Rewriting History

It seems that we have some public health authorities and politicians who either have very poor memories or have just decided that the only way out for them is to just rewrite history.

Exhibit #1 is Dr. Deborah Birx who, with Dr. Tony Fauci, led the federal Covid response during the first year.

Here is Dr. Birx last week stating that "I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection and I think we overplayed the vaccines ..."

Really?

She then goes on to say even though they don't protect against infection they do protect against severe disease and hospitalization.

However, right after she goes on to state that 50% of those who have died recently were older and vaccinated and tells people the best answer is to get early treatment. That 50% number itself probably understates the real numbers.

If she knew the vaccines were not going to protect against infection why was Birx so adamant that the vaccines were the only way we were going to get to herd immunity?

This is Birx speaking in September, 2020.

“Neither I, nor anybody in the administration, is willing to sacrifice American lives for herd immunity. We’ll get to herd immunity through a vaccine and that’s the right way to do it,” Birx told reporters during a briefing at St. Mary Mercy Hospital in Livonia, Michigan.

Birx was responding to news reports that new White House pandemic advisor Scott Atlas, who is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, had advocated for the Trump administration to lift all social and business restrictions aimed at stopping infections from spreading.

Once enough individuals have been infected and become immune, others are less likely to be infected, creating what health officials call “herd immunity.”

In December, 2020, just as the Covid vaccines were rolling out Birx said this to ABC.

Source: https://twitter.com/Ron4California/status/1552668134779211777

 

These were "highly effective vaccines" yet Birx now claims she knew that they "were not going to protect against infection."

Rewriting history? 

History is showing that Dr. Scott Atlas and others were right. Birx and Fauci were wrong including denying that natural immunity from prior infection was better than vaccinal immunity.  

Exhibit #2 is Dr. Fauci who stated last week that "I didn't recommend locking anything down".

Of course, in October, 2020 there is video of Fauci admitting that "I recommended to the President that we shut the country down".

Source: https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1551946470533656583

If that is not bad enough, last week Fauci said the 2020 Covid restrictions "should have been much, much more stringent."

Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fauci-covid-restrictions-should-have-been-much-much-more-stringent/

Fauci's statement is ridiculous on its face as President Trump told the story a number of times of when Fauci came into the Oval Office and told him that they needed to lockdown the country. Trump said he was incredulous but he followed the recommendation.

Trump also extended the original 15 days to slow the spread on Fauci's recommendation even though Trump was skeptical of the extension.

Trump clearly did not come upon the idea to lockdown the country (or extend it further) on his own.

Of course, even Donald Trump is trying to rewrite history.

Here is Trump stating “I just listened to Fauci and whatever he said, I did the opposite… I came out very good.”

If only that was true.

The sad reality is that Trump did almost everything Fauci told him to do early on because it was "the science".

Trump should have fired Fauci after the first couple of months of the pandemic but he knew that the good Doctor had too much support among the media and Democrats. Trump did not want to take the political risk of taking on Fauci before the election. I understand why he did it but it shows why letting politics determine critical decisions never works out in the end.

I believe that Trump also may need to rewrite history again due to the amount of bragging he did about his role in the development of the "warp speed" vaccines. If you notice, he has recently not been talking about this very much for good reason.

Trump's support for the vaccines may ultimately prove to be a liability in the 2024 GOP primary rather than an asset depending on what happens next with the virus. If that occurs there will be many who will point the finger of blame at Trump and Big Pharma.

Joe Biden has also been rewriting history himself.

Do you remember Biden's famous line during the campaign that he was going to shutdown the virus?

The average number of confirmed Covid cases per capita is actually more than 60% higher during the Biden term than it was when Trump was President.

The vaccines were also available during the entirety of the Biden term. They only were first administered in the last month of the Trump term.

Is this what shutting down the virus is supposed to look like?

That must be the reason the Biden White House is now bragging about the "success" of how many more people are being treated with Paxlovid after they have become sick with the virus.

More people infected, more people benefiting from Paxlovid.

SUCCESS!

This caused one doctor to tweet this.

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/12/fact-sheet-biden-administration-outlines-strategy-to-manage-ba-5/

What about the claim that Biden made that he was not going to shutdown the economy?

It was announced yesterday that second quarter GDP declined by -.9%.

That follows a first quarter GDP decline of -1.6%.

Until this week the general consensus among economists was that a recession was defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in the nation's GDP.

