How Effective Have They Been?

The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 Phase 3 clinical trial study concluded with this statement when the results were released to the public on November 18, 2020.

Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose.

The vaccine was stated to be 95% effective against COVID-19.

Note that Pfizer/BioNTech did not state that it was 95% effective in reducing symptoms, preventing serious disease, hospitalization of death.

The statement was simply that is was 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose.

43,661 individuals were in the study. 

Moderna reported similar results for its COVID-19 vaccine in the final Phase 3 trial.

The mRNA-1273 vaccine showed 94.1% efficacy at preventing Covid-19 illness, including severe disease. Aside from transient local and systemic reactions, no safety concerns were identified.

94% effective in preventing Covid-19 illness, including severe disease.

Over 30,000 volunteers participated in the Moderna trial.

Based on these studies, the FDA granted emergency use authorization for both vaccines to be administered in the United States.

Those authorizations were provided for the vaccines based on the fact that they would prevent COVID-19 disease.

This is taken directly from the FDA Review Memorandum for the Pfizer vaccine issued on December 11, 2020. The Moderna vaccine had identical wording for its intended use.

Source: https://www.fda.gov/media/144416/download

Since the vaccines were authorized, over 12 billion doses have been administered around the world.

In the United States, over 600 million doses of the vaccines have been administered.

67% (223 million) of every man, woman and child in the nation are fully vaccinated.

Over 100 million have received at least one booster dose.

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-additional-dose-totalpophg

Based on the representations made by the Pharma companies and the FDA,  Covid cases should have plummeted as vaccinations were rolled out.

For example, this is a graph of polio cases in the United States before and after the polio vaccine was rolled out in 1955.

Source: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-lessons-polio-vaccine-lab-americans.html

Compare that to what the experience has been with Covid since the vaccines were initially distributed beginning December 15, 2020.

This chart of cumulative cases shows a steady increase after the vaccines were introduced.

There have been 85% more Covid cases per month on an average basis nationally since the vaccines were introduced compared to the pre-vaccine period.

It can be argued that this is not a completely fair comparison because it takes awhile for the vaccine rollout to gain scale. 

Many would argue that hospitalizations and deaths should also be considered, not cases alone.

I recently undertook to analyze these three dimensions of Covid in my home state of Ohio comparing the one year period of July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 to the following one year period.

I considered the former year to be the pre-vaccination base period. Vaccinations were occurring throughout this period  but a substantial percentage of the population was fully vaccinated by June 30, 2021---six months after the vaccines were first made available.

The post-vaccination period was July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.

Comparing these two periods should give a fair assessment of just how effective the vaccines have been.

Ohio has a population of almost 12 million making the sample size of my study considerably larger than the 75,000 who participated in the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials. My study looked at two years. The Pfizer and Moderna trials only lasted two months.

These are the results for the "pre-vaccination" period July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 as reported on the Ohio Covid Dashboard.

Source: https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/dashboards

These are the results for the "post-vaccination" period from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.

Source: https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/dashboards

Cases, hospitalizations and deaths were all higher in the post-vaccination period than in the pre-vaccination period.

There were actually 65% more cases in the year in the post-vaccination period than in the pre-vaccination period.

How can you look at this data and conclude the vaccines have been effective?

However, that is exactly what we continue to hear.

For example, the argument is made that despite the 65% increase in cases that the vaccines were still effective in limiting hospitalizations and deaths.

It is true that hospitalizations and deaths have not increased in concert with cases over the last year. However, it is unclear if that is due to the vaccines or the fact that most of the increases in cases were due to the Omicron variant which seems to be much less virulent.

I wrote about data from Africa (where only about 20% are fully vaccinated and less than 3% have taken a booster dose) in an earlier blog post that showed that the death rate from Omicron has not moved in conjunction with the case rate despite the low vaccination rate on that continent.

In the first three waves, deaths mirrored cases but this relationship began to fall apart with Omicron BA 1/2 and has completely disconnected with Omicron BA 4/5.

This suggests the lower death rates from Omicron around the world has more to do with the virus than any significant protection from the vaccines.

