Opinion
By Jeff Childers
02-01-23
Good morning, Happy Wednesday, and welcome to February, C&C! The roundup today includes: Biden declares an end to the pandemic, after Republicans make him do it; Newsweek runs a remarkable op-ed criticizing, well, just about everything related to the pandemic; a Paxlovid panic at the White House; SADS swimmer death; sad hostess heart injury; and a teeny-tiny public service announcement.
🗞*WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞
🔥 CNN ran an alarming story yesterday headlined, “These Benefits Will Disappear When Biden Ends the Covid National and Public Health Emergencies in May.”
Not disappearing benefits! I thought that was unconstitutional!
First of all, on Monday Joe Biden made a big announcement that the federal government intends to finally end the federal covid state of emergency on May 11th. Over three years since they said “two weeks to flatten the curve.” Why May 11th? Nobody knows for sure. But the CNN article suggests it might be to give time for people on the government’s covid dole to make alternative arrangements.
The White House statement explained, “This wind down would align with the Administration’s previous commitments to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to termination of the (public health emergency).” They’re going to renew it just “one more time” then we can all have a breather.
It takes until late in the article when we discover that House Republicans proposed new laws this week to end the state of emergency, and Biden wanted to get in front of that effort.
Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie
WASHINGTON (AP) — White House: President Biden to end COVID-19 emergency declarations on May 11 as US adjusts to living with virus.10:48 PM ∙ Jan 30, 20233,066Likes683Retweets
Rep. Mary Miller @RepMaryMiller
6:43 PM ∙ Jan 31, 2023305Likes72Retweets
Yesterday’s 220-210 vote was 100% by party affiliation:
Some democrats would have voted to end the state of emergency except for Biden’s announcement to end it on May 11th. So now you know: why Biden ended it, why it’s taking so long to end (to squeeze as much out as possible), and that the Republicans pushed Biden to do it.
Nice work, Republicans!
In an unintentionally-hilarious self-own, CNN asked a Kaiser expert about how the end of the state of emergency might affect people. The answer wasn’t very dramatic.
“People will have to start paying some money for things they didn’t have to pay for during the emergency,” said Jen Kates, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “That’s the main thing people will start to notice.”
Some emergency.
So, what kinds of things will people have to pay for? VACCINES AND TESTS. The vaccine gravy train is almost over. And Pfizer’s stock performance over the last 30 days reflects it:
Zerohedge ran an article yesterday headlined, “Pfizer Suffers Largest Monthly Loss Of Value Since 2009.”
CNN pointed out that fortunately, most insurance covers vaccination, and the FDA’s emergency use authorizations will not end with the state of emergency, thanks in part to some nifty language quietly slid into the multi-trillion-dollar spending package passed in December.
So Pfizer remains on life support. For now. But we’re inching closer and closer to the outlet where Pfizer’s life support is plugged in.
🔥 More evidence of a limited hangout or looming off-ramp for the jabs came packaged on Monday, in Newsweek’s op-ed headlined, “It’s Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives | Opinion.”
I am not making that up.
We’ve seen this pattern before. When they want a shift, they start in the op-eds. For example, when that odious hack Leana Wen turned tail and started writing op-eds about how bad mandatory masking was. The tell isn’t the op-ed — the author is just saying what a lot of people think — the tell is that corporate media is PUBLISHING the op eds.
This op-ed was written by a self-described 7th-year medical student who started by admitting he was originally all-in for the lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters — like any good scientist. But he’s since changed his point of view, and in the op-ed’s second full paragraph, he let them have it. He can see it now, all of Public Health’s crippled, broken apparatus:
I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.
He said they misled the public! And, they “obfuscated”! Misled and obfuscated are fancy ways to say, “they lied.” That paragraph practically sounds like something that *I* would write. But did you notice the most significant part, buried smack dab in the middle of the paragraph? I’ll pull it out for you:
… and vaccine effectiveness and safety ….
Safety. There it is. To my knowledge, that’s the first, tentative corporate media acknowledgement that the vaccines are not, in fact, 100% safe except in super-hyper-rare situations that almost never happen and when they do happen it’s almost always in people who are super-sick and anyways its almost always 99.99% super-duper mild and people almost always get better fast. Except for the dead ones.
The fact that the op-ed editor didn’t scrub the word “safety” before publication is the most significant news about this story. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, c’mon Jeff, it’s just an op-ed, by a MEDICAL STUDENT, and lockdown doctors will never care about his opinion.
Au contraire, mon amí. It’s MORE significant that it was a medical student. It’s a signal to doctors who AGREE that it is safe to talk about that now. If a MEDICAL STUDENT can get away with criticizing the agencies and the pandemic response, then ANYBODY can, even doctors.