How many of the last ten recessions were defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth?

It was TEN.

Source: https://twitter.com/covid_clarity/status/1552663951699283970

The White House and mainstream media has now decided that is no longer the case.

I wonder why?

Joe Biden said this in a virtual meeting with CEO's and labor leaders on Monday.

"We're not going to be in a recession".

Source: https://www.axios.com/2022/07/25/biden-recession-economy-gdp-growth?utm_campaign=editorial&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Joe Biden is not only rewriting history, he is even attempting to rewrite it before it is even written.

Beware the narrative.

Know the facts.

Know when someone is attempting to rewrite history.

Will The LIV Golf Tour Live?

The professional golf world has been in turmoil since the Saudi Arabian backed LIV Golf Tour announced its formation and began attempting to persuade PGA Tour players to participate in its events.

The LIV Tour is financially backed by the Public Investment Fund which is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. LIV has offered players big signing bonuses to join its tour as well as no-cut events in which every player is guaranteed a portion of a purse that is significantly larger than most PGA events.

Credit: The New York Times

The third LIV golf tour event is being played this week at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey with a purse of $25 million.  $4 million goes to the winner. By contrast, the winner of the PGA Tour's Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit this week will receive $1.35 million of an $8.4 million purse..

LIV represents the roman numeral for the number 54, the score if every hole was birdied on an par-72 course and the number of holes to be played at LIV events (compared to 72 holes at PGA Tour events and major championships).

LIV also uses a shotgun start so all competitors are on the course at the same time and the competition also includes a team event in addition to the individual golf competition.

Greg Norman signed on as CEO and LIV made headlines earlier in the year when it signed Phil Mickelson  to what was reported to be a $200 million contract to join the series.

To put that in perspective, Mickelson had won $94 million in his entire career on the PGA Tour through 2021. Tiger Woods had earned $120 million.

LIV has subsequently signed other high profile names such as Dustin Johnson, Charl Schwartzel, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Louis Oousthuizen, Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell.

None of these names surprised me as all of these players are in their 40's except Johnson and Schwartzel who are in their late 30's. However, this group would have been the most attracted to the big money guarantees at this stage of their careers as well as the opportunity to play a more limited schedule and still see large pay days.

Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed are three names who have also joined LIV that do not fit that age profile. All would be considered to be in the prime of their careers. However, Koepka and DeChambeau have also had injuries over the last year. 

Have those injuries given them some new perspective on how long their PGA Tour is going to last and it makes sense to lock in a big pay day while they can? As to Patrick Reed...he is Patrick Reed. What more can you say?

Tougher to figure out is why good, young up and coming players such as Abraham Ancer, Talor Gooch and Matthew Wolff who have a lot of golf ahead of them would make the jump.

For the most part, it is easy to understand why the players that have jumped to LIV have done so.

There is a lot of big money being thrown around by the Saudis. 

$25 million. $100 million, $200 million guarantees.

Even $1-$2 million as the reported  money guaranteed to last year's US Amateur champion James Piot is enough to turn your head when the alternative is having to go to the Korn Ferry Tour and try to earn your way on to the PGA Tour with no guarantees of anything but travel, hotel, food and caddie costs each week.

It is tougher for me to figure out what is the end game for the Saudis.

If they are investing a billion dollars or more in a fledging golf tour they undoubtedly expect a return on that investment.

They clearly have to expect that the PGA Tour will ultimately pay them off someway (through a legal settlement) or some type of merger will eventually occur that allows them a return on the money they are putting into this.

This has usually been the outcome when other upstart professional leagues (AFL, ABA etc) set out to compete with established pro circuits.

However, it is difficult for me to see there is enough money in the game to justify the high upfront payments that LIV is paying to players.

The PGA Tour is a lucrative enterprise. It is considered a "business league" by the Internal Revenue Service and operates as a Section 501(c)(6) non-profit.

This does not make it charitable enterprise under Section 501(c)(3) but it does not have to pay income taxes on any profits as long as it is operated to promote the interests of its members (PGA Tour members).

I have reviewed several Form 990's for the PGA Tour that it is required by the IRS to be filed each year.

It was bringing in about $1.5 billion in revenues in 2019 which is more representative than the Covid-shortened 2020 year. About a third of that was in media revenues. 

It has an accumulated surplus on its balance sheet of about $1.2 billion.

