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(Correction:  The CDC's now-leaked unpublished data, that they are using to push masks once again, is a lot more nuanced than they miscommunicated, and apparently involves a vaccine in India that is not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!

Our Very Last Chance To Let America Be America Again, For Real This Time

It is Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial start to summer, and COVID-19 is on the run pretty much everywhere now.  Cases and deaths are plummeting left and right.  All of the most vulnerable members of the American population are either a) fully vaccinated or b) were offered the vaccine but chose not to get it, more than half of the entire population has had at least one vaccine dose, and half of all US adults are now fully vaccinated (i.e. more than two weeks after the final dose).  In fact, in ten states and counting, at least 70% of adults (often considered the "herd immunity" threshold in a naive population, ignoring the plentiful natural exposure of at least 30% of Americans already and as much as 50-70% in some states) are now fully vaccinated.  And furthermore, we also know now how best to treat this disease as well, even before we had the vaccines.

Is it technically even a pandemic anymore?  Depending on one's definition, it may not be.

All states except Hawaii have at least eased (or set a date for easing) their mask mandates, and many have dispensed with them altogether, while nearly all states have reopened their economies and ended most restrictions.  The CDC has recently eased recommendations as well.  Things are thus largely moving in the right direction for the most part.

Now is thus the time, in fact LONG past time, to end ALL restrictions and go 100% back to normal.  And not just for the vaccinated, but for everyone, period.  For children as well, in fact a fortiori for them.  Masks and social distancing are NOT healthy for children, and fortunately they were generally never at much risk from COVID to begin with.  Ignore the bluster from the zealots that want to make these restrictions permanent.  No more lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine passports, or anything like that ever again.

(Another myth bites the dust as well:  Not only are kids at a vanishingly low risk of dying or being hospitalized from COVID, they are apparently also highly unlikely to suffer from Long COVID either.  Turns out, many if not most of the supposed cases of children under 16 suffering from this vaguely-defined protracted syndrome are likely not even related to the virus at all, given the lack of difference between seronegative and seropositive children in experiencing it.  One could thus argue that "lockdown disease" from a toxic mix of prolonged anxiety, isolation, and vitamin deprivation is probably the most parsimonious explanation for most of these cases in both children and adults, even in many cases when the virus is a contributing factor as well.  Post-viral syndromes are of course very real, but are generally far more likely to follow severe infections rather than mild ones, and the vast majority of COVID infections are quite mild, especially in children.)

And given how we know that COVID is a very seasonal virus, it would in fact behoove us to allow a "safe spread summer" (i.e. a truly normal summer, kinda like we had in the summer of 1969 despite being during the nasty Hong Kong Flu pandemic, even including Woodstock and literally putting a man on the moon, imagine that!) to build up our immune systems before the fall and winter in case the virus comes roaring back again.  Had we done that last summer, we would have had a far less nasty second wave than we did (and third wave in some places as well).  And the new variants of the virus if anything make the case for doing so even stronger in fact.

This summer is our LAST CHANCE we have to end the New Abnormal for good and fully restore the civil rights and liberties that we feared were lost forever.  If we successfully demand to have a normal summer and resist any attempt to continue or reimpose these authoritarian restrictions in the fall, then the forces of liberty will have won.  But if we fail to, well, we only need to look at Germany and the UK to get a glimpse of our dark future going forward.  Thus, we must demand a complete return to true normal yesterday, settle for nothing less, and by Labor Day (a day followed by fully open, in-person, un-masked, un-distanced schools starting the very next day) at the latest we must fully resolve to completely lay waste to all that remains of 2020 forever, God willing.

Let America Be America Again.  For real this time!  And may America finally be reborn on the Fourth of July.  So what are we waiting for?

And So We Finally Learn Just How Effective Mask Mandates Really Are

Spoiler alert: not very.  That is the conclusion of one of the most recent studies, that found--surprise!--no robust correlation between COVID case growth rates and either mask mandates or even mask usage rates across the USA.  This dovetails rather nicely with that iconoclastic Danish study from last year, plus literally decades worth of research as well.  Look, you can cherry-pick the data all you like to get the results you want, as some previous studies have, but dare to include just enough inconvenient data and the whole house of cards collapses faster than you can say, "A-HA!  So THAT'S why Americans universally stopped wearing these things in the spring of 1919, returned to normal, and didn't look back for over 100 years!"