The vaccines may have some marginal benefit against serious disease and death but the data suggests that it is far less than what was promised at the outset. That benefit must also be balanced against any risks in taking the vaccine.

The bigger point is that we were promised vaccines that were 94% or 95% effective at preventing Covid disease.

That was how the vaccines were promoted.

That was the basis upon which it was argued that the transmission of the disease would be curtailed.

That was the basis upon which mandates were instituted.

That was the basis upon which people were fired from their jobs if they were unwilling to take the vaccine.

That was the basis upon which students could not attend college if they did not get vaccinated.

That was the basis upon which unvaccinated people were barred from restaurants, cruise ships, concerts and other aspects of life.

It appears that the CDC is even beginning to recognize the obvious.

It modified its guidance last week that makes no distinction between those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated.

The obvious question is why it has taken so long to recognize the obvious when the data (and BeeLine) have been pointing this out for a very long time?

How effective has the CDC been in all of this?

How effective has the FDA been?

How effective has Dr. Tony Fauci been?

After all that we have seen, Fauci is still not willing to admit that there might be the slightest chance that the advice he has been giving on the vaccines might be wrong.

After being double vaccinated and double boosted, Fauci, who just infected with Covid in June (and had a rebound case after taking Paxlovid) has this advice for Americans.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/video/fauci-stark-warning-those-covid-120836969.html

Coincidentally, the same thing happened to double vaccinated, double boosted Joe Biden a couple of weeks later.

The problem is that the people who should be in trouble don't seem to have the slightest feeling of guilt or remorse for their ineffectiveness and what they have done to the lives of tens of millions of people over the last two years.

Is there any question that the public health establishment has caused greater damage to mankind in its response to Covid that anyone else in human history short of causing a World War?

At this point, pivots in policy and even apologies are small comfort.

Who is going to be held accountable for the incompetence, inanity and intransigence that led us here?

Nothing Is Under Control Except You

Exactly one year ago Joe Biden criticized Donald Trump as being "late in the game" in his response to Covid.  He said that Covid was not under control and that a federal plan was necessary with better guidelines to get the virus under control. He stated he was in favor of mask mandates as part of his plan.

Since that time 343 million doses of Covid vaccines have been delivered in the United States.

67% of the age 12+ population (those eligible for the vaccine) have received at least one dose of the vaccines.

58% are fully vaccinated.

90% of the age 65+ population have received at least one dose.

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations

The vaccines are free to the public.

The federal government is paying Pfizer $19.50 per dose and Moderna $15 for each shot.

Health providers who administer the shot also receive $17-$28 per jab.

Therefore, the total cost to the federal government is about $40 per dose.

That would mean that almost $14 billion has been spent on the Covid vaccine program by the federal government thus far. In addition, several billion dollars more have been spent promoting the vaccines through advertising and incentive payments to get people vaccinated.

How many new cases of Covid did we have last year (3-day moving average) when Joe Biden was criticizing Donald Trump?

The number of new daily confirmed cases was 60,623 on July 28, 2020.

Credit: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

What is the number on July 28, 2021 after the United States has spent that enormous sum of money  "vaccinating" the majority of the population?

71,469!

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Don't you think this fact is reason enough to question whether the vaccines are effective at their intended purpose?

You may have noticed that the political class is now shifting the narrative to something like this.

"We never said the vaccines were going to stop infections, but they will keep you out of the hospital." 

However, the fact is that the emergency use authorizations were given to the Covid vaccines based entirely on preventing infection, not hospitalization.

Below is an excerpt from the review memorandum from the FDA when the EUA was granted for the Pfizer vaccine. Note the intended use for the "unapproved product".

Source: https://www.fda.gov/media/144416/download

It says nothing about preventing severe disease or hospitalizations. It was authorized because the PHARMA companies stated in their EUA applications that it would PREVENT disease.

Here is the same document for the Moderna vaccine.

Source: https://www.fda.gov/media/144673/download

Let's restate the facts.

2/3 of the entire population of the United States age 12+ has received at least one dose of the vaccines.

Cases are higher today than one year ago when there were no vaccines.

How can it be said that the vaccines are preventing Covid-19?