Source: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/pga_2020_990.pdf

The majority of annual revenues ends up in the pockets on the players. Money is also spent to put on the tournaments and a host of charities are taken care of each year. Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan makes around $9 million per year.

That sounds like a lot but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodall has been pulling in around $64 million per year and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has an annual salary of $17.5 million.

The PGA Tour funds a pension plan for its members which I have seen some of the players refer to as the most generous in professional sports. The tax return above showed $45 million in expenses in the current year for "Player Retirement Earnings." There are $2.5 billion in assets on the balance sheet in publicly-traded and other securities that should give comfort to the members that future obligations of the PGA Tour will be met.

Unlike the NFL, MLB or NBA the PGA Tour is really run by and for the benefit of the players. There are no owners like there are in those pro leagues. Four players (Rory McIlroy, Charley Hoffman, Kevin Kisner, James Hahn) and the Director of the PGA of America are on the ten-member board and they can hire and fire Monahan or anybody else if they don't like the job they are doing for them.

One would have to argue the PGA Tour has done a very good job of that in that LIV would be willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to players who built their reputations playing on the PGA Tour.

As evidence of that is this chart from Golf Digest that shows the number of PGA Tour players who made at least $1 million in prize winnings has exceeded 100 for six of the last seven seasons (the only exception being the Covid-shortened year of 2020).

Yes, there was a Tiger effect. However, Tiger and the PGA Tour helped make a lot of golfers very wealthy.

Source: https://www.golfdigest.com/story/pga-tour-players-who-earned-1-million-in-2021-purse-increases

The reality of all of this is that any professional league needs talented athletes. However, the athletes also need a venue to showcase their talents.

I wrote a blog post five years ago on why some songs became hits and others did not. 

The biggest factors were exposure and repeated repetition.

The greatest song in the world means nothing if it is not heard a lot...and by a lot of people.

We have always heard that "content is king". Yes, you need content.

However, content means nothing without distribution.

Derek Thompson, the author of the book "Hit Makers" said it this way.

"Content may be king, but distribution is the kingdom".

Tom Cruise might be the same actor performing in a community theatre in New Jersey as he is in Top Gun.

His fame and his fortune is due to the distribution of his films.

He might be the same guy performing at the community theater but how many would see him and how many would care?

The best examples of the importance of distribution over content in recent years is looking at what  happened to Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly at Fox News. They both are talented and had broad audiences at FNC. Today you hear little about either as they try to maintain relevance on their own without the benefit of the FNC distribution and exposure.

The content may be the same. The distribution is no longer there.

In my opinion this is the biggest challenge that the LIV Tour and it players will face.

LIV may have guys who can play the game but it is going to be difficult to get and sustain an audience.

At a minimum, LIV needs a tv deal which it does not have right now. They then need to get people to watch it.

The reality is that the "kingdom" of golf revolves around the four major championships and the the PGA Tour. If you are not playing in these events it is going to be hard to maintain relevancy as a competitor.

The LIV players are going to be irrelevant in the golf kingdom despite the fact they are getting paid a lot money by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The LIV players could remain relevant if they can play and win (or compete strongly) in the four major championships. This would, in turn, burnish the reputation of the LIV.

However, the four majors are select events with specific qualification standards.

For example, all the 30 top players in the PGA Tour FedEx points standings for 2021 were eligible to play in the 2022 US Open, PGA and British Open.

Will the same qualification status apply for 2023?

All the majors have stated they are reviewing qualification criteria for the 2023 championships. It has been suggested that LIV players may be excluded somehow.

If I was providing advice in this regard, I would urge all of the major championships to not change anything. They would just be inviting unnecessary legal challenges.

The fact is that each of the LIV players are gradually going to descend into irrelevancy as the criteria exists today. If the players are not accumulating FedEx points on the PGA Tour and/or Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points for the LIV events their chances of playing in the majors is going to be diminished.

As it stands now, Talor Gooch is the only LIV player that is in the Top 30 in FedEx points for this season (Gooch is currently #18). However, in that he is not playing any more PGA Tour events this year he may not be in the Top 30 by the end of the year.

The sure way into the majors is to be in the Top 50 World Golf Rankings either for the previous or current season (top 60 for US Open, top 100 for PGA Championship). A high OWGR ranking has previously gotten you into the majors.

However, the LIV Tour events have not been deemed eligible for World Ranking points yet and that does not look like it will happen anytime soon. For one, the OWGR rules require a new tour to be in operation at least a year for its events to be sanctioned. Second, the World Rankings have required that an event be at least 72 holes to qualify and to have a cut after 36 holes. Neither is the case with LIV right now.