And people will probably keep debating the mask question 100 years from now as well, given how it is one of the oldest debates in public health history.  Granted, we do not discount that masks, at least higher quality ones, may very well be at least marginally effective in selected instances.  But for the general population across the board, in the realest of real-world settings?  Well, if you really believe that, we've got a nice bridge we'd like to sell you.

(And an even bigger bridge to sell those who believe masks were what caused the flu to practically disappear for over a year now.  Hey, try to explain how it also practically disappeared in Florida, Georgia, South Dakota, and Sweden then. Go on.)

It's essentially a classic macro-micro problem, where just because something may work at the micro level, it does NOT follow that it will also work at the macro level.  The same goes for quarantines, the macro level equivalent of which being indiscriminate, population-wide lockdowns (instead of just the sick).  Some things simply don't scale very well at all!

Voluntary mask wearing may simply be a classic placebo, where the wearers may simply be more cautious in general, while forced/coerced mask wearing may lead the wearers to be less cautious in general than they otherwise would, a phenomenon that has also been observed with mandatory seatbelt laws.  (To be fair, unlike mask mandates, seatbelt laws do still seem to have a net lifesaving effect regardless, albeit to the chagrin of pedestrians and cyclists.)

Honestly, if they did work at the macro level, then in any place with a broad mask mandate like most states and localities had (or at least mask usage rates above 80%, like practically all of the USA eventually was for a while), the pandemic would have been over within two weeks, three weeks tops.  And then masks would have thus made themselves obsolete.  Yes, some otherwise highly intelligent and knowledgeable mask advocates actually predicted (over a year ago, no less) that would happen, which in turn influenced even the TSAP's own formerly pro-mask mandate position as an alternative to lockdowns at the time (a position which we now deeply regret).  Yet alas, that clearly did NOT happen--for obvious reasons.  

And so, once the proper statistical controls (timing, seasonality, previous exposure, etc.) are employed, the statistical mirage of spurious correlation is thus debunked, deboned, sliced, diced, julienned, and its remains have been completely laid waste.

Game. Set. Match.

The TSAP actually supported mask mandates (albeit with nuance) from April/May up until about August 2020, half-supported them until December, and since then we have generally opposed them and currently we support repealing them in their entirety, as was done in 1919 nationwide and has already been done in most states (including those who never had such mandates at all) as of late May 2021.  That includes schools too, by the way, especially for students, as even the CDC now subtly admits that school mask mandates for students did NOT show any statistically significant benefit no matter how much they tried to torture the data.  (Apparently, the only thing that robustly and reliably works in schools is to ventilate, ventilate, ventilate, which actually makes sense for what we know now is in fact a predominantly airborne virus.)  Nor do we support discrimination against anyone by vaccination status either.

Look, if YOU personally want to keep wearing a mask, fine, more power to you.  Ditto if you want to avoid people who don't wear them, fine, keep your distance then.  Problem solved.  But currently we see no valid or compelling reason to continue to force people to wear them, in public or private.  Since when did this become such a controversial position to take?

From the looks of it at face value, Fauci may have indeed been largely right the first time when he initially pooh-poohed masks and actually told us not to touch our faces, and we're certainly old enough to remember that.  And it's not like mask mandates have actually led to faster reopenings or averted lockdowns either.  So whatever merits there are to individual mask wearing in whatever circumstances, there is no valid reason for any government to force them on anyone (outside of a healthcare setting), period, and it should be left to individuals and businesses to decide for themselves. 

By the same token, it looks like the WHO was also right the first time in that regard as well.  Even as recently as July 2020, believe it or not.