It defies all reason and logic. Every vaccinated person and every prior infection should reduce the odds of transmission of the virus. The virus is spreading faster today than it did one year ago. Something is amiss.

It also makes no sense to argue that 1/3 of the population of the United States is driving the increase in cases and the answer is to vaccinate more people.

Similarly, it is difficult to understand what reimposing mask mandates is going to do.

Most of the mask mandates across the country were put in place in July of last year. A few states put mandates in place earlier but by the end of July most states had mask mandates.

You can see that once in place mask adherence was almost 100% very quickly.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7561164/

What I find interesting in looking back at the data is that the mask mandates were instituted at almost the same time that cases were heading down last year.

Of course, despite the mask mandates and high rates of mask adherence, cases started rising in the Fall and peaked in January four times higher than they were when the mask mandates were instituted.

Did the masks do anything? It certainly is not apparent looking at the data.

How can anyone look at this data and state that the answer is more vaccines in people's arms and more mask mandates?

It is counter factual looking at well over a year of data on Covid.

You might even say at this point that it is not consistent with the SCIENCE.

The good news in all of this is that deaths have not increased in conjunction with the increased number of daily cases thus far.

This may be due to the vaccines.

Then again, it may be due to the fact that the current Covid variants are less virulent that what we were seeing last year. It may also be due to the fact that we have gotten better at treating Covid with therapeutics such as Regeneron and other treatments. Unfortunately, it may be that more deaths are yet to come from the increasing cases and hospitalizations. 

Hospitalizations from Covid are also moving higher recently. The narrative is that these are almost all unvaccinated but this does not pass the smell test. The CDC is not making this data available to compare vaccinated vs. unvaccinated hospitalizations.

Let't look at the numbers we do have from the CDC.

New hospitalizations are also higher today than they were a year ago.

The rate of hospitalizations for Covid on August 1 last year was 1.55/100,000 when no one was vaccinated.

It was 1.56/100,000 on July 26, 2021 with 70% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine.

How is anyone making the case that the vaccines are the answer? The reality of the data is they actually might be a part of the problem.

For example, look at the rate of hospitalizations for Covid for those in the 30-39 and 40-49 age groups.

On August 1, 2020 the hospitalization rate for those 30-39 was .68/100,000 with no vaccinations.

On July 26, 2021 it was 1.35/100,000 with about 50% of all those in this age group fully vaccinated.

In other words, hospitalizations have doubled even though half of this age group has been vaccinated since last year.

New Hospital Admissions for Covid-19
Ages 30-39
Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions

For those ages 40-49 the hospital admission rate was 1.09 at this time last year and it was 1.92 on July 26, 2021. 58% of this age group is fully vaccinated today compared to 0% last year.

New Hospital Admissions for Covid-19
Ages 40-49
Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions

Even those between the ages 60-69, of which almost 90% have received the vaccine, are seeing an increase in hospitalizations from Covid.

The most current rate of hospitalization is 2.57/100,000. Last year it was 2.12 when no one was vaccinated.

New Hospitalizations for Covid-19
Ages 60-69
Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions

Can someone explain this?

Are we sure that somehow the vaccines are not creating Antibody Dependent Enhancement where those who are vaccinated are actually getting sicker when exposed to the virus after getting the jab than they would otherwise? Those who warned about this potential problem when the mass vaccine roll-out began stated that it would most likely affect those younger than those older due to more robust immune systems. Is that occurring?

I don't know but I do know that something does not add up right now when looking at the data.

If the vaccines are working why are there so many more cases and why are so many more young people being admitted to the hospital now with vaccines available compared to last year when they were not?

There are just too many moving parts with Covid for anyone to be making declarative statements as to what is true and what is not.

I look at the data and asks questions based on what I see in the numbers.

Why then does the political class persist in making those definitive statements even when the data is practically shouting at them to not do so?

It seems to me that they should be honestly seeking answers to these questions rather than declaring they have absolute answers to everything while suppressing all debate. 

In the meantime, it is becoming increasingly clear that Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci and the CDC do not have anything under control with Covid right now. The data shows that Covid is under less control today than it was a year ago when Trump was their target.