Therefore, LIV players are not going to accumulate any World Ranking points over the next year if the traditional rules are followed. As a result, those that are in the Top 50 now will all gradually fall out of the Top 50 and this projection suggests that none of the LIV players will be in the Top 100 by next Spring.

Source: https://www.golfmagic.com/liv-golf/liv-golf-projected-world-rankings-rebels-end-2022

LIV has applied for OWGR status but it might take a year to get that status under the best of circumstances. That means it would be another year before any of the players have significant points to get back into the Top 50, 60 or 100. At that point they will all be attempting to regain relevancy after two years away from the limelight. It will not be easy.

There is one more obvious path for some of the LIV players to get into major championship fields and that is the traditional exemption for past champions.

The Masters (age 65 and under), PGA (willing and able) and British Open (60 and under) provide an exemption for all past champions.

The U.S. Open only provides an exemption for winners from the last five years. LIV players Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau could get into the 2023 U.S. Open if the traditional rules continue to apply next year.

The past champion exemption would provide a path into The Masters for Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel and Patrick Reed.

Would The Masters risk changing the rules to exclude these players because of LIV?

If anyone has deep pockets in the sport of golf it is The Masters.

It would make little sense in my opinion to open up the The Masters to potential legal liability unnecessarily by changing the rules to exclude the LIV players.

The same for the other majors.

My guess is that it is unlikely any of these players are going to be competitive especially due to the fact that will have not really been tested for extended periods of time in high pressure golf with premier competition.

As far as the PGA Tour goes, play on the tour can continue as the defecting (and suspended) players fade into increasing irrelevancy.

The biggest concern the PGA Tour has will be maintaining its continuing good relationships with the corporate sponsors who provide the bulk of the money to keep it all running.

FedEx, AT&T, RBC, Coca-Cola and all the corporate sponsors are the ultimate key to all of this.

If sponsors decide to start spreading their marketing dollars to include LIV, the PGA Tour is going to have problems.

However, until that happens, LIV's prospects are not good.

As for LIV's players, I hope they got the money upfront and have good investment advisors to invest the money for their futures.

Their future in golf is likely to be irrelevant going forward.

Some of these guys may have (or could have) been kings of the game.

However, the fact is that they don't rule the kingdom.

And those who control the majors and PGA Tour do right now.

Saudi Arabia and LIV want a piece of that kingdom.

LIV may get some type of monetary settlement from the PGA Tour in the end.

Perhaps a couple of LIV events will be incorporated into the PGA Tour when this is all over.

The PGA Tour may lose its tax-exempt status due to the scrutiny it will be under.

The charities that the PGA Tour supports may end up with less.

However, I will be shocked if an independent LIV Golf Tour exists in three years time.

It is also difficult to see when it is all over that professional golfers in general, the charities supported by the PGA Tour and the overall game of golf will be better.

I am not betting on LIV living long term.

Neither is Lee Trevino.

Masks and Boosters In Our Future?

It seems that the CDC and the media has caught up to what I have been writing about in BeeLine for the last month or so.

Covid cases and hospitalizations are surging to levels much higher than in the previous two summers.

Respiratory viruses don't typically spread easily in the summer months. The exception with Covid over the last two years has been a spike in cases across the Sunbelt as people sought refuge from the heat indoors.

Confirmed cases currently are three times (and more likely much higher due to home tests) the levels last year at this time. Hospitalizations are double what they were last year. Many of these are undoubtedly incidental infections in that the patient is in the hospital for something else. However, that would have also been the case last year.

Last week the CDC announced that more than 50% of the United States was in an area of "high-risk" based on its hospitalizations measures.

Source: https://twitter.com/JasonSalemi/status/1547699811092029447

The CDC then came out with a recommendation that all people in these "high risk" counties wear masks indoors.

It will be interesting to see how many state and local officials and businesses attempt to follow this guidance.

Are we going to see schools attempt to put masks on school children in a month?

How many people are going to buy what the CDC is trying to sell again?

The fact is that there continues to be no scientific study or evidence that supports the general use of masks to prevent the spread of Covid or other respiratory viruses. 

That was the case before Covid ever appeared. It is the same 2-1/2 years later.

For example, University of Louisville researchers used CDC data in a recent study to attempt to support a hypothesis that statewide mask mandates and mask use were associated with lower COVID-19 case growth rates in the United States.

