To The 5% Nuts On Both Sides: KNOCK IT OFF NOW!

Look, at least 90% of Americans want to peacefully get back to normal yesterday.  Most of us just want to be left alone, are long past done with lockdowns and antisocial distancing, and want masks and vaccines to be voluntary for both children and adults.  But no more than 5% of fanatics on both sides are really ruining it for the rest of us.  The zealots that want to force such illiberal measures on everyone else, and also the tiny few nuts on the "anti-mask" and "anti-vaccine" (or more accurately, anti-mandate and pro-liberty) side that get violent towards innocent people who are or appear to be on the opposite side, and thus make the news, are BOTH part of the problem.

(We have a very strong suspicion that at least some of the violence is being staged as a "false flag", but let's put that suspicion aside for a moment, shall we?)

Thus, the TSAP hereby calls OUT the Faucists and their dupes:  KNOCK IT OFF.  NOW!   You are playing right into the hands of an oligarchy and technocracy that has some pretty diabolical plans for ALL of us.  Wake up before it's too late!  And as Sir Winston Churchill once said, feeding others to the proverbial crocodiles in the hopes that you will somehow be eaten last is the mark of the coward and the fool.

The TSAP also calls IN the angriest members of the opposition who seem to be (somewhat understandably) getting carried away after a year and a half of this madness:  KNOCK IT OFF.  NOW!  Civil disobedience is one thing (it worked wonders to end mandates in 1918-1919, and its effects lasted 100 years), while physical violence is another, especially when done against innocent people.  Most of the anti-mandate side is NOT deranged or violent, please stop giving the rest of us a bad name!  There is nothing crazy about not wanting these mandates forced on ones children especially, so please stop giving the Faucists ammunition they can use against all of us.  That is, please stop playing right into their hands.

Would that the 5% on both sides actually listen!

UPDATE:  The forced-vaxxers and Faucists are now openly saying that the "only path forward" is to force every "eligible" man, woman and child to get the COVID vaccines, and they even have the GALL to claim that George Washington would have approved.  He did force the Continental Army to get the smallpox vaccine, that much is true.  But he NEVER forced civilians, let alone CHILDREN, to get vaccinated.  Furthermore, there is literally NO comparison between COVID (infection fatality rate (IFR) of around 0.2% to 0.3% on average, even less for Delta, and actually less deadly than the flu for children) versus smallpox (IFR of 20-30%, 100 times deadlier than COVID, and as high as 95% fatal in Native Americans).  So George Washington, the father of our country, must really be spinning in his grave now!

But regardless of what side of the debate you are on, DON'T be a Karen or Ken/Kevin!  When you harass, assault, or cough on people you disagree with, it only makes your own side look that much worse.  Some people seriously seem to have flunked kindergarten!

Afghanistan: A War We Lost Before The War Began (Part Deux)

With America's longest war in Afghanistan coming to an inevitably disastrous end after 20 years, it is worth noting all of the things that had been memory-holed about its origins.  The 9/11 attacks that had been used as a pretext for the initial invasion had always been under a cloud of suspicion as possibly being an inside job (to one degree or another), or at least that the whole story had not been told about it.  But for argument's sake, let's just take at face value for a moment that these horrific terrorist attacks were entirely perpetrated by Osama Bin Laden and his vile al-Qaeda henchmen as per the official story and ignore their undeniable Saudi connections.

First, Senator Ron Paul had his own plan by October 10, 2001 on how to deal with these terrorists and bring them to justice that would not have even required so much as an invasion, let alone regime change in Afghanistan.  Per the US Constitution, there is a remedy for bringing such non-state rogue actors to justice, known as the "Letter of Marque and Reprisal", which Ron Paul supported.  It would have put a bounty on their heads and thus authorized not only the military but also privateers from anywhere in the world to go on a manhunt and get these perpetrators.  And it would have been far cheaper and with far fewer casualties as well.  But clearly this proposal fell on the very deafest of ears, because reasons. And as they say, the rest is history. 

Secondly, Jordan Schachtel points out that within the first week of damaging aerial bombing by the USA and NATO in mid-October 2001, the Taliban were actually willing to negotiate an offer to turn over Bin Laden to a neutral third country to be put on trial there, in return for us ending the bombing.  Had President Bush actually taken them up on that offer, the war would have ended in ONE WEEK instead of 20 years, Bin Laden would have been brought to justice, and tens of thousands of causalities on both sides and trillions of dollars could have been averted.  But Bush, clearly under the influence of Cheney and the neocons, arrogantly rebuffed their offer and continued to escalate the war, because reasons. And as they say, the rest is history.

(The Bush administration and the corporate MSM deliberately conflating the Taliban and al-Qaeda, who at best grudgingly tolerated each other as co-belligerents against the West, certainly contributed to this strategic blunder and folly of epic proportions.)