Unfortunately, their only answer to everything involving Covid is to try to enforce more control over your life and everyone else.

Nothing is under control right now except you.

Don't let them control you with false narratives unsupported by hard facts and data.

Be smart. Be aware of the data. Understand that the political class and public health officials are deeply invested in the narrative. At this point, would they ever be willing to admit they were wrong about anything?

The State of the Virus

As we begin the new year let's take account of the state of the virus.

Since the Covid virus was unleashed on the world over two years ago our experts have believed that they could control and outsmart the virus.

They told us the virus could be defeated by social distancing, washing our hands, locking down businesses, closing schools and wearing face masks.

Source: https://abc7chicago.com/masks-face-us-covid/6320058/

They told us that those vaccinated could not spread the virus.

April 1, 2021
Source: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/cdc-data-suggests-vaccinated-dont-carry-cant-spread-virus.html

The experts said that the vaccines would mean Covid would hit a dead end and disappear.

May 16, 2021
Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-vaccinated-people-become-dead-ends-for-the-coronavirus

They then said that boosters on top of the original doses of the vaccine would be the answer to get us to normal.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/boosters-for-all-is-critical-not-a-luxury-fauci-says-as-fda-decision-nears/

The virus has always won.

Right now it is winning like it is Alabama playing the Sisters of Mercy junior high football team.

Transport yourself back in time to one year ago just as the vaccines were being introduced and having someone show you this chart predicting how Covid pandemic cases would look over the next year.

New reported cases (7-day average) in the United States as of 12/31/21
Source: The New York Times

The 7-day average of cases was almost exactly double on December 31, 2021 as it was a year earlier shortly after the vaccines were first administered.

Imagine how quickly that person would have been permanently banned by Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn a year ago for spreading dangerous lies and misinformation like this?

The graphs look even worse in heavily vaccinated Washington, DC, New York and New Jersey.

On December 31 all had reached new daily case averages that were over 300% above last winter's peak daily case average.

Source: The New York Times

.

If anyone had a peek at the future a year ago and saw how this would unfold could they have possibly believed that these vaccines were "effective" let alone considered to be "an honest-to-God miracle?

Source: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/03/29/covid-19-vaccine-miracle-life-pandemic-240312

Keep in mind that these official daily case counts right now are undoubtedly seriously undercounting cases relative to last year because there are so many home self-tests now being used.

In the meantime, the experts are busy trying to revise history by claiming that no one ever said that the vaccines were going to prevent you from getting Covid.

The problem is that all of them said it. You see can it here.

Source: https://twitter.com/KoaTheGreat/status/1475647117808967680

I am one person who did not say it.

I wrote this in October, 2020 (two months BEFORE the vaccines were authorized) after I read how the testing protocols for the Covid vaccines were being conducted. I asked at that time what was the point of having vaccines that did not have a primary goal of preventing infection?

Prevention of infection is the normal critical end point goal for any vaccine trial. The vaccine should be effective at preventing infection and stopping the spread of the virus. This is particularly important at this time when we have a virus that has caused a pandemic.

However, that is not the stated goal of the Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines that are currently in late stage trials with the expectation they will be ready for widespread distribution within several months.

... in none of the vaccine trial protocols for any of these vaccines is the prevention of infection considered a criterion of success.

The vaccines are to be considered a success merely if they reduce the severity of the symptoms of someone who is infected with Covid.

This is further confirmed in the vaccine testing protocols in that none of the vaccine candidates list preventing hospitalizations and deaths as primary goals of the vaccines either.

What then is the point of spending billions and billions of dollars on these vaccines?

Of course, the FDA also said it when it gave the EUA (emergency use authorization) which was based on the assertion that the vaccines were "to prevent coronavirus disease 2019."

For example, this is an excerpt from the review memorandum from the FDA when the EUA was granted for the Pfizer vaccine. 

Source: Source: https://www.fda.gov/media/144416/download

As I have stated previously, there is evidence to suggest that the vaccines have reduced hospitalizations and deaths.

However, the data suggests that the claims have been vastly oversold.

How often have we have heard that "99%" or "almost everyone" in the hospital, or has died from Covid over the last year, has been unvaccinated?