However, the researchers found no significant differences in case growth between mandate and non-mandate states during periods of low or high transmission.

Conclusions: Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID- 19 growth surges. Containment requires future research and implementation of existing efficacious strategies.

 

I wrote over two years ago about the Canadian Dental Society research that was conducted in 2016 on the use of face masks in dental offices in the prevention of respiratory viruses.

That study found that face masks gave almost no protection to dental professionals from viruses. As you can imagine, there can be extensive generation of airborne material during the majority of dental procedures so this is an important issue for dental offices.

The study also addressed the question as to why face masks have been so universally accepted for so many years by medical professionals if they offered little protection. The answer given was that no one had really studied the issue in decades. It had just been accepted without question and it was not a high profile enough issue that involved big dollars that attracted much research. It was the medical equivalent of an urban myth.

Interestingly, as mask use mandates were increasingly used during the pandemic, the Canadian study was purged from the internet in that it did not fit the narrative.

If you go to the link I originally cited for this study you can no longer read the research because it "is no longer relevant in our current climate."

So much for science.

If you want a real world look at how effective masks are at preventing the spread of Covid I suggest you look at the recent data from Japan.

There is no country that utilizes face masks more than Japan.

The use of face masks were heavily built into the culture of the Japanese in dealing with respiratory issues well before the appearance of Covid.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/05/20/national/japan-outdoor-mask-advice/

Japan has had near universal face mask usage during the Covid pandemic even after government relaxed the guidelines.

How is Japan faring against Omicron right now?

Japan is reporting almost 200,000 cases per day. On a per capita basis that is over three times what the United States is reporting right now.

Japan has over 82% of every man, woman and child fully vaccinated and 69% boosted.

The latest surge in the U.S. is also surely going to result in more calls for boosters.

We will undoubtedly hear that if more people were boosted we would not be seeing this surge.

The United States does lag a number of other countries in booster uptake.

Compare per capita boosters administered in the United States to a range of other countries around the world--Gibraltar, Israel, U.K. South Korea, Australia, Germany, Portugal, etc.

Now compare cumulative Covid cases in the United States to these same countries.

The United States has reported fewer cumulative Covid cases per capita than all of the countries above that have had higher vaccination and booster uptake.

Does this suggest that the United States should be embarking on a massive booster campaign?

As I have stated from the beginning of the vaccination effort, there may be good reasons for those who are older and vulnerable to be vaccinated (and boosted) against Covid.

However, the risk/benefit equation of the vaccines for the young and healthy is far different.

The data on the vaccines also now seems clear that any efficacy is short-lived.

The vaccines may actually make you more vulnerable to the virus in the first couple of weeks after being administered before providing a protective benefit for several months and then quickly receding to marginal efficacy.

It is yet unclear what continual Covid vaccinations do to your natural immune system.

The suggestion in the data above is that boosters may hurt more than help over the long term.

Despite the data, you can be sure that the public health authorities are going to be promoting masks and boosters leading up to the Fall.

The reality is that they have nothing else to talk about in order to attempt to maintain relevance.

If they were honest, they would admit to the failure of their mask and vaccines guidance.

They will not do it.

They will compound their errors.

We can only hope that the virus is more forgiving than the public will be if Dr. Vanden Bossche is correct on where this goes next.

The Irony Of It All

The irony of it all.

On July 21, 2021 Joe Biden was telling the world that "you're not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations."

On July 21, 2022 the White House announces that double vaccinated, double boosted Joe Biden has tested positive for Covid.

I can relate.

Two weeks ago I tested positive for Covid after avoiding it for over 2-1/2 years.

Unlike Joe Biden and Tony Fauci, I am not double vaccinated and double boosted. I did not take Paxlovid but I did follow some of the protocols from front line doctors who treat Covid regularly.

I also followed a prophylactic regimen of taking daily doses of Quercetin, zinc and Vitamin D for the last two years.

I would like to think that the things I did resulted in my mild symptoms and relatively quick recovery just as I know that Biden and Fauci and others believe the vaccines or Paxlovid kept them out of the hospital. However, who is to really know in any individual case?

My symptoms included some achiness, a low grade fever and being tired. These symptoms lasted for about 36 hours.

After about 72 hours, I felt great but a lingering fatigue came upon me about a day later and stayed with me for about a week with no other symptoms, Simply stated, I just did not have my normal energy for about a week to ten days.