Kinda like when they let it slip in June 2020 that truly asymptomatic spread, while possible, is a lot rarer than most people think, a mere 0.7% even in that very closest and riskiest setting of all, within households.  Only to be forced to walk it back the very next day, of course.  And outdoor spread?  A vanishingly low 0.1% of cases.  And fomites (surfaces)?  An even lower still < 0.01%, and probably even less than that if people wash their hands and don't touch their faces or keep fiddling with their masks!  All for a disease with an infection fatality rate within the ballpark of a nasty flu season for most people, and that we know now how to treat effectively.  This is what the actual science says.  And it utterly demolishes the need for lockdowns, closures, mask mandates, or any other New Abnormal restrictions at this juncture, period.

See also here as well for a good explanation of the crucial difference between large droplets (that masks do seem to work for) and much smaller aerosols (which basically go right through and/or around essentially ALL masks other than properly fit-tested N95s).  It is the latter that seem to be a bigger driver of transmission, unfortunately, and worse, since they tend to penetrate deeper into the lungs, they also tend to make you sicker too.  Thus, we should not be at all surprised by the null effects of universal community masking at the macro level.  In fact, even the "variolation" theory is basically turned on its head as well--larger droplets would probably provide better "variolation" than aerosols would, ironically.

As for children, see here for a good and thorough debunking of the notion that forcing them to wear masks in school and elsewhere is somehow necessary, effective, or benign.  Even the WHO says that children under 5 years of age should not wear masks at all, children ages 6-11 should only wear them in certain circumstances, and children of any age with various kinds of disabilities or health conditions should not be required to wear them at all.  The CDC, on the other hand, apparently prefers to steamroll over anything even remotely resembling nuance in that regard.

See also here as well for an excellent article about how continued universal masking may even be harmful in the long run for all ages.  All the more reason NOT to make this practice permanent in any sense, and to phase it out completely in nearly all circumstances. We ignore actual science at our peril.

UPDATE:  The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) announced that they recommend that children ages 2-11 (!) continue to wear masks and socially distance until they are fully vaccinated (despite the fact that no COVID vaccine has been authorized yet for children under the age of 12, and even if there were, safety concerns would still remain due to the relative lack of clinical trial data for that age group).  All for a disease that is less deadly than the flu for kids, and about as deadly as chickenpox (the reader may even be old enough to remember chickenpox parties for kids up until the early 1990s before that vaccine came out), and furthermore that they rarely transmit to adults (a majority of whom are anyway either fully vaccinated or very soon to be).  Seriously?  Talk about some grade-A gaslighting and triangulation there, that would make even the most malignant narcissistic abuser blush!  We will all one day look back on this dark time in history with utter horror and disbelief, and alas today's youngest generation may never fully recover.  To the AAP, we have one question for you:  how does it feel to be on the wrong side of history?  Because we really wouldn't know anything about that.

And the CDC's much-hyped, supposed "increase" in teen hospitalizations is based on outdated data, and many of those are likely incidental positives when hospitalized for non-COVID reasons, particularly psychiatric admissions that have increased due to the lockdown-induced mental health crisis that is has been hitting young people particularly hard.

And finally, the Earth will thank us as well when we finally do belatedy ditch these (mostly plastic) masks for good, but alas, the damage to the oceans is done.

JUNE UPDATE:  One nuance that gets glossed over by both pro-mask and anti-mask folks is the issue of presymptomatic transmission, as the Swiss Doctor notes.  While truly asymptomatic transmission is indeed quite rare, presymptomatic transmission may actually be quite common, as is the case with influenza (albeit with COVID having a more gradual onset of symptoms than influenza).  It is a brief window of usually 1-2 days, though sometimes up to 4 days between peak viral load and (known) symptom onset.  Regardless though, masks still don't work for aerosol transmission, which would be especially predominant in such instances given the lack of large sneezing and coughing droplets.  The only thing that really works for aerosols is good ventilation, as well as perhaps air filters and UV light.  Masks are to aerosol viruses as chain-link fences are to mosquitoes.

And lest you still credit masks with the apparently success of East Asian countries in keeping death rates so low, a better explanation would be the near-absence of obesity in these countries, along with perhaps previous exposure to other related coronaviruses.  Especially judging from these countries' performance during past flu seasons, during which masks seemed to make no difference. 