The latest data from the UK in its weekly surveillance report indicates that 70% of those who died with a Covid positive test in the previous four weeks were fully vaccinated with two doses.

Source: UK Covid-19 Surveillance Report, Week 51, Page 38

Since most of the deaths are in those age 60+, and these age groups have vaccination rates exceeding 90%, there is evidence of a protective benefit from the vaccine in this data. Full effectiveness with a 90% vaccine rate would equate to a 10% death rate. No effectiveness would be a 90% death rate. A 70% death rate indicates a marginal benefit.

Interestingly, data from Ontario released this week also shows that 66% of hospitalizations in that Canadian province are fully vaccinated. Only 29% of cases are in those unvaccinated.

Source: https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data

29% is a long way from 99%.

Again, the data indicates that the vaccines are providing some benefit at keeping people out of the hospitals. However, the claims made about reduced hospitalizations due to the vaccines seem wildly exaggerated.

I wish I could provide you with U.S. data from the CDC but it is not publishing this information in the same detail and timeliness that is available in other parts of the world.

However, what would explain why the U.S. data would be materially different? 

What is most disturbing about the state of the virus right now is that it appears to actually be disproportionately attacking the vaccinated. 

For example, right now in Ontario there are 33% more Covid cases per capita in those fully vaccinated than in those not vaccinated.

Source: https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data

A report out of German also shows a disproportionate amount of Omicron cases are in the fully vaccinated.

Source: https://twitter.com/Humble_Analysis/status/1476780404090699778

In Israel, 65% of the population is fully vaccinated. 45% is boosted. 35% is unvaccinated.

79% of cases last week were in those fully vaccinated or boosted. Only 19% of cases are in unvaccinated although that group represents 35% of the population.

Source: https://twitter.com/Humble_Analysis/status/1476586273095577601

It seems that no matter where we look the virus is winning against human interventions.

In fact, as the charts above indicate, we may have actually boosted the virus through use of the vaccines.

In Australia, which has used internment camps to quarantine those infected or with close contacts with Covid, the daily 7-day average of cases looks like this.

91% of everyone age 16+ is fully vaccinated in Australia.

One of the most remarkable statistics I have seen since the beginning of the pandemic is that Australia had more new cases of Covid on a single day (December 31, 2021) than it had in the entire year of 2020!

Chart: BeeLine

On January 1, 2022, cases on that single day in Australia (60,006 new daily cases) were more than twice what they were for the entire year 2020!

If there remains any doubt in your mind that the experts have totally failed in telling us that they could control and outsmart the virus with the vaccines and other human interventions, consider this story out of Antarctica.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59848160

Despite everyone being fully vaccinated and tested before arriving at one of the most remote outposts in the world, 16 of 25 of workers at the Belgium scientific research station have caught the virus.

Such is the state of the virus.

The problem that the experts face now is that they have told people for almost two years they have had all the answers as to how to end this.

They have also tried to censor and marginalize anyone who challenged the narrative.

All of this was done under a social contract in which people gave up some of their freedoms and trusted that the public authorities knew what they doing in furtherance of the best interests of the greater good.

More people have sacrificed individual freedom and rights in the name of public health over the last two years that at any time in history.

Billions of people agreed to be vaccinated against Covid on the promise that it would allow them to regain their freedom and/or protect other people in their communities.

Many did so against their own conscience under coercion in order to travel, socialize or retain their job.

However, more and more people are beginning to see that the social contract was violated by public authorities who have been arrogant and close-minded in their approach. The social contract does not work if there are no tangible results to show for it. Many are now seeing that their sacrifices were for naught.

If those public authorities were smart they would usher in 2022 with a new-found humility and confession about their many errors.

Their arrogance and unwillingness to consider other opinions and alternative approaches to confront the virus have harmed untold millions.

As a result, the state of many unions around the world will be harmed due to the damage done to the social contract.

Judgments are coming in 2022.

We will undoubtedly see many of the "experts" walk back previous statements, make excuses or attempt to rewrite history in order to cover their rear ends.

Those who are unwilling to admit the errors of the path they put society on will fall hard.