Thirdly, not long after that, during the early stages of the ground invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001, Bin Laden was once again in America's sights.  He was apparently hiding in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, heading rapidly towards the Pakistan border. But the powers that be "accidentally" lost him and thus let him and his buddies escape into Pakistan, and did not even bother to have our troops so much as cross the border until nearly a decade later when, under the leadership of President Obama, he was ultimately snuffed out by the US Navy Seals on May 1, 2011.  Why it took that long can only be explained by the Machiavellian powers that be wanting to prolong the war for their own nefarious gains, because reasons.  And as they say, the rest is history.

Fourthly, anyone who claims to have supported this war on feminist grounds (as if wars for imperialistic white-savior conquest could ever be feminist) should answer the following question:  why did our government not simply arm and fund the WOMEN over there, instead of forcibly installing and propping up a corrupt male-dominated puppet government that was left utterly dependent on a male-dominated foreign power for all of 20 years?  Nevermind, we already know the painfully obvious answer.  Because reasons.  And as they say, the rest is history. 

And finally, unlike today, at least Vietnam and Iraq both had a "decent interval", as President Nixon called it, between the completion of America's troop withdrawal and the shit really hitting the fan over there.  In both cases, it was about two years.  Had we just pulled out much sooner while the Taliban was still weaker, that would have likely been true for Afghanistan as well to some extent.  We had numerous opportunities to make a fairly clean break and temporarily "save face" at a cost of significantly less blood and treasure, but chose not to, because reasons.  And as they say, the rest is history.

And if you still think this was all about 9/11 or "making the world safe for democracy", well, we've got a nice bridge we'd like to sell you.  As Major General Smedley Butler once famously said, "War Is A Racket".  And as he also said at the end of his book:

"TO HELL WITH WAR!"

But alas, of course his words of wisdom also fell on the very deafest of ears ever since.  The neocons on the right, the "bleeding heart interventionists" on the pseudo-left, and the oligarchs' mercenary-industrial complex that they serve and who ultimately profit very, very handsomely from it all, will see to it that this racket never ends on their watch.  Because reasons.  And as they say, well, the rest is history...

UPDATE 1:  The ever-insightful Peter van Buren wrote an excellent article about the war's history as well.  Food for thought indeed.  We know all too well what happens when we ignore the lessons of history. 

UPDATE 2:  On August 30, 2021, the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was completed, one day before the official deadline of August 31.  That is, the very last US troops have now finally left Afghanistan for good.  As tragic as the circumstances were in which we left, sooner or later it had to be done.  And now, it is finished.  This time, let us actually LEARN and REMEMBER the lessons that we should have learned after the tragic fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

Afghanistan: A War We Lost Before The War Began

The headlines these days about Afghanistan have been quite sobering to say the least.  It looks increasingly likely that this 20 year old quagmire of a war will end the same way as the Vietnam War did.  "Operation Frequent Wind" certainly comes to mind, not least due to the frequent windbag politicians who got us into this inherently unwinnable mess that had literally no practical exit strategy to speak of.

Like Vietnam on crack, this is "a war we lost before the war began", as Phil Ochs put it in his song "White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land" about that other unwinnable quagmire.  Afghanistan has been called "the graveyard of empires" for a reason, after all.  The moment President Bush decided to force regime change in Afghanistan, as opposed to simply going in to fight al-Qaeda and bring Bin Laden to (rough) justice for 9/11, that was a "mission creep" that created a dangerous power vacuum and basically dug our graves over there.  Yes, the Taliban were and still are backwards, brutal, violent, repressive, theocratic, misogynistic, and even totalitarian, but guess what?  The Taliban was never really a material threat to the USA, and the local "allies" (read: warlords) of ours that de facto replaced them in nearly all of the country outside of Kabul have thus created a chaotic anocracy, which basically translates to "pick your poison".  Eventually, Afghanistan even became fertile ground for ISIL for a time, who as we have seen is far more evil and dangerous than even the Taliban.  And if and when the weak Kabul government and military finally rolls over and plays dead for the Taliban, remember:  if they do it after 20 years, then no matter how long we stay, whether 10, 20, or even 100+ years, the end result would be the same regardless.  At best, the USA only delayed the inevitable, at a massively unacceptable cost of blood and treasure.

Yes, in both of these wars, our troops technically won every single battle.  But in the long run, as the famous quote says, "Yes, I know.  It's also irrelevant."

So yes, the TSAP still, albeit with a heavy heart, fully supports America's troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.  As a wise man once said recently, if Afghanistan falls to the Taliban after 20 years, it does not mean that we left too early, but that we left 19 years too late.  It is tragic and heartbreaking indeed that it was basically all for naught, as the part about bringing al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to justice would not have required forced regime change in Afghanistan at all.  Bin Laden was hiding out in Pakistan for most of the time, after all, and nearly all of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi nationals.  (That was of course memory-holed as quickly as Bin Laden's family members were surreptitiously whisked out of the country back to their home country, Saudi Arabia.)