Somebody should send a copy of that op-ed to the California Medical Board and Tracy Høeg’s lawyers. It looks like the “consensus” might be changing. Tell you what, I’ll take the medical board.
The author didn’t leave anything on the table, giving a ton of room for other medical professionals’ opinions.
For instance, the author discussed public health’s BEHAVIOR. He roundly condemned it, and said straight out that public health can only blame itself for the resistance to mitigations:
We created policy based on /our/ preferences, then justified it using data. And then we portrayed those opposing our efforts as misguided, ignorant, selfish, and evil. We made science a team sport, and in so doing, we made it no longer science. It became us versus them, and “they” responded the only way anyone might expect them to: by resisting.
He also basically called public health woke, hysterical crybabies who can’t admit what they were doing was wrong.
Our emotional response and ingrained partisanship prevented us from seeing the full impact of our actions on the people we are supposed to serve. We systematically minimized the downsides of the interventions we imposed—imposed without the input, consent, and recognition of those forced to live with them… Most of us did not speak up in support of alternative views, and many of us tried to suppress them… We believed “misinformation” energized the ignorant, and we refused to accept that such people simply had a different, /valid/ point of view.
The author even said something positive about Trump and critical of Fauci:
When former President Trump pointed out the downsides of intervention, he was dismissed publicly as a buffoon. And when Dr. Antony Fauci opposed Trump and became the hero of the public health community, we gave him our support to do and say what he wanted, even when he was wrong.
In the end, the author slyly accused public health of negligent murder:
We crafted policy for the people without consulting them. If our public health officials had led with less hubris, the course of the pandemic in the United States might have had a very different outcome, with far fewer lost lives.
Short of endorsing ivermectin as a covid treatment, this Newsweek article covered it all, I think. The article is a lot more important than it looks. It just threw open the Overton window, making it safe for a whole bunch of medical professionals who have been afraid to talk.
Expect more talk.
💊 Doctors are showing signs of life, and the experts don’t like it, not one bit. Oh, the experts were happy as clams back when doctors were gushing Paxlovid from every orifice, the experts were even worried it might be TOO MUCH Paxlovid.
In May, 2022, Bloomberg ran a op-ed headlined, “The U.S. Is Doing Too Little to Monitor Paxlovid Use,” with the anguished subheadline, “Prescriptions for Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral are skyrocketing, but it remains unclear how much the drug helps vaccinated patients — especially if they are at low risk of serious disease.”
How times change.
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a whiny story headlined, “An Underused Covid Treatment.” The sub-headline explained the Times’ angst: “Doctors are now a major barrier to Paxlovid.”
Looks like somebody’s biggest customer isn’t happy! And you know what THAT means. Joe Biden is working overtime (i.e., after 2:30pm):
The White House and health organizations are working to get more physicians to prescribe Paxlovid.
It’s Goldilocks again. Too Much Paxlovid, Too Little Paxlovid, Just Right!
Pushing Paxlovid is totally NOT political, which is why the White House is heading up the effort and not the FDA. You know, so that it’ll be fair and impartial.
The Times explained everything was good at first, in the good old days when when doctors were pushing Pfizer’s covid pill in droves, but then — FOR NO GOOD REASON — doctors suddenly stopped suggesting patients gobble up the pills.
These doctors are stubborner than Baalam’s ass, who refused to move no matter how hard the wise man pulled.
The whole thing is quite vexing. Still, the Grey Lady admitted that, okay, doctors might have SOME legitimate concerns about the drug. But EXPERTS think doctors should prescribe it anyways:
Some doctors have concerns that are rooted in real issues with Paxlovid and inform their reluctance to prescribe it. But experts are unconvinced that those fears are enough to avoid prescribing Paxlovid altogether, especially to older and higher-risk patients.
You see, EXPERTS can determine better than doctors whether the risk of side effects from the drug is justified by the benefits. That’s why they’re called “experts.” Duh. Oh! Here’s one right now, Doctor Wachter. I did not make that up.
“What I’m doing for a living is weighing the benefits and the risks for everything,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, the chair of the medicine department at the University of California, San Francisco. In deciding whether to prescribe Paxlovid, he said, the benefits significantly outweigh the risks.
It’s not even close. An avid festival-goer, Doctor Wachter carefully evaluated the profitability — sorry! — I meant to say, the ‘efficacy’ of Pfizer’s covid drug.¹ He thinks EVERY SINGLE DOCTOR should give Paxlovid to EVERY SINGLE COVID PATIENT. No matter what. Because science.
In fairness, right before dismissing each and every item, the Times’ article listed the various legitimate concerns that doctors have about the Pfizer pill. Here are the problems and the Times’ solutions:
Doctors: It’s a brand new, barely tested drug.