It is long past time that the responsible authorities put their pride aside and replace their hubris with a measure of humility regarding the harm they visited upon those who provided them such unfounded trust.

Proverbs 16:18

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Florida Is Now A Blue State

Florida is now a blue state.

Florida has a Republican Governor and Republicans control of both houses of the state legislature by fairly substantial margins.

It voted for Donald Trump in the last two Presidential elections.

How could I say it is now a blue state?

This is the latest CDC chart on the level of community transmission of Covid by county across the entire United States.

Community Transmission of Covid by County
11/22/21 to 11/28/21
Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/index.html#county-view

Almost every county in Florida is considered to have low community transmission of Covid over the last week.

It all adds ups to a very blue state based on the CDC's color-coded transmission levels.

You may recall that Joe Biden was highly critical of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis this past August stating that what DeSantis was doing was "bad health policy".

Source: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2021/08/04/joe-biden-criticizes-florida-gov-ron-desantis-covid-19-response-calling-it-bad-health-policy

“I believe the results of their decisions are not good for their constituents,” Biden said, according to a transcript released by the White House. “And it's clear to me and to most of the medical experts that the decisions being made, like not allowing mask mandates in school and the like, are bad health policy —- bad health policy.” 

That policy does not look so bad right now. 

It is true that Florida went through a surge of cases in the summer and it did not look good.

To his credit, DeSantis did not cave to the pressure at the time when it would have been easy to do so. He was confident in his position and it has benefited the people of Florida in a big way.

“We are having schools open. We are protecting every Floridian’s job in this state. We are protecting peoples’ small businesses,” DeSantis said. “These interventions have failed time and time again throughout this pandemic, not just in the United States, but abroad. They have not stopped the spread, And particularly with delta that is even more transmissible. It if didn’t stop it before, it definitely ain’t going to stop it now. I think it’s very important we understand that.” 

Why is it that everyone who was saying that DeSantis was presiding over a disaster is not saying a word about Florida right now?

The exact opposite of Florida is California under the leadership of Gavin Newsom.

The people of that state have been living under various lockdowns, mandates and school restrictions for almost two years.

Looking at the map above, California is in a better position than most other states right now on transmission. However, it has almost double the number of cases per capita as Florida does right now.

California does have fewer per capita cumulative cases and deaths than Florida over the entire course of the pandemic (approximately 30% lower).

However, Florida has a much greater percentage of senior citizens. Florida ranks second in the nation in the percent of its population over age 65.

Florida's median age is 42.5. California's median age is 37.0. That is the 6th youngest population in the United States.

Florida is dealing with a much more vulnerable population to Covid than California.

Although DeSantis has made it clear he opposed vaccine mandates and banned businesses attempting to use them as a condition of employment or to enter a venue, Florida (61%) and California (63%) have nearly identical percentages of the population fully vaccinated.  California is also mandating Covid vaccines for children to attend school.

On Oct. 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would require all K-12 students to be fully vaccinated in the school term after the FDA grants full approval for the vaccine for those age groups. California would become the first state with such a requirement.

DeSantis prohibits school districts in the state from even mandating the wearing of a mask.

California's strict Covid policies have come at huge economic cost to the state.

California currently has the highest unemployment rate in the nation (tied with Nevada) at 7.3%. Florida's rate is 4.6%.

People are streaming into Florida from across the country---to permanently relocate and to vacation.

Florida just announced that the number travel visitors to the state is now higher than it was in 2019 before the pandemic.

Source: https://www.flgov.com/2021/11/23/governor-desantis-announces-florida-visitation-tops-pre-pandemic-levels/

On the other hand, California saw its population drop by 182,000 last year. That is the first annual decrease ever recorded in the state's history.

Businesses are also leaving California at unprecedented levels. Tesla, Oracle and Hewlett Packard are all big corporate names who announced they were moving their headquarters out of California in the last year.

At the same time that Biden was criticizing Florida's Covid policies under DeSantis, he was pointing to states such as New York, Vermont and Maine which had strict Covid policies and strong vaccination policies as models. These are all politically Democrat "blue states". For example, in New York City you cannot enter most restaurants, gyms and buildings without being fully vaccinated.