We have said it before, and we will say it again.  There is NO (Western) military solution in Afghanistan, period.  Or Iraq, or Syria, or anywhere else in the region, basically.  The closest thing there is to a solution would be for us to give every *woman* an AK-47 or M-16 and tell them to take over their country and mow down anyone who stands in their way.  Let Allah sort it out.  Problem solved.  But the powers that be over here would of course not be too keen on that idea.  After all they wouldn't want women in THIS country getting any ideas, now would they?

If and when the Taliban returns to their old tricks of brutal and misogynistic repression, then WOE to any cowardly Afghan men that fail to protect their women and children!  And by rolling over for the forces of evil, they make a mockery of our troops as well.

The best way to support our troops is to bring them home alive, and stop abusing them in these unnecessary quagmires of choice that really only benefit the oligarchs.  The best time to do it was 20 years ago. The second best time to do it is right now.

UPDATE:  On August 15th, the capital Kabul has effectively fallen to the Taliban, and President Ghani has fled the country in fear as his own troops basically rolled over and played dead.  This highly unfortunate turn of events has happened at a much faster pace than anyone had predicted.  But the hypocrisy of those Republicans who blame President Biden for this sad state of affairs is quite rich considering that Biden not only followed the very same troop withdrawal plan set by Trump himself, but actually pushed back Trump's withdrawal deadline by nearly four months.  Yes, really.  Like Vietnam, as the saying goes, America may have won every battle, but in the end, that's also irrelevant.

I mean, you KNOW it's bad when Ron Paul (and/or his son Rand Paul) comes across as the voice of reason!  And whether you love him or hate him, it is clear that throughout all 20 years of this ill-fated war of (mostly) choice, while both Democrats and Republicans alike would mindlessly flip and flop around, Paul has basically been on the right side of history all along.

Getting out of Afghanistan is the ONE thing that Trump, Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Ron/Rand Paul could ALL agree on.  Even if Trump denies it now.

And finally, as for America's very clear moral obligation to the Afghan people that we would otherwise leave behind, we believe Emma Lazarus said it best:  "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...I lift my lamp beside the golden door."  In other words, "refugees welcome".  The Kabul airport must be secured now to allow safe passage out of the country.  Beyond that, after the current evacuations and rescue operations are complete, that is it.  It's over. 

After 20 years of this infernal quagmire, C'EST FINI!

As the late, great Major General Smedley Butler famously said, "TO HELL WITH WAR!"

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.

Who Are The Real Superspreaders?

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.

"You're the superspreader!" "No, YOU'RE the superspreader!"  Alas, this is what passes for discourse these days, when people are literally now debating who are the biggest superspreaders of the COVID:  the vaccinated or the unvaccinated.  Technically, both can be, since the vaccines are "leaky", and there are documented examples of both, but it is not clear who is more likely to be.

(Correction:  The CDC's now-leaked unpublished data, that they are using to push masks once again, is a lot more nuanced than they miscommunicated, and apparently involves a vaccine in India that is not available in the USA, and also a study of a rather unrepresentative sample in Provincetown, Cape Cod.  Thus, while vaccinated people can indeed still spread the virus, they are still signifcantly less likely to do so than if they were not vaccinated, even if only because they are somewhat less likely to become infected in the first place.  And truly asymptomatic transmission, while possible, is not the primary way it spreads.)

Either way, this completely misses the point though.  The vaccines were never designed to prevent all transmission or all infections, just to make the disease less bad if one happens to contract it while vaccinated.  You know, kinda like the flu shot.  That alone is enough to largely defang the virus and reduce it to a mere nuisance like seasonal flu and the common cold, provided enough vulnerable people get vaccinated (which they all either a) already have, or b) they chose not to get it).  For the young and healthy, not so much.  And thus any benefit to the community that results from less transmission of the virus would simply be a bonus, as vaccines are primarily for self-protection.  And now that we are seeing that these vaccines may be just as "leaky" as flu vaccines (funny how no one seems to care about the latter), the whole specious argument for vaccine mandates or passports "to protect others" becomes as threadbare and useless as the most poorly constructed cloth mask.

Now, a nasal vaccine might actually produce "sterilizing" immunity enough to prevent virtually all transmission.  That is because of the mucosal antibodies and other immunological "dark matter" that they would generate at the usual point of entry and exit for the virus, the lining of the nose and throat.  But injections are unlikely to do that, only producing antibodies and T-cells largely in the bloodstream instead.  And while important, it is incomplete since it leaves the nose and throat wide open for a time before enough of an immune response is mounted to knock the virus out quickly.

But there are no nasal vaccines available currently, except of course the low-tech one, which is...natural exposure to the wild virus.  And the large chunk of the population that has already had the virus and recovered has a very low reinfection rate, much lower than the breakthrough infection rate for vaccinated people.  Yes, even for Delta.  Thus, we already know who the superspreaders are almost certainly NOT:  people who have already had the virus, whether vaccinated or not.  Natural immunity for the win!