Times: Yes, but COVID.
Doctors: Known side effects include diarrhea, muscle pain and loss of taste, which is worse than the virus
Times: True, but COVID.
Doctors: Paxlovid Rebound gives patients “double the covid” when what they want is LESS covid.
Times: BUT COVID.
Doctors: Most patients are not at risk of serious illness or death
Times: you never know.
Doctors: Paxlovid dangerously interacts with other common drugs
Times: just take the patient off the OTHER drugs. Duh. It’s so simple.
Doctors: we want “more evidence” it works; like about WHICH patients benefit
Times: hey, we can ALWAYS benefit from more evidence, okay, but you have to start somewhere. Plus, COVID.
The Times forgot the most important reason the doctors aren’t prescribing as much Paxlovid: Because it doesn’t work. And doctors already fell (in droves) for Pfizer’s first fake covid medicine, the mRNA shots, which also don’t work. In fact, the whole reason Paxlovid exists is BECAUSE the shots didn’t work — OR ELSE YOU WOULDN’T NEED PAXLOVID.
Try to follow me here. The ONLY thing the jab pushers can claim anymore is that the jabs lower the chance of getting badly sick or dying from covid, by some magical, unmeasurable amount. But Paxlovid is marketed using the exact same obscure, intangible benefit. So … if you took the jabs … and already have “protection” … why do you need the pills? Hmm?
It seemed like simple logic that completely escaped the Times. I wondered if it was just me, so I asked Google.
Oops! It looks like some wires got crossed in the psyops lab someplace. They’d better get on top of that, stat.
💉 Yesterday, Arizona Athletics announced that, tragically, fifth-year University of Arizona swimmer Ty Wells, 23, died suddenly and unexpectedly of unknown causes — causes that are super secret and private and mind your own business.
Ty was single. Ty’s family’s GoFundMe was organized to benefit his mother, to help the family get through this difficult time. Fortunately, they’ve raised $61,560 as of this morning. The GoFundMe does not mention Ty’s cause of death.
His home club, Ripon Aquatics, emailed on Monday to let the swim team know about Ty’s death, but did not mention a cause of death either. And the email didn’t have any cautionary words about drinking and driving, mental health, or securing firearms around the home.
Come on, people. Who cares about Ty’s cause of death anyways? It’s not like it affects a life or death, global matter of public health that affects us all in one way or another or anything like that. Plus, it was probably just too many eggs. Quit looking for complicated reasons.
💉 MSNBC’s athletic, vegetarian, fully-vaccinated hostess, Yasmin Vossoughian, 44, was mysteriously off air for most of the month but now is back and she explained where she’d been. In the hospital. For her new, sudden, unexpected heart problems that have nothing, zero, nada to do with those you-know-whats.
Telling the story of my health scare this past month, with Dr. Greg Katz, cardiologist at NYU Langone. Watch the full segment: on.msnbc.com/3kTCRTb
Yes, that’s right, Yasmin believes that her pericarditis/myocarditis was caused by a virus. Not covid. It was the common cold. Hey, that’s what killed the Martians on War of the Worlds.
CNN even brought Yasmin’s doctor on TV, to warn everybody about how the common cold can cause pericarditis/myocarditis.
7:44 AM ∙ Jan 31, 202311Likes2Retweets
Yasmin’s doctor explained that the common cold does not actually attack the heart, not directly, but it definitely CAN provoke a heart-damaging autoimmune response. Weird! But it’s definitely not the novel mRNA shot, which has a most common side effect of pericarditis/myocarditis. The doctor admitted he’s seen more of these autoimmune-cardiac cases this year than normal. But it’s definitely caused by the colds.
Come on now. We know that HAS to be true, because they’ve been telling us for AGES how the common cold can induce an autoimmune response causing heart problems in young people. Right? I mean, okay, *I* never heard that, but I bet you guys have heard that lots of times.
Because it would be super important to watch out for the symptoms and stuff. Doctors would warn us.
Otherwise we’ll have to look for a different explanation.
🔥 She’s no rocket surgeon:
Kamala Harris explains the process of astronauts taking off in a rocket.
9:56 PM ∙ Jan 31, 20234,345Likes1,031Retweets
So.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll see you all back here tomorrow for more.
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1
FN Wikipedia describes Dr. Wachter as the “academic leader of the hospitalist movement.” That means he is an activist who advocates for doctors to be employees rather than independent contractors. After what I’ve learned about how the covid disaster occurred, this is the worst thing to happen to medicine since somebody thought to leech eyeballs to suck out bad humors. Wachter is a walking disaster.
© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
Published with author’s permission.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
