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Best of the Web: Millions infected? NY Gov. Cuomo claims antibody tests suggest Covid-19 is 'less fatal than previously thought'


RT
Thu, 23 Apr 2020 17:08 UTC

Comment: Of course it's 'less fatal than previously thought'. But they already knew that. They're just 'letting you down gently'...


VialAntibodies
© Reuters/Thomas Peter
Early antibody testing for the coronavirus in 19 New York counties suggests up to 2.7 million people could have been infected in the state alone, meaning the real death rate may be much lower, Governor Andrew Cuomo has revealed.

Results from a random testing sample of 3,000 New Yorkers have revealed that some 13.9 percent of state residents have likely had and recovered from the coronavirus, Cuomo stated in a press conference on Thursday.

While the governor cautioned that the results were preliminary and varied county by county, he still managed to throw the perception of the virus as a mortal threat for New Yorkers into question. The new numbers indicate that this revised infection rate, compared to 15,740 deaths linked to coronavirus statewide, points to a fatality rate of only about 0.5 - much lower than previously believed.

New York is the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in the US, and New York City has been hardest hit given its high population density. However, even in the city, where 21.2 percent tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies (1.77 million people) during this trial, a casualty count of 15,000 deaths points to a fatality rate of 0.8 percent.

Comment: This is the fourth such study in the U.S. showing this. Take home points seem to be: a) the lockdown doesn't work, b) the mortality rate is a fraction of what the authorities have been saying up until this point. Actual thinking scientists have been saying these things since close to the beginning. Maybe it's time to start listening? See also:

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Smoking

Best of the Web: French researchers to give nicotine patches to coronavirus patients, frontline workers after low infection rates found among smokers

Mary Kekatos
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 23 Apr 2020 15:12 UTC

Comment: They would save themselves trouble if they just gave them tobacco to smoke...


Man with nicotine patch
French researchers are planning to trial whether nicotine patches will help prevent - or lessen the effects of - the deadly coronavirus.

Evidence is beginning to show the proportion of smokers infected with coronavirus is much lower than the rates in the general population.

Scientists are now questioning whether nicotine could stop the virus from infecting cells, or if it may prevent the immune system overreacting to the infection.

Doctors at a major hospital in Paris - who also found low rates of smoking among the infected - are now planning to give nicotine patches to COVID-19 patients.

They will also give them to frontline workers to see if the stimulant has any effect on preventing the spread of the virus, according to reports.

Comment: BUT they're only giving them to select COVID-19 patients for 'trials'. Meanwhile, they're moving to BAN the sale of nicotine patches. They know tobacco products work, so they're in a race to control the supply before people realize the scam:

France bans online sales of nicotine products, limits sale in pharmacies

See also:

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Hourglass

Best of the Web: Revolutionary times give way to systemic collapse - 'the system cannot handle it'

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
moneypit
© ClipDealer/KJN
Some have queried how it could be that President Putin would co-operate with President Trump to have OPEC+ push oil prices higher - when those higher prices precisely would only help sustain U.S. oil production. In effect, President Putin was being asked to underwrite a subsidy to the U.S. economy - at the expense of Russia's own oil and gas sales - since U.S. shale production simply is not economic at these prices. In other words, Russia seemed to be shooting itself in the foot.

Well, the calculus for Moscow on whether to cut production (to help Trump) was never simple. There were geo-political and domestic economic considerations - as well as the industry ones - to weigh. But, perhaps one issue trumped all others?

Since 2007, President Putin has been pointing to one overarching threat to global trade: And that problem was simply, the U.S. dollar.

And now, that dollar is in crisis. We are referring, here, not so much to America's domestic financial crisis (although the monetisation of U.S. debt is connected to a threat to the global system), but rather, how the international trading system is poised to blow apart, with grave consequences for everyone. In other words, Covid-19 may be the trigger, but it is the U.S. dollar - as President Putin has long warned - that is the root problem:

Comment: And so, one way or another, global revolution is coming. The globalists will attempt to direct it to their liking, but it may overwhelm them.

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Pyramid

Best of the Web: The seven-step path from pandemic to totalitarianism

Rosemary Frei
OffGuardian
Thu, 23 Apr 2020 06:10 UTC
There are just seven steps from pandemic declaration to permanent totalitarianism - and many jurisdictions are about to start Step 5

total control hand
As if it was planned in advance, billions of people