So having established who the superspreaders are NOT, do we then know who they actually ARE?  Well, a study of influenza from 2008 provides some excellent clues.  It postulates that Vitamin D not only explains the seasonality of influenza, but also who is most likely to be what we would now call a superspreader, where one person infects dozens of others.  And most curiously, that is postulated to occur in a tiny number of people even in the absence of symptoms!  That is, Vitamin D deficiency can make one much more likely to spread it, and thus it not only endangers the deficient, but also those around them as well, in a sort of "second-hand malnutrition". This is very likely true for COVID, and also very likely true with other nutrients as well, particularly Vitamin C, thiamine, niacin, zinc, lysine, and selenium.  A deficiency in the latter can even make one a "variant factory", since selenium stops viruses from mutating.  Fortunately, we can very easily solve this problem even without appealing to (strong) altruism, since the benefits to the individual are at least as great as that to those around them.  Good nutrition and supplementation is a win-win-win for all.

Especially since, for the individual, it is painfully obvious now with COVID:  not enough D and you die.

Vitamin D also seems to be good at fighting that other pandemic that is raging even more these days:  substance abuse, especially opioid addiction.  Vitamin D deficiency apparently leads to exaggerated cravings for opioids and probably other substances as well.  And the same can apparently be said for Niacin as well, as AA founder Bill W. had discovered it as a potential treatment for alcoholism.  With America drowning in the bottom of a bottle thanks in no small part to the long-term after-effects of lockdown, such a rediscovery cannot come soon enough!

And of course, Niacin works wonders for COVID, as Dr. Dmitry Kats had discovered.

So what are we waiting for?

UPDATE:  See also here, here, and here for some good articles from The Daily Sceptic about the nuances of herd immunity.  And yes, it is very nuanced indeed.

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.

COVID Is Endemic. "Zero COVID" Is A Pipe Dream. Lockdowns And NPIs Are Useless.

The following Tweet really wins the internet:

Pretty much sums it up.  The virus can be defanged and reduced to a nuisance, and indeed it largely has already thanks to herd immunity and attenuation, but it will never be eliminated.  It will continue to ebb and flow to one degree or another indefinitely.  Even smallpox took over 200 years to eradicate after the vaccine.  And it's time we accept that fact and deal with endemic COVID like we do seasonal flu and the common cold.  That is, learn to live with the virus just like all other endemic viruses.  We know now that lockdowns, masks, social distancing, and stuff like that really make no difference to the course of the virus in the long run, and they come with their own set of problems, ultimately doing more harm than good.  And that applies a fortiori to endemic COVID.

That's right, these restrictions are all pain and no gain.  And there is a name for doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We know how to treat this disease now.  We know what to use for prophylaxis as well.  We know that the virus, while bad, was never the apocalyptic Big One that some had predicted.  We know who the risk groups are, and we have already vaccinated them (plus a good chunk of the general population as well) to a greater extent and faster than we have for any other disease in history.  So anyone who says we still somehow can't go 100% back to normal yesterday because reasons is a LIAR with a hidden or not-so-hidden agenda.  And we thus must completely disregard their bluster.  Yesterday is not soon enough!

UPDATE:  Another Tweet, even more to the point:

This one too, setting the internet on FIRE:

And this one as well, to which we would also add "and early treatment and prophylaxis for all who want it":

UPDATE 2:  See also here and here for some good articles from The Daily Sceptic about the nuances of herd immunity.  And yes, it is very nuanced indeed.

UPDATE 3:  Yet another study finds lockdowns to be worse than useless.  Again.  Sooner or later, everyone (or at least those with anything approaching a conscience) will collectively regret how we panicked and knee-jerkedly threw the wisdom of the ages out the window like so much garbage back in March 2020.  Even the most rabid Zero COVID zealots can only keep doubling down so long to postpone, and ultimately amplify, the inevitable agony of regret.

Still More Evidence That Lockdowns Are Worse Than Useless

Yet another study comparing various countries and US states now finds that not only do lockdowns NOT save lives on balance, they actually lead to MORE excess deaths in the long run.  And contrary to the sunk-cost fallacy, the longer the lockdown, the more excess deaths.  So once again, we (quite unsurprisingly by now) see that lockdowns are not only useless, but actually worse than useless.  And the lockdown zealots thus have a lot of blood on their hands, no matter how much they try to deny, wish, handwave, obfuscate, or virtue-signal it away.

Excess deaths of course are not only from COVID, but also includes numerous "collateral" deaths as well due to delayed or denied medical treatment, poverty, starvation, loneliness/isolation, suicide, substance abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, and things like that.  Either way, a net increase in excess deaths regardless of cause means that lockdown has well and truly backfired on balance.

