Note:  The TSAP currently accepts that SARS-CoV-2 is essentially an endemic virus at this point and will be pretty much forever, and will eventually become the new common cold.  We use the term "Zero COVID" only in a very loose, relative, and temporary sense, as true and permanent eradication is no longer possible going forward.  Rather, it's functional Zero COVID.)

It's now nearly September 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic is now a year and a half old, and it looks like it the vaccines are not all they are cracked up to be.  In the USA and other wealthy countries, vaccination rates are already quite high and growing, and when combined with the at least 30% of the American population (estimated as high as 50-70% in North and South Dakota, and of course New York and New Jersey) that is estimated to have already been infected with the virus (often without even realizing it), even before Delta came on the scene, "herd immunity" has most likely already been achieved even when using the naive definition that assumes a homogeneous population.  That does not eradicate the virus, of course, but it does keep it from exploding again in the future.  Well, immunity from natural infection sure does that.  These "leaky" vaccines, at least as "leaky" as flu shots, well, not so much.

Israel has essentially become the world's largest study of the vaccines, particularly Pfizer, and the results have been rather disappointing to say the least.  The same goes for their lockdowns, masks, and NPIs as well.  And if you think boosters are the solution, well, we've got a nice bridge we'd like to sell you. 

The "Zero COVID" movement has clearly been wrong about being able to eradicate the virus using lockdowns, masks, or other non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), as that train has clearly left the station long ago.  Even the best vaccines are unlikely to do it completely either.  Rather, what would be needed is 1) a quick silver-bullet cure for existing cases, and/or especially 2) a 100% prophylaxis (or very nearly so) that is readily available to all.  That would be powerful enough reduce the R value to well below 0.5, which seems to be the barrier below which no NPIs, even extreme lockdowns, are able push it for very long (unless done extremely early, along with border closures AND extremely good luck), yet that is the level where we would actually have a chance at beating the virus for good.  Otherwise, it just keeps popping back up, leading to an "epidemic yo-yo".

So what would this secret sauce be? Well, as we noted before in previous articles, Dr. Dmitry Kats knows it:

NIACIN!

That's right, Niacin (nicotinic acid, or Vitamin B3), in high doses would do the trick, practically overnight:

Dr. Kats himself even did an RCT, in fact:

And given how one "generation" of this virus is roughly two weeks, if nearly everyone were to follow this protocol whether they currently have COVID or not, the virus could conceivably be "eradicated" in as little as two weeks! Assuming Dr. Kats is correct about it being a virtually 100% prophylaxis, if done by at least 90% of the population for a mere two weeks, the R value would drop far too low for the virus to have any sort of chance at sustaining itself even in a totally COVID-naive and unvaccinated population.

Don't fear the flush!  It is a feature, not a bug!

Oh, and Dr. Kats knew this since MARCH 2020 and was trying to tell the world, but the ghouls in charge kept on censoring him.  Gee, I wonder why?  

Because their whole diabolical racket would collapse overnight, of course.  DUH!

(And it even works for long-haulers too!  Within a matter of days to no more than a few weeks for the worst cases.  Taking it while still acute, of course, would by definition nip it in the bud even sooner.)

Adding Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Zinc, Quercetin, Thiamine, Vitamin B12, Magnesium, Selenium, Vitamin K, NAC, and the amino acid Lysine would also help greatly as well, but the real rockstar here is Niacin, as immediate-release nicotinic acid.  As is the latest rising star, Melatonin as well.

For Vitamin D, nearly everyone taking 50,000 units once weekly for two weeks, followed by 50,000 units once every two weeks until week six, would likely be enough alone to greatly reduce death and severe illness rates within two weeks, and can even end the pandemic in as little as six weeks.  Add 500-1000 mg/day of Niacin, plus the other nutrients, and you've got a belt-and-suspenders approach to eradication.

Throw in a little help from Mother Nature, given the seasonality of this virus (which is effectively "out of season" now in the northern temperate zone until well into the fall), and we basically got it made now.

And the best part of all:  we can go 100% back to normal on literally DAY ONE!  Yes, really.

So what are we waiting for?  

(And while we're at it, let these vitamins and minerals be among the very first things we send over to countries like India.  Apparently, 70-90% of Indians are suprisingly Vitamin D deficient to one degree or another--and that was before the pandemic.)