This is what Biden said about Vermont and Maine on August 3, 2021.

Source: https://twitter.com/FrogNews/status/1465694787223183371

What do cases look like in these states right now? 

Vermont leads the nation in the percentage of its population fully vaccinated (73%).

Cases are much higher than they have ever been in Vermont. The 7-day average of cases is 7x higher than it was on the date that Biden made the statement above.

New Reported Cases in Vermont
Source: The New York Times

Maine is the second most vaccinated state (72%).

Cases have also surged in Maine hitting a new record high in cases last week until falling back over the last few days. 

New Reported Cases in Maine
Source: The New York Times

Some say that we should ignore new cases and focus on hospitalization numbers instead. They argue that the vaccines were only intended to prevent severe disease. Of course, this is contradicted by the evidence in which all of the vaccines were given their emergency use authorization based on the representation that they prevented Covid-19 disease. There was nothing in the application that mentioned it was intended only to prevent severe disease, hospitalization or death.

This is taken directly from the FDA authorization review memorandum for the Pfizer vaccine. Similar language is in the Moderna and J&J authorizations.

Source: Source: https://www.fda.gov/media/144416/download

What do hospitalizations look like in Vermont in 2021 compared to 2020 based on HHS data?

The vaccines are not keeping people in heavily vaccinated Vermont out of the hospital in 2021.

It is much worse than in 2020 when there was no vaccine.

Covid Hospitalizations in Vermont-2020 vs. 2021
Source: https://twitter.com/Hold2LLC/status/1465763642650079240/photo/3

You see the same trend in Maine's hospitalization numbers.

Covid Hospitalizations in Maine-2020 vs. 2021
Source: https://twitter.com/Hold2LLC/status/1465763642650079240/photo/3

New York is faring better but hospitalizations have not been this high since last April. The number is also on the rise in the state right now.

Covid Hospitalizations in New York per HHS-2020 vs, 2021
Source: https://twitter.com/Hold2LLC/status/1465763642650079240/photo/1

Looking at New York's numbers, as well as Florida's, I can't help but wonder whether the previous wave of infections in those states has produced a higher level of natural immunity that is more protective than the vaccines.

Vermont and Maine did not have the same underlying level of previous Covid cases as Florida and New York. There is a much smaller reservoir of natural immunity from prior infections. They have been relying on the vaccines. It appears to be failing them.

We could have the same effect occurring in Europe.

Europe is going through a major surge in cases right now despite the fact that vaccination rates are generally much higher there than in the United States.

There is one outlier.

Sweden.

The one country in the world that everyone criticized because they did not lockdown, close their schools and all the rest.

Donald Trump strongly criticized the Swedish approach early in the pandemic. 

“Despite reports to the contrary, Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown,” tweeted in May, 2020.

Trump was not alone. Almost every other country criticized Sweden's Covid strategy.

Sweden's approach has been similar to that of Ron DeSantis in Florida.

Protect the vulnerable. Emphasize early treatment. Don't destroy the economy, people's livelihoods or children's futures as you take on Covid.

Tony Fauci likes to claim that he knows all and anyone who questions him is questioning SCIENCE itself.

Source: https://bgr.com/science/dr-fauci-if-you-attack-me-youre-attacking-science/

He has continually stated there is no other way than his way. Any other way is simply defying SCIENCE.

Real science is indisputable. A scientific fact is the law of gravity, the boiling point of water or the distance to the moon. 

What Fauci calls SCIENCE is nothing more than his opinion and the opinions of those he surrounds himself with.

Consensus of opinion is not science. Prior to the 15th century, the consensus of scientists was that the earth was the center of the universe.

In the 18th century, the consensus of medical scientists was that blood letting was the best method to cure illness.

As recently as 25 years ago the consensus was that peptic ulcers were caused by stress. We now know it is caused by bacteria.

I could go on and on. In fact, in most cases like these, the consensus of scientists was proven wrong by one person who did not believe the consensus and proved it wrong.

Has Dr. Fauci and the others ever considered that they might be the ones who are wrong?

A simple question for Fauci.

If it is SCIENCE then how then do you explain away everything I just wrote about?