No honest cost-benefit analysis could dispute that.  The very best lockdowns can do is merely delay infections a bit, which we ultimately end up having to pay for later.  And once the virus is already fairly widespread, the supposedly inverse correlation between lockdowns and infections has been shown to be essentially spurious even in the short run too.  That is, they tend to impose or tighten restrictions at or close to the peak of infections, and often after it has already begun to slow down and decline on its own, and likewise tend to lift or loosen them close to the nadir of such infections.  It is basically like doing a sun dance at 5:30 am and then speciously taking credit for it when the sun comes up.

To put it another way, if lockdown were a drug, it would never have been approved, as it has proven to be not only no better than a placebo, but in fact the "cure" is clearly worse than the disease itself.  

I mean, it's not like Team Reality hasn't been pointing all of this out repeatedly since, well, 15 months ago.  Even the later-onset skeptics who initially (naively and regrettably) supported some flavor of lockdown in the thick fog of pandemic understood that it was supposed to be both a short-term, last resort, second chance kind of policy, not an indefinite own-goal or end in itself.  Little did they know, Team Apocalypse and the powers that be had other plans though.

And once it became bleeding obvious that the horse was well out of the barn and that "Zero COVID" was thus a pipe dream at best, then the Plan B of herd immunity thus became inevitable.  The only question left was how to get there with the minimum number of casualties overall.  As the Great Barrington Declaration has repeatedly noted, lockdown is functionally the same thing as "let it rip" in practice, only a bit slower, a lot more painful, and with more collateral damage, while Focused Protection of the most vulnerable members of society is clearly the least-worst way to get there, particularly when also combined with early treatment and prophylaxis.

Lockdowns are also extremely classist as well, disproportionately shifting the burden of both disease AND collateral damage from the rich onto to the poor and working class, while making the rich even richer.  They rob from the poor, give to the rich, and hollow out what is left of the middle class, with the elites literally making a killing off of the rest of us.  How anyone on the left who identifies as anything even remotely close to progressive could possibly support that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Thus, they are actually REgressives.

It is long past time to go "cold turkey" and end all of these restrictions and the declared "state of emergency" that props it all up.  More and more places are ending it.  And yesterday is not soon enough.  So what the hell are we waiting for?

UPDATE:  The very same Youyang Gu whose COVID model has consistently been the most accurate if all during this pandemic, has notably also found (when comparing US states) that while there was no correlation between the Oxford Stringency Index and COVID death rates, he did find a rather strong correlation with higher unemployment rates.  Once again, we find that these lockdowns and related restrictions are essentially all pain and no gain.

And again, there is no good reason for anyone on the political left to support lockdowns either.  Period.

The Case For (Very Gingerly!) Raising Interest Rates Now

Inflation seems to be back.  Not severe (yet), but some experts are concerned nonetheless.  The very long-term risk is still in the direction of deflation, as we have argued before, but the short to medium-term risk now seems to favor inflation.  And inflation is fundamentally caused by shortages, not "money printing" like the fiscal hawks luuurrrrve to claim.

The solution, however, is NOT to implement austerity measures, which only cause recessions and depressions. Rather, as Rodger Malcolm Mitchell notes, the solution is for the federal government to spend more money to alleviate the shortages.  Whatever there is a shortage of, they can buy at a premium and sell or give away at a loss, thus incentivizing production.  Everything from lumber to labor can be alleviated this way.   In the case of labor, they should permanently replace long and generous unemployment benefits with a no-strings-attached UBI for all and perhaps also a "reverse payroll tax" (aka wage subsidy) for workers.  And shorten any future unemployment benefit claims to a maximum of 13 weeks per benefit year going forward.  

Problem solved. 

But what about inflationary expectations, where both demand-pull and cost-push inflation seem to feed on itself in a vicious cycle? The solution is simple again: the Fed can raise interest rates.  The TSAP supports tapering off QE and very gingerly raising the Fed Funds Rate from it's current 0% to 0.5% immediately, then to 1.0% shortly after, then gradually by 0.25% every few weeks until the inflation rate drops below 3% or the interest rate exceeds the inflation rate by 1%, whichever occurs sooner.  Then once inflation is beaten, they should drop the interest rate to below the inflation rate and park it there until inflation heats up again as leaving it too high for too long can make cost-push inflation worse.  That should quickly nip any inflationary expectations in the bud right away.

But we should not let inflation be an excuse to avoid progressive priorities, and should certainly avoid austerity measures or any tax hikes at this time, except on the top 1% and especially the top 0.1%.  The economy is booming due to both reopening as well as the various stimulus measures, but the recovery is as fragile as it is K-shaped and uneven.  So let's not screw that up!  And most certainly, never lock down again!

AUGUST UPDATE:  The TSAP now recommends tapering off the current "not-QE-but-most-certainly-QE" much quicker and also raising interest rates (Fed Funds Rate) immediately to at least 0.5-1.0%, as inflation still seems to be accelerating and does not seem to be automatically curing itself.  Also, the Fed should quickly restore the reserve ratio to 5% and then 10%, and if that still doesn't work, raise interest rates further and/or resume Quantitative Tightening (QT).  The sooner they act, the less inflation there will be.  So what are they waiting for?