However, less than two weeks after the first symptoms, I was playing 18 holes of golf in 95 degree weather.

I hope Mr. Biden has similar success in his recovery.

I cannot think of anything worse for the country than if he does not have a full and quick recovery.

It would be a devastating blow to the morale and confidence of the nation to see its leader hampered by this virus over 2-1/2 years into the pandemic after so much was promised from the vaccines and Paxlovid.

You have to believe that the public health establishment is living on pins and needles right now with the fear that Biden may not recover quickly.

That is probably not a likely scenario but it would be an event that would have considerable consequences and impact if it occurred. It would almost be the definition of a "Black Swan" event.

There isn't a scenario I can conceive of that would be worse for the public health establishment than for a double-vaccinated, double-boosted Joe Biden to end up with a severe case of Covid considering the narrative that has been promoted over the last two years.

Biden's positive Covid result comes about a month after Dr. Tony Fauci had his own bout with the illness.

Fauci was also treated with Paxlovid but ended up with a rebound case of the disease after taking the standard 5-day course of the drug. He ended up feeling much worse the second time around and took a second course of Paxlovid.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/30/health/covid-paxlovid-fauci-rebound/index.html

Pfizer states that rebound cases are rare so let's hope that holds true for Biden.

I dare say that it will not be good for the PR department of Pfizer if Biden also has a rebound case of Covid after taking Pavlovid and being quadruple-vaccinated.

I have to say that it is hard not to look at the events every day that have unfolded with Covid and not think...

The irony of it all.

Get well soon, Joe.

Your poll numbers are not good but we need you.

31% overall approval in the latest Quinnipiac poll.

Of note, Hispanics only give Biden 19% approval.

His approval with 18-34 year old voters is 21%.

However, Kamala Harris only has a 26% overall favorable percentage in the same poll.

Who would think we would have someone in the White House with a 31% job approval and most Americans fervently wants to make sure that man stays healthy and on the job?

That is probably even truer of those who disapprove of Biden's performance than those who approve.

The irony of it all.

Indeed.

Get well soon, Joe.

Covid---Then, Now and the Future

In the early days of the pandemic it was apparent that the Covid virus was primarily a concern for the old and with vulnerable health conditions.

That was clear in the Diamond Princess outbreak in Japan as well as the deaths we saw in Italy early in the  pandemic back in March, 2020.

In fact, this is a chart I published in these pages on March 15, 2020 detailing the age breakdown of the 780 deaths in Italy from Covid as of that date.

You will note that 87% of the Covid deaths in Italy at that early date were in those over the age of 70.

There were more deaths among those over age 80 than all of the deaths for everyone else below that age.

There had been no deaths for anyone below the age of 30.

I was reminded of this fact as I recently looked at Covid deaths in the United States now that we have some 2-1/2 years of experience.

Over 1 million deaths have been listed by the CDC as being associated with Covid in that period.

However, despite lockdowns, school closures, vaccines mandates and all the rest, the risk of death from Covid by age has not changed substantially compared to what we saw in those early days.

Over 75% of the deaths from Covid in the United States have been in those age 65 or older.

Only .9% of deaths have been in those under age 18. By contrast, that age group represents 22% of the U.S. population.

There have been more deaths in those age 85+ with Covid than all of the deaths with Covid from everyone below age 65.

The statistics are the same in Australia even though almost all Covid deaths have been in the last year  (over 90% of Covid deaths in Australia have occurred after the vaccines were introduced).

This chart from the Australian government shows Covid deaths by age group since the beginning of the pandemic.

Source: https://www.health.gov.au/health-alerts/covid-19/case-numbers-and-statistics#cases-and-deaths-by-age-and-sex

It is even closer to the early experience in Italy than the United States numbers.

85% of Covid deaths in Australia have been in those age 70 or older.

There have been more deaths of those age 80 or older than all younger age groups combined.

However, it looks like it might get even worse in Australia (95% age 16+ fully vaccinated and over 70% boosted) in the near future.

Hospitalizations are soaring down under right now.

The good news in the United States of late has been that despite the fact that reported Covid cases are running about 4 times what they were at this time last year (more likely at least 10 times higher considering home tests that are never reported), hospitalizations and deaths are only about 50% higher.

Source: The New York Times

However, these are still shocking numbers considering what we were originally told regarding the effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing infection (since admitted to be untrue) as well as the continuing argument that they prevent severe disease and death.