UPDATES:  We have decided after writing this article to give an honorable mention to another promising addition to our arsenal against the virus, namely C60 (Carbon 60, aka Buckminsterfullerene or Buckyball). It is believed to be up to 270 times more potent than Vitamin C in terms of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and immune-boosting power, and is also considered to be a good detox and anti-aging compound as well.  Worth the old college try.

Also, note that N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is now recommended by Dr. Kats in addition to niacin and the others.  Though it is probably still best to wait at least three hours between them to avoid interference, much like waiting six hours between NAC and resveratrol.  Bill Sardi also recommends it as well, as it seems to work well against COVID and various other ailments as well.  NAC not only raises T-cell levels, but also seems to disrupt the virus' key spike protein, and even more so when combined with the enzyme bromelain (from pineapples, and which is often found in quercetin supplements as an activator as well). No wonder the FDA is actually trying to ban it on essentially the same specious, spurious, and utterly pharisaical grounds they have been trying to ban CBD (cannabidiol) with for years--their Big Pharma masters feel utterly threatened by it.

Another thing Bill Sardi noted recently:  the latest (clearly rigged) study that appeared to cast doubt on Vitamin C has basically been refuted upon closer examination.  Thus, not only should Vitamin C (in high enough doses, and most importantly, taken frequently enough) be back on the menu, it never should have been off in the first place.  

Dr. Kats recommends taking it in a 2:1 ratio of Vitamin C to Niacin.  He also recommends taking both Niacin (nicotinic acid) and Niacinamide (nicotinamide) in equal amounts as well.  And he later added melatonin to his protocol as well, especially for long-haulers.  Apparently, the virus' messing around with tryptophan metabolism depletes not only NAD (which Niacin and Niacinamide are both precursors for), but also endogenous melatonin as well. Such depletion is very bad, but fortunately can be quickly easily corrected with supplements to restore health by jump-starting the body's natural processes.

Back to Vitamin D, there is an interesting theory from 2008 that the variation of the levels of this nutrient may explain not only the apparent Hope-Simpson seasonality of influenza, but also the tendency of some individuals to be what we would now call "superspreaders" as well, with or without symptoms.  The parallels with COVID are quite intriguing, and it seems Vitamin D would reduce not only deaths and serious illnesses, but also transmission as well.

And let's not forget Ivermectin as well, as both treatment and prophylaxis, which has practically become "the new penicillin" and "the drug that cracked COVID" in so many countries.  Budesonide is another successful and underrated early treatment as well.  And for any cases that still manage to become or remain severe or critical, there is always the rest of the MATH+ Protocol to fall back on, per the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.

Ivermectin's mechanism of action is manifold, and includes binding/blocking the viral spike protein from docking onto/into our cells, as well as blocking a key enzyme needed for viral replication.  Again, one should note that NAC also works by targeting the spike protein as well, and it was recently reported in a German study that dandelion extract can also block the spike protein (at least in vitro.)  Resveratrol (from grapes) also appears to neutralize the spike protein, though again it is best to take NAC and resveratrol at least six hours apart to avoid any mutual antagonism. 

As for prophylactic nasal sprays, some are in development as we speak, though not yet commercially available.  Until then, fortunately there is already one that is likely to block the virus while yielding additional health benefits in the meantime.  It is called Xlear, a natural, drug-free saline nasal spray with xylitol and grapefruit seed extract.  Additionally, there is another one called Betadine, which contains carrageenan (from seaweed), that also apparently has a good antiviral effect as well.

And finally, stop all the funny business with the way cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are counted as well, including the ridiculously high cycle threshold for the PCR testing (should be set no higher than 30, or perhaps even 25, instead of the ridiculous 37-40+ in many places still) along with the routine testing of people without any symptoms in the community.  And no more double standards either:  use the same cycle threshold and definitions for vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike, period.  If you feel you absolutely must test asymptomatic people, go with the rapid test first, and only use PCR as confirmation if positive.  The "casedemic" is a big chunk of the overall pandemic, if not the vast majority of it currently.  Problem solved. 

UPDATE OF UPDATE:  Ivermectin (and even HCQ to an extent) actually works when used properly under the guidance of a qualified physician, but it should go without saying, DO NOT use any sort of veterinary medications, especially ones designed for horses!  Just like you should NOT drink fish tank cleaner either, unless of course you really want to earn a Darwin Award.  Yes, people actually have done both in the USA.  And the fact that anyone would consider resorting to that shows just how terrible our government's pandemic response has been overall.