For fiscal policy, the extended and expanded unemployment benefit payments are soon to be yanked automatically, and all that suspended rent for millions of people has just abruptly come due, so for better or worse that should cool things off a bit.  Any further rent relief for those who still need it should come in the form of temporary direct payments to landlords, not eviction moratoriums.  If there is to be a debt jubilee it should be for everyone, not just some people.  And a tax hike on the top 1% and especially the top 0.1% would be good to do.

Britannia Waives The Rules! NOT

It was announced today that the UK's final reopening step in removing the last remaining restrictions, scheduled for June 21st, will most likely be delayed for "up to" (read: at least) another four weeks.  The latest excuse is that the supposedly much worse Indian Delta variant of the virus is spreading like wildfire in the UK.  Yes, "cases" (i.e. positive tests) are up per the official numbers, but I think we have all seen this movie before, and it's never ended well:

Come on, Boris, stop being such a wee-willy wanker and grow a pair already!  What happened to that fun-loving libertarian you once were just 15 months ago?  And ask yourself, if the Delta variant is so much more contagious, why isn't it spreading like wildfire in the many other countries in which it has been detected for as long as the UK, including, but not limited to, the USA?  Don't think too hard, though--you don't wanna fry the few brain cells you still have left, buddy.

(OK, granted there is Nepal, but they are an outlier.)

Look, practically all of the vulnerable members of society are either 1) fully vaccinated or 2) chose not to get the vaccine.  In fact, the UK has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, as does the USA (who the UK just caught up to recently).  Fully 80% of British adults (70% in Scotland) have measurable levels of antibodies, from vaccination, previous infections, or both.  If that is not herd immunity, I really don't know what is.  Besides, we know the virus is sharply seasonal, and it is now out of season.  So the odds of the NHS being overwhelmed this summer are practically zero.  Hospitalizations are still largely flat despite the rise in "cases", and though up slightly in some places they are are still nowhere near the first or second wave levels.  And deaths are still not budging.  Thus, COVID-19 has been reduced to a mere nuisance, and mass testing has created a "casedemic".

Even if there were no vaccines, or for those for whom the vaccine may be a dud, we nonetheless have treatments that work (Ivermectin, Budesonide, etc.).  If only the government would allow them, of course.

(Shhhh!  Don't be too loud about Niacin and NAC!  Now THAT would be the ultimate game-changer!  And Vitamin C, D, zinc, and an ionophore like Quercetin.)

We know now that lockdowns and NPIs are worse than useless, and at best you will only push the virus into the fall and winter where when know it is far worse.  Thus, a "safe spread summer" is just what the doctor ordered, even if the vaccines were somehow useless against the new variants (which is not true).  And masks?  Well, maybe chain-link fences are the best defense against mosquitoes, right?  Riiiiight. 

Meanwhile, the USA is largely full steam ahead with reopening and unmasking, many states already did months ago, and we are doing fine over here.  Cases, deaths, and hospitalizations are still falling.  Perhaps us "septic tanks" (Yanks) really do have the right idea now after all?  I think we all know the answer.

So how about it, Boris? Time to send the SAGE bedwetters packing and open up 100% yesterday!

UPDATE:  UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced officially that he will be delaying the final reopening step by "four crucial weeks" until July 19th, while leaving open the possibility of delaying it even longer still in the event of a "far more dangerous variant".  He dangles the carrot of it possibly being shortened to only a two week delay until July 5th (riiiiight!), and also gives the consolation of the 30 person cap on weddings being lifted on June 21st.  But I really wouldn't bet on a full lifting of restrictions anytime soon in Britain, unless of course there are massive and relentless protests along with some very conspicuous civil disobedience there no later than the next week or two.  But of course, under the current regime, that would technically be illegal (wink wink).

Oh, and by the way, if you really read between the lines you will see that COVID is actually becoming......milder.  That is, it is becoming more cold-like in terms of symptoms and significantly less likely to result in hospitalization or death compared to older strains.  And yes, that is the supposedly much worse Delta variant we are talking about, that is now dominant in the UK and will likely eventually become dominant worldwide.  As for being somewhat more contagious, that is most likely true, but remember it only needs to be very slightly more contagious to edge out the competition and become dominant, and estimates of it being 60% more contagious than the Alpha strain are most likely grossly exaggerated.  In a nutshell, the pandemic is over, attenuation of the virus is occurring along with herd immunity, and endemic COVID is now essentially becoming the new common cold in more and more places, following in the footsteps of the four other endemic common-cold coronaviruses (at least one of which, OC43, most likely started out as a pandemic as well).  The fact that this overall good news is being ignored by the mainstream media and government really speaks volumes as to their real agenda of fearmongering, power, and control.  Meanwhile, the USA is already several steps ahead of the UK on the road to true normalcy, and in practice is mostly already there now.