50% higher numbers of hospitalizations and deaths this year compared to what we saw last year hardly seems to be an endorsement of the "effectiveness" of the vaccines for anyone looking at the data objectively.

If someone said that these would be the results a year ago would anyone have agreed that should be considered "a success"?

Recall that Joe Biden was saying the following almost exactly one year ago today.

Biden speaking at CNN Town Hall in Cincinnati, July 21, 2021

Do you think he was a little off the mark?

I can't decide if he was further off on this or his statement that inflation was going to "transitory".

It would seem to me that the next several months are going to tell us a lot about where we go next with Covid.

The optimistic view is that the high level of cases we have seen over the last year, with proportionally less leading to hospitalizations and deaths, has created a level of herd immunity that moves Covid permanently to an endemic disease much like the seasonal flu.

The pessimistic view would be held by Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche who sees heavily vaccinated countries on the precipice of another mutation in the virus that will make it even more contagious and deadly than we have seen previously.

When I first started studying what Vanden Bossche was saying a year ago he stated that one of the things to watch for as the pandemic unfolded was whether cases failed to drop below previous lows despite the vaccination effort.

He argued that this was an indication that the virus was continuing to mutate and build within the population in what he called a "valley of fitness". He predicted this would invariably lead to another surge in cases as the virus worked around the vaccines and resulted in another variant. 

Are we seeing that occurring in the United States right now in that case levels are higher now than they were at this time of year in pre-vaccine 2020 or immediately after the aggressive vaccine push in the first six months of 2021?

Confirmed Covid Cases in U.S.-7-day average
Source: The New York Times

Is the next variant slowly and imperceptibly building in the population such that it won't be long before it is dominating the population in ways we don't want to imagine?

Is Vanden Bossche correct in his prediction that those most vulnerable in the next wave will be those who are most vaccinated and have the poorest natural immunity?

Few could imagine what we have witnessed since last year at this time despite everything we were told that the vaccines would do to prevent that result.

Geert Vanden Bossche is one who warned us. Nobody in any position of authority listened.

I documented his prediction in these pages almost one year ago that we would see an astounding surge in Covid cases that would be particularly evident in the most vaccinated countries.

We can only hope that he is wrong about where Covid goes next.

Let's hope that the virus does not leave that "valley of fitness".

Let's also hope we don't see this all end in the final prediction Vanden Bossche made over a year ago and which I wrote about last September.

 

He (Vanden Bossche) predicts that once the reality dawns on the populace of how horribly this pandemic has been mismanaged, leading to massive unnecessary death tolls in those who chose to be vaccinated - that the realization will lead to a form of revolutionary outbreak by a deeply disenchanted and grieving public. Because heads will have to roll. He even thinks that ultimately this will affect how people view vaccines in the future and might even require banning the use of the word vaccine due to the negative impact that current mass vaccine use will have. He really put a lot of thought to his vision of the future!

This reality is even harsher when considering the data above shows that the vast, vast majority of people really had no reason to get vaccinated based on what we knew about the risks of Covid from the very beginning. That has stayed true to today.

The decision to push mass vaccination on the population (most of which had small risks) destroyed any ability to develop herd immunity. It may also be responsible for the endless string of variants we have seen which has extended the length of the pandemic. Let's hope that Vanden Bossche is not correct and those mass vaccination efforts do not also also result in unnecessary illness and death. 

The next few months may tell us once and for all who has been right... and who has been wrong...about our response to Covid.

The answer to that question will undoubtedly have broad implications for the future of our institutions and our society.

I pray Vanden Bossche is wrong. I fear that he is not.

Nothing New Under The Sun

How many times have I have seen a liberal politician with an agenda say something like Adam Schiff did recently as he was pushing the climate change agenda?

Schiff is clearly unhappy that Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is not willing to sign on to the radical "Green" agenda of the House Democrats.

Time is always running out.

If we don't act soon, we are all doomed.

Does anyone remember this statement from Alexandria Ocacio-Cortez in 2019 that had the same message?

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2019/01/22/ocasio-cortez-climate-change-alarm/2642481002/

How about Al Gore's statement in 2006 "that unless drastic measures were taken within the next ten years the world would reach a point of no return?

Or this claim in 1989 by a senior United Nations environmental scientist that entire nations would be wiped off the face of the earth by the year 2000 if climate change was left unchecked?

Not reversed by the year 2000? That was 22 years ago.