Additionally, see here for further lifesaving tips from Bill Sardi as well if you think you may have COVID.  He also points out the usefulness of another supplement, beta-glucan which comes from yeast, which helps to train the immune system's T-cells.  And don't forget fisetin (from strawberries) either, a polyphenol similar to quercetin and resveratrol.

And the Swiss Doctor recently updated their early treatment protocol to include the herb artemisia as well as the amino acid arginine.  Yes, you read that last one correctly, and it is quite a jarring plot twist since the conventional wisdom is that arginine is what all viruses need in order to replicate and that lysine (which blocks arginine) is what one should be aiming for while cutting back on arginine.  That, along with zinc, has long been a mainstay for how to treat things like herpes and cold sores, for example.  But even though a previous study shows a clear benefit to lysine in regards to COVID, the latest research now shows an apparent benefit to arginine, go figure.  That seems to be true for both early treatment as well as for hospitalized patients.  Perhaps the two amino acids are like yin and yang in relation to the virus somehow?  Also, the Ivermectin controversy continues to heat up, with the Swiss Doctor starting to sour on relying on it alone.  Mouthwashes and nasal sprays also continue to be recommended too, as they have been for some time.

Don't forget Dr. Zelenko either.  Words of wisdom.

Back to Ivermectin, as David DeGraw notes, it is best when combined with zinc and perhaps doxycycline (an antibiotic) as well for a synergistic effect, as we at the TSAP have long advocated since Karl Denninger first pointed that out back in February 2021.  That may very well be why some studies have shown disappointing results while others have shown glowing results, much like we have seen with HCQ.

And some research even suggests that plain old genuine aspirin (not Tylenol) can cut the risk of COVID death by nearly half.  Be sure to take plenty of Vitamin C with it though, as aspirin can deplete one's Vitamin C.

Finally, to the extent that they even suppress viruses at all, NPIs and antisocial distancing are counterproductive for yet another reason:  the common cold.  Interestingly, due to competition, the common rhinovirus can actually boot out the COVID virus when one gets exposed to both viruses at or around the same time.  So when the former retreats, the latter advances.  Just like influenza appears to have been temporarily suppressed by COVID.

So what are we waiting for?

And So We Learn Just How "Leaky" These Vaccines Really Are

The latest data out of the UK, where nearly all new COVID cases have been the Delta variant (albeit notably recently plummeting despite lifting restrictions), illustrate in real time just how "leaky" these vaccines really are in practice:  they are, on average, as low as 17% effective against preventing infection, while 77% effective against preventing death from COVID.  Granted, these data also include the less effective AstraZeneca/Oxford and J&J vaccines along with the more effective Pfizer and Moderna ones, but data from Israel (essentially the world's largest vaccine study) in which nearly all vaccinations have been Pfizer have also been kinda disappointing as well:  16-75% protection against infection (and waning over time), 80% protection against serious illness, and 90% protection against death.  And what's true for Pfizer would also be true for Moderna as well, given how they are both essentially the same vaccine.

Compare this to the annual flu vaccines:  for protection against infection, it is as high as 60% effective if a good match and as low as 10% effective if a bad match for whatever virus variants happen to be dominant at a given time, averaging 40-50%.  Yet against serious illness and death, it is generally in the 80-90% range.  Thus, the COVID vaccines appear to be about as "leaky" as flu shots, which were also originally claimed to be 70-90% effective when first developed.  And as we clearly know, if you can still catch a virus, you can also spread it as well.

In fact, the real kicker from the latest British data is that there is really no significant difference in viral load (and thus infectiousness) between vaccinated and unvaccinated people who contract the virus, as evidenced in the fact that they had similar cycle threshold (Ct) levels in PCR testing.  In other words, vaccinated people may be at least somewhat less likely to contract the virus in the first place, but when they do happen to catch it, they are likely just as contagious as if they were not vaccinated.

Let that sink in for a moment.  Oops, maybe the technocrats should have thought that one through!