Indeed, it seems that the Delta variant's symptoms for most people are practically identical to hay fever and the common cold, with perhaps a mild hangover thrown in for good measure.  That is, headache, sore throat, runny nose, and/or generally feeling a little bit "off" are reportedly far more common than the classic fever, cough, loss of smell/taste, or shortness of breath that are common with previous strains of the virus.

UPDATE 2:  On June 26th, the March For Freedom had an excellent turnout.  And with Matt Hancock resigning in disgrace for his scandalous hypocrisy in flouting his own rules, thus following in the footsteps of the disgraced Neil "Professor Pantsdown" Ferguson, the regime does not seem to be winning anymore. 

UPDATE 3:  Looks like Delta is already dominant in much of the USA as of July 1, yet overall cases are still not exploding, deaths continue to fall, and hospitalizations remain quite low.  Soon it will be dominant worldwide (if it isn't already), but since the best evidence suggests that it is LESS deadly/nasty than previous strains, that is again actually a blessing in disguise on balance.  Behold, the soon-to-be new common cold.  And you know that Delta is already old news now, as the fearmongers are already talking about the Peruvian Lambda variant now.

And The World's Worst Death Rate Is.....

Quick, which country has the world's worst cumulative per capita COVID death rate?  Sweden? Not even close. Florida? Again, not even close.  New York?  Guess again.  New Jersey?  Formerly true, but not anymore.  Anywhere else in the USA?  Nope, not even South Dakota.  The UK?  Not exactly, though they could've been a contender.  Belgium?  Formerly true, but not anymore.  Hungary?  Again, formerly true, but not now.  Czechia?  Close, but no cigar.  Anywhere in Eastern Europe?  Not anymore.  India?  Raw numbers perhaps, but we're talking per capita here, so no.  So it would have to be Brazil then?  No, but you're getting warmer (both literally and figuratively).....

It is in fact Brazil's lockdown-loving neighbor, Peru.  Again.  They in fact already had that dubious honor for a good chunk of last year, then lost that title for a while, only to get it back today when their cumulative death toll was revised upward by more than double.  Apparently, they had been undercounting their deaths dramatically, hence their massive excess all-cause death rate.  Of course, many of those deaths were undoubtedly due to the collateral damage of one of the world's earliest (for their region), longest, and strictest lockdowns last year, which they are currently having an encore of right now.  Either way, their protracted and brutal lockdown restrictions were clearly an abject failure by any standard. 

World's longest lockdown, world's strictest lockdown (this side of Wuhan), world's earliest lockdown (for their region), and world's worst death rate.  Let that sink in. And their super-strict mask mandate, especially in Lima where face shields were required on top of their masks at least in some settings, clearly didn't do them a lick of good either.

Granted, their widespread poverty, extreme inequality, and government corruption of course made things that much worse in Peru.  But Brazil has had plenty of all three of these social ills for quite a while now, as do many of their other neighbors as well, and they still didn't do as bad as Peru did.

(Throw in some dengue fever and the situation becomes even worse still, especially since social distancing apparently can make that nasty mosquito-borne disease even more likely to spread.)

If daily cases and deaths are finally dropping now, it is literally because the virus is running out of new hosts to infect. Their new revised death rate of over 0.5% of their population is high enough to imply nearly 100% of the population has been infected (or at least exposed) if the infection fatality rate (IFR) is anywhere in the ballpark of 0.5%, which it almost certainly is.  After all, lockdown is functionally the same thing as a "let it rip" strategy, only a bit slower perhaps and that much more painful, with plenty of collateral damage on top of that as well.

Even if it is one that makes Melbourne, Australia look like a walk in the park, apparently.  Why?  Because in practice, a perfect lockdown with perfect timing is extremely difficult if not impossible to pull off for all but the most remote islands, and short of that it clearly does far more harm than good.  

Just when they thought they were finally doing (slightly) better than their wide-open, freedom-loving neighbor Brazil, that had to have been a real kick in the teeth.  Peru must really regret discontinuing their use of Ivermectin and/or HCQ (which Lima sadly did not use even before that) in October, which they did because reasons, and hopefully they started using it once again.  And the parts of Brazil that apparently are still not using it to this day well, they had better start using it yesterday as well.  Seriously.

And lockdown-loving Argentina shouldn't get too smug either, as they seem to be on a similar path as well.  Ditto for several other neighbors too.

While the lockdown zealots can barely seem to contain their glee whenever Brazil's (or any other open country's or state's) death rate ticks up, this is no time for schadenfreude on our part.  Every data point in Peru's horrible death toll is an actual human being killed by a deadly combination of a nasty virus and an authoritarian government's utterly disastrous attempts to contain it, a good chunk of it preventable.

But still, let's see the lockdown zealots in the wealthy countries try to explain this one away.  Their utterly flummoxed reactions and the looks on their faces should lead to very much glee on our part, in fact.  And when they inevitably concede, "Well, poor people can't do lockdown", the best response to that is, "Precisely, so why do you still support lockdowns then?  Do you like seeing poor people die preventable deaths?"  Then they will either change the subject, throw ad hominem attacks, and/or fly into a rage, meaning they clearly lost the argument.