It seems that the same claim has been made over and over again the last 35 years.

We always only have a narrow period of 10,11 or 12 years to act or we are doomed.

Never mind if none of the predictions ever come true,

It does not stop the next politician from making a similar claim.

Of course, the mainstream media plays off of this narrative and that is why any heat wave is now referred to as "unprecedented".

Witness the headlines about the recent heat wave in the U.K.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/world/europe/heat-wave-britain-uk.html

Temperatures were predicted to reach 100 degrees F this past weekend.

It is "unprecedented".

Source: https://sports.yahoo.com/u-k-declares-first-ever-180348044.html

I guess it is "unprecedented" if you ignore the 100 degrees that hit London in 1911.

Source: https://realclimatescience.com/2022/07/100-degrees-in-london/

Or the fact that a similar heat wave engulfed the UK and Europe in 2003 that had Pope John Paul II urging people to pray for rain.

Source: https://realclimatescience.com/2022/07/100-degrees-in-london/

Is there "anything new under the sun"?

This quote from a news article in The  Morning Oregonian from 1906 suggests there is not.

“Whenever an unusually hot season is upon us, sweltering humanity talks about the changes in climate and shakes its head in a foreboding fashion.”

Source: https://realclimatescience.com/2022/07/100-degrees-in-london/

Isn't it incredible that a newspaper in Oregon in 1906 could so accurately predict what Al Gore would say in 2006 and Adam Schiff in 2022?

There truly is nothing new under the sun.

The Curious Case of Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Haiti and the Dominican Republic are neighboring nations on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean.

Haiti is on the west end of the island and the Dominican Republic stretches to the east.

Hispaniola lies just southeast of Cuba and just west of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea.

Although Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island, the quality of life of their citizens are vastly different.

GDP per capita is about 6x higher in the DR as it is in Haiti as are average incomes.

Life expectancies are about ten years longer in the DR as they are in Haiti.

Population density in Haiti is almost double what it is in the DR.

There are twice as many hospital beds and six times as many doctors in the DR per capita as there are in Haiti.

Looking at the background data you would think that Haiti would be extremely vulnerable when confronted with a pandemic brought about by a virus such as Covid-19.

You might conclude that another natural disaster awaited Haiti when you consider that only 1% of the population has been vaccinated compared to 55% in the DR.

How has it worked out between the two countries?

The DR has had about 25 times the number of confirmed cases per capita that Haiti has had since the pandemic began.

Granted, this number is undoubtedly misleading because of Haiti's scant health resources which clearly is resulting in many undiagnosed or missed cases that are not recorded.

In that case, deaths from Covid is a better measure and should be more reliable.

However, deaths from Covid in the DR are reported to be about 6 times higher per capita than they have been in Haiti since the beginning of the pandemic.

How is it that Haiti, in which almost no one is vaccinated, in a country with scant health resources, has only a fraction of the Covid cases and deaths as neighboring Dominican Republic?

Is this not curious?

It is almost as if no one had ever created a test for Covid or a narrative around it that anyone would have noticed.

Have we ever seen any pandemic like this in the history of mankind?

Have we ever seen a vaccine that promised more and delivered less when you look at the actual data?

If you doubt that consider the Covid situation on the neighboring island of Puerto Rico right now.

87% of everyone age 5 and older in Puerto Rico are fully vaccinated. This is much higher than the vaccine rate in the DR.

Right now Puerto Rico has the highest number of reported cases per capita of any U.S. state or territory.

Puerto Rico has over 40 times the number of cases now as it did at this time last year.

Confirmed cases in Puerto Rico are also nine times higher than the DR right now.

New Reported Covid Cases in Puerto Rico-7-day average
Source: The New York Times Covid Tracker

Notice that Puerto Rico had relatively few Covid cases until after the vaccines were introduced in early 2021. 

Hospital admissions this year are over 3x what they were at this time last year for all ages.

Source: The New York Times Covid Tracker

For the most vulnerable age 70+ age group (90%+ fully vaccinated), hospital admissions in Puerto Rico are 4x what they were last year.

Deaths were averaging .3 per week last year. Puerto Rico has been averaging about 6 deaths a week this year---a 20-fold increase. 

It is all quite curious.

Yet almost no questions are asked.

And most assuredly no answers are ever given as to how this is possible based on the public health narrative that keeps being repeated over and over again irrespective of facts like these that are right in front of us but are conveniently ignored.