The implications of this data are quite stark and resounding indeed.  We can thus conclude:

• These vaccines are NOT the silver bullet that so many had hoped for, and putting all of our eggs into that one basket (at the expense of early treatment and prophylaxis like Ivermectin, HCQ, and budesonide, along with various vitamins and other nutrients like Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Niacin, Thiamine, Zinc, Selenium, Quercetin, Resveratrol, NAC, and the amino acid Lysine) was the very height of foolishness at best.  Some would even call it mass murder for profit!
• These vaccines are NOT fit for purpose if the goal is to stop all infections, but might still be fit for purpose if the goal is to protect the vulnerable members of society from serious illness and death.  And by now, they all have either 1) been vaccinated or 2) chose not to receive it, making that purpose largely academic now in nearly all rich countries, who thus now have a moral duty to freely share these now-abundant vaccines and their patents with poorer countries for all who want it, as there are of course plenty of vulnerable people there too.  (As they should have done many months ago, but for corporate greed of Big Pharma.)
• These vaccines are mainly for self-protection, while any protection of the community is at best a bonus.  Any argument to the contrary is essentially a specious and spurious argument.
• These vaccines do NOT prevent the evolution or dominance of new virus variants either.  Anyone who still thinks so needs their head examined.
• There is ZERO benefit to public health from forcing or coercing people to get these vaccines, restriction of rights for the unvaccinated, and/or segregating the vaccinated and unvaccinated.  And there is ZERO justification for such.
• If masks actually worked as source control, there would perhaps be some justification for requiring both vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike to wear them in certain high-risk indoor settings when community spread is at "substantial" or "high" levels, per the CDC.
• But since there is still really no hard evidence that surgical or cloth masks actually work meaningfully as source control at the macro level, even after a year and a half of data, that specious justification also collapses as well.  They sure didn't work in 1918, and they don't work now.  Rather, we should instead simply recommend (not require) vulnerable adults to correctly wear N95 (or greater) masks, which are now nearly as available and abundant as toothpicks, in such high-risk settings for self-protection.  (See a pattern here?)
• When the proverbial fat lady finally sings, it would NOT be because of vaccines, but rather primarily from herd immunity via natural infection, along with perhaps attenuation (weakening) of the virus itself.  In other words, just like every other flu or flu-like pandemic and epidemic in recorded history, essentially. 
• The Great Barrington Declaration, along with its sister organization PANDA, were therefore quite right all along, by simply following the hard-won wisdom of the ages, and we were very foolish not to listen.  We clearly have paid, and will still continue to pay, a very heavy price for our collective foolishness and hubris.

Thus, while the TSAP has always opposed forcing or coercing anyone to get these vaccines, our opposition applies a fortiori given how leaky these vaccines have turned out to be.  Not only are slopes slipperier than they appear in terms of civil and human rights, and the long-term safety of these vaccines remains unknown, but there is also an even darker reason as well not to vaccinate everybody and their mother.  If nearly everyone received these leaky vaccines, the virus would continue to spread largely under the radar, and by putting strong selective pressure on the virus while reducing symptoms, it will increase the chance that the virus will select for or mutate into more deadly variants, rather than merely more contagious but less deadly ones as would occur naturally in the absence of mass vaccination.  This is not just theory, it has actually happened before with Marek's disease in chickens, as Karl Denninger has pointed out.  And it is likely the unstated reason why we have historically NOT forced or coerced everyone to get flu shots.  Ironically, for such leaky vaccines, we would actually need a chunk of the population to remain unvaccinated, in order to be a firebreak against such deadly variants.  Hopefully we will NOT foolishly end up pulling the proverbial "black ball from the urn" in that regard and get a truly super-deadly plague that really wipes out the population!

And it should go without saying that all this applies a fortiori to children, who are statistically at less risk from COVID than they are from the flu (as well as car accidents), and are likely at more risk from the vaccines than from the virus (even if we don't know for certain yet).  And unlike the flu, children are NOT superspreaders of COVID either, and are far more likely to catch it from adults than the other way around.  Forcing or coercing these largely untested vaccines on them is basically criminal at this juncture, and the precautionary principle certainly applies here.  If there was ever a hill to die on, this is the one!

For children and young people under 16, and especially under 12 (!), we should consider all of these COVID vaccines to be absolutely contraindicated until proven otherwise.  (Originally we said under 18, but alas that genie is out of the bottle now in the USA.)  And for everyone else, they should be strictly voluntary without even a hint of coercion.

In other words, to the extent that it even is a pandemic anymore, it is quickly becoming a pandemic of the vaccinated.  And all of these mandates and restrictions are worse than useless, from lockdowns to masks to antisocial distancing to now vaccine mandates and passports as well.  All the more reason to end all of these mandates and restrictions, and yesterday is not soon enough!

Leaky vaccines + leaky masks + leaky lockdowns = illusion of control (at best).  Don't fall for it!