QED

P.S.  Any country that is considering removing or disallowing any of the following from their early treatment and prophylaxis protocols:  Ivermectin, HCQ, zinc, and vitamins, is practically certain to woefully regret that decision within a few weeks.  The latest one to do so is India, ironically, despite Ivermectin clearly working well when and where it was used--hey, are you listening?  I mean, just ask Peru how that worked out.  At least India will still be using budesonide inhalers though for early treatment (but not prophylaxis, which it can't), which are known to cut death and hospitalization rates dramatically.

Dear Illegitimate Son Of SARS (Updated)

Dear Illegitimate Son Of SARS,

Look, you had a fairly long run, and a higher "score" (death toll) than the skeptics predicted (though still far less than the doomsayers originally predicted), but we know you are falling away and falling apart now as we speak.  You are getting progressively weaker and weaker just as more and more people are becoming immune to your nasty ravages.  And we have learned through trial and (mostly) error the best ways to treat the patients you so ruthlessly target.

From the get-go, you primarily picked on people that couldn't defend themselves very well, which is the mark of the coward.  In that respect you are far closer to a nasty seasonal flu than to the 1918 pandemic flu that you seem to idolize and aspire to be like.  Even children can easily quash you quite well, apparently.

And unlike your daddy, you couldn't even manage to stay on the UK's infamous High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) list for very long, getting kicked off of the list before you even really got started.  So much for being a chip off the old block!

You are a stealthy little bugger, we will grant you that.  But we know your game now.  You may have called most of the world's bluff at first, but when Sweden and Belarus both called YOUR bluff very early on, as did Japan and Taiwan, that was the beginning of the end for you.  Come to think of it, quite a few (though far too few) other countries did as well, such as Nicaragua and Tanzania, along with some USA states like Florida, Texas, Georgia, and South Dakota.

Even your fairly high body count may be less than meets the eye, along with all of the collateral damage that went along with you.  You are essentially taking credit for a good chunk of the damage and death that the lockdowns and their enthusiasts have wrought.  There is no way that you alone could have possibly turned one of the most vibrant and prosperous cities in the world into a burned-out empty shell without the unwitting help of its mayor (and the governor too).  Notice that I didn't even need to mention that city's name for the reader to know exactly which one.

TB or not TB?  That is the question, since you appear to be taking credit for a good chunk of the sickness and death caused by tuberculosis (posing as you) and/or co-infection with both you and TB.

You sure had quite a few tricks (aka "variants of concern") up your sleeve, the E484K ("Eek!") mutation being the most devious among them, before our immune systems eventually got wise to it.  That may have extended your stay on this Earth a little bit longer, of course, but given your puny genome there are only so many new tricks you can pull before you literally run out of ways to fool our ever-wiser immune systems.  Our T-cells are smarter than you thought.  And just like a dog, you sure can't teach an old virus new tricks for very long.

None of these tricks can possibly protect you from your very own Achilles heel, of course.  And now we know it (have known it for a while in fact), and its name is...NIACIN.  Especially along with cofactors Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Zinc, Quercetin, Thiamine, B-12, Resveratrol, Selenium, Magnesium, NAC, and the amino acid Lysine, that will wipe you off the face of the Earth if enough people were to use it.  Thus, you will not be able to stop your own accelerated and inevitable self-destruction.

(And that's before we even touch on the vaccines, of which there are several now, three in the USA.)

And now, you are falling away and falling apart as we speak.  Most mutations will, in the long run, make you WEAKER, not stronger, and the effect is cumulative.  In other words, you do not seem to be aging very well at all, both literally and figuratively, and your days are numbered (no matter how much the powers that be may want to drag you out indefinitely to further exploit you for their own Machiavellian machinations).  It is thus highly unlikely that you will make it out of the summer of 2021 in one piece.

As the lyrics to a famous Swedish song go, "It's the final countdown"-- for you, that is. 

Face it, you're washed up.  You bit off far more than you could ever possibly chew, and now you are choking on it, while frying in the summer sun.   Now go back to the pit (or lab) from whence you came!

Sincerely,

The True Spirit of America Party

P.S.  Don't forget to give special "thanks" to your common cold cousins, the Gang of Four:  229E, OC43, NL63, and HKU1.  Without previous exposure to them to provide some degree of immunity to you, you really could have been a contender.  You may very well luck out and end up like them instead of going extinct like your daddy.  But truly OC43 will always be the OG.

After all, the common cold is inevitably where all aging viruses of all types eventually go to retire if they don't die out.  And your latest parlor trick will very likely backfire hard and take you there much sooner rather than later, reduced to just a little pest.

UPDATE:  Now there is even stronger evidence of you having a lab origin.  Let's see your artificial GMO/GOF progenitors try to weasel their way out of this one!