People keep citing a North Carolina school study as "proof" that "masks work!", but since that study lacked a mask-optional school control group for comparison (i.e. all schools in the study mandated masks for everyone ages 5 and older), it says literally NOTHING about the effectiveness of masks.

And another school study looking at Florida, New York, and Massachusetts found no correlation between school mask mandates and COVID case rates for students OR staff after adjusting for confounders.  Not only that, but greater in-person student density was actually associated with fewer COVID cases, not more.  This dovetails with the cross-sectional CDC study that looked at Georgia schools between November 16, 2020 and December 11, 2020 and found no statistically significant effect of student mask mandates.  And it also strongly implies that the latter study's apparent correlation between staff mask mandates and fewer cases was most likely spurious and driven by selection bias, endogeneity, and/or confounding from community case rates, especially since the former study looked a much longer time period than the latter one, and also controlled for community case rates.  Thus, this new study should really be the final nail in the coffin in terms of mask mandates, particularly for schools.  Game. Set. Match.

And see here and here as well.

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.

The TSAP Hereby Condemns Both Likud And Hamas

With the latest violence between Israel and Palestine, the TSAP hereby condemns the bad actors on both sides of the conflict:  Netanyahu's Likud Party on the Israeli side, as well as Hamas on the Palestinian side.  Both have the blood of innocent civilians (including children) on their hands, and neither side are really acting like adults in any meaningful sense of the term.

We support President Biden's call for a complete ceasefire in this increasingly senseless conflict, and we have always supported a "two-state solution", which is simply shorthand for ending the illegal post-1967 Israeli occupation of Gaza, West Bank, and the Golan Heights, and thus restoring the borders that prevailed before 1967.  And both sides must recognize each other's right to exist in peace, period.

Additionally, the TSAP condemns the latest rash of vicious anti-Semitic attacks in the New York City area, as we condemn that sort of deplorable behavior across the board.  NEWS FLASH:  You can certainly be pro-Palestinian and anti-occupation without resorting to being anti-Semitic or blanketly anti-Israel.  There is no need to vilify an entire race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality simply because you disagree with what a particular country's right-wing authoritarian government is doing.  Jews are not necessarily Israel, and Israel is not Netanyahu or the Likud Party, just like Palestinans in general are not Hamas.  Also like how Americans were not Trump when he was in  office.  So KNOCK IT OFF, yesterday!  Capisce?

As Mahatma Gandhi famously said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind". And if you fight fire with fire, we all get burned sooner or later.

Don't Want A Worker Shortage? Stop Paying Starvation Wages!

The media hype over a supposedly widespread worker shortage gas been rife lately, and of course being blamed on a supposedly over-generous social safety net, particularly the expanded unemployment benefits put in place during the pandemic and still continuing to this day.  That supposedly makes it pay more to stay on the dole than to go back to work.  But the "absent referent" here, the biggest elephant in the room, is that wages are currently still too low.  If the federal minimum wage had kept up productivity gains since 1968, it would be about $22/hour today, similar to the current de facto minimum wage in most of the Nordic countries.  Given how the worker shortage is primarily concentrated in the lowest-paying jobs, the solution is very simple:  if employers want employees so desperately, then stop paying starvation wages, and pay the workers at LEAST what the market says they are really worth, and of course enough to, you know, LIVE on.  Problem solved.  Next.

In the meantime, as for the idea of unemployment benefits being too generous, if a true labor shortage were really a widespread problem, all they would need to do is take the extra $300/week bonus and instead repurpose that money as a wage subsidy to low-wage workers.  The latter bonus could be a sort of "reverse payroll tax" that automatically tops up one's paychecks directly.  Otherwise, leave the current benefits as is, albeit perhaps reinstating the work search requirements after some time, and require furloughed workers who are called back to their jobs to return to work after a reasonable amount of time.

It is worth noting that an actual Universal Basic Income (UBI) contains no such perverse incentives (unlike over-generous unemployment benefits), since one can still receive it regardless rather than have to give it up upon returning to work.  But it can still effectively increase the bargaining power of workers, increasing the de facto minimum wage.