UPDATE:  We just came across this, maybe a bit hyperbolic, but still largely correct overall.  We are actually pretty damn lucky that all we got from this was Delta so far.  We know Delta is more contagious and it has a partial escape mutation, which is bad, but at least it's NOT a more deadly variant--yet, that is.  In fact, it actually seems to be LESS deadly than previous strains.  But the next mutation may not leave us so lucky next time.  If this increasingly endemic virus does hopefully continue its long-term trend towards becoming the new common cold (that is, becoming more contagious but less deadly overtime), it would certainly be NO THANKS to these leaky vaccines!

And if, God forbid, we ever do get a "doomsday variant", it would NOT be because we undervaccinated with a good vaccine, but rather because we overvaccinated with a leaky vaccine.

If Masks Really Worked...

Once again, the witty Professor hits another homerun right out of the park here: 

That basically explains the TSAP's evolving position over time.  Originally we were pro-mask since we honestly believed they worked based on some spurious observations in a few East Asian and Eastern European countries, plus a few sketchy studies, and thus they seemed like a safe pathway out of lockdown.  But as time went on, the evidence just kept on mounting against them.  And the past 18 months pretty much answers that question--if they worked, not only would it be so obvious to everyone that no one would have to be forced to wear them, but COVID would have been gone within a few weeks of (near) universal masking as the R value would thus drop well below one and even close to zero, and we would not still be having this debate to this day.

Are you old enough to remember when face masks were initially discouraged by nearly all of the experts as well as "experts", including Dr. Fauci himself?  And then, seemingly out of the blue, the idea caught on that masks not only work, but work so well that if 80% (or is that 90%, or 95%, or 99%?) or whatever % of the population were to wear them, COVID would be practically wiped out, or at the very least 100,000+ lives would be saved?  Right?  And the logical implication being:  the sooner everyone would wear them for just a few weeks, the sooner no one would ever have to wear them again, because COVID would be gone!

Well, that didn't really pan out, did it?  Look, you can cherry-pick the data all you want, but it's pretty self-evident that masks made no practical or statistical difference overall in terms of COVID case, hospitalization, or death rates, even with the strictest mandates and/or very high compliance above 90% or 95%.  While no one can completely rule out modest benefits perhaps in very selected instances, the macro-level data supporting universal masking simply isn't there.  Clearly, after 18 months, if a "signal" still cannot be boosted even with great effort, is was most likely just noise all along.

And all that applies a fortiori to children as well, as we have noted previously.  There is even less evidence in favor, and even stronger arguments against forcing kids to wear them, especially at this juncture.  

Thus, we are re-learning the hard way the painful lessons our ancestors learned in 1918.  There was clearly a reason they stopped wearing masks in 1919, after all.  And no, it wasn't "selfishness" or "anti-science" sentiment, but a rather a good strong dose of reality that turned even their greatest enthusiasts against them in droves.  They simply didn't work.

And now with some "experts" wanting to bring back mask mandates yet again at this stage (!), despite the obvious fact that they would even LESS effective still against the MORE contagious Delta variant, beware.  The following Tweet sums it why that is a very bad idea in both theory and practice:

Mask mandates are in fact the THIN end of a very long and thick wedge of coercion.  Slopes are indeed much, much slipperier than they appear.

QED

AUGUST UPDATE:  Looks like there is even more evidence that masks are basically useless and little more than window dressing overall.  That is true even for adults, let alone for children to whom it applies a fortiori to.  The pro-mask side of what passes for "debate" really can't rely honestly on science anymore, so they increasingly resort to censorship and ad hominem attacks instead.  Ten years from now, if not much sooner, we guarantee that they will regret their stance just like they did not long after 1918.

SEPTEMBER UPDATE:  About that poorly-designed Bangladesh study that the pro-maskers are claiming "proves" once and for all that "masks work!", well, it clearly doesn't prove that at all.  It also says nothing at all about children, schools, or mandates, since neither of these were studied at all by this study.  The best it possibly says is that voluntary use of surgical masks when combined with distancing MIGHT work modestly at the margin in VERY selected instances (even if only a placebo effect as a universal symbol for "keep your distance!"), while cloth masks (i.e. the most commonly used kind) are basically completely useless, and it only goes downhill from there.

Clearly they haven't seen this other study of the results of an actual mask mandate in Bexar County, Texas (back when they had such a mandate last year) that really exposes such mandates for the theater that they really are.  And apparently Germany doesn't exist in their minds either.  Nor does Japan, Israel, Hawaii, Czechia, Spain, France, Peru, Rhode Island, Los Angeles, Miami, or any other place that imposed VERY strict mask mandates and/or otherwise had extremely high mask compliance of 90-95% or greater, and yet not only utterly failed to bend the curve in the right direction, but actually look like they bent it in the WRONG direction!  And remember most of that was pre-Delta, so if you think these things would somehow work on a MORE contagious variant, we got an even bigger bridge we'd like to sell you!

QED

OCTOBER UPDATE:  Comparing neighboring counties in California with different local mask policies (the statewide mask mandate ended in June) but similar vaccination rates shows essentially no correlation between mask mandates and case or hospitalization rates during the Delta wave.  This was noted even in the very mainstream San Francisco Gate, and it is one of the first major tests of such policies in the face of this particular virus variant that is notoriously more contagious than previous ones.  Masks clearly failed the test, unsurprisingly.  In other news, water is wet, and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

JANUARY 2022 UPDATE:   Not only has the Bangladesh study fallen even further apart to the point that no one even dares to openly tout it anymore, but apparently even the strongest longitudinal pro-mask longitudinal study also falls apart too upon closer examination.  The latter study, Adjodah et al. (2021), curiously leaves out data after September 2020 (cherry-pick much?) in the first part where the imposition of mask mandates is examined.  And in the second part when lifting mandates is examined in the first quarter of 2021, it finds the expected correlation with "cases" but NOT with hospitalizations and deaths, and that is not easy to explain away.

And while they may not be quite as much in the spotlight right now as the "vaccines" are, the zealots are nonetheless quite busy doing damage control and are upping their game in a desperate attempt to salvage as many fragments of the rapidly collapsing narrative as possible, notably including masks.  To that, we defer to the wisdom of Steve Kirsch and Allan Stevo.  See also the factsheet by Just Facts as well.   If, after thoroughly reading what they all have to say, you are still a "true believer" in masks, you really need to have your head examined!  Most likely, your brain has been starved of oxygen for far too long.

Britannia Waives The Rules (Well, Kinda)

Well, it's official now.  The UK finally went ahead with Freedom Day today, after a month of delay.  Gone are the promises of irreversibility though (i.e. they will not rule out new lockdowns at some point in the future), and some restrictions will still remain though far less than before.  But generally speaking, virtually all mandated restrictions have now become downgraded to mere non-binding recommendations for the most part.  Better late than never, I guess.

One upside of delaying the final lifting of restrictions to July 19 is that it is being done at or very close to the peak of the current virus surge, so when we most likely see case numbers go down rather than up two weeks or so from now, that will thus thoroughly discredit any belief that these restrictions ever did any good.  Had Freedom Day occurred on schedule a month ago on June 23, the case numbers would have been about the same either way regardless of restrictions as we have seen, but people would have no doubt blamed the surge on the lifting of restrictions, then the government would have reimposed restrictions at or close to the peak, after which cases would drop again, and then take credit for the drop, as we have seen many times before.  But this time, restrictions are instead being lifted counter-cyclically (i.e. with opposite timing), which will be the real test of their effectiveness and relevance (or lack thereof).  Egg meet face, lockdown zealots!

UPDATE:  It was announced on literally the same day that, starting in late September,  there will be vaccine passports required to enter nightclubs and possibly even sporting events.  And it should go without saying that we do NOT support such a thing at all.  It is a slippery slope to totalitarianism, plus there is no statistical evidence to back it up.

UPDATE 2:  As of July 27th, it is now clear that cases have begun falling rapidly in the UK.  And "scientists" are apparently "baffled" by this.  They must not remember the famous Farr's Law, or even Hope-Simpson, right?  To the lockdown zealots, good luck getting all that egg off of your faces!

UPDATE 3:  Looks like Belarus, who practically had NO restrictions all along, really didn't do worse than their neighbors overall in terms of excess all-cause mortality.  In case the lockdown zealots didn't have enough egg on their faces already!

AUGUST UPDATE:  There has been some head-scratching about why cases started ticking up again in the UK after over two weeks of sharp declines.  But this is still no "exit wave" related to lifting restrictions, as it took too long to even begin, is not even a distinct new wave, and has still not topped the previous July high.  The best explanation is that the background epidemic has still been rising at the same rate regardless, while in July there was the rapid rise and rapid fall of a sharp and short-term outbreak related to the month-long Euro finals soccer gatherings, mainly in young to middle-aged men.  So the lockdown zealots still have egg on their faces to this day.  How will they live this one down?

Fortunately, as of September 11, Boris has finally relented (and hopefully repented!) on his vaccine passport plans, at least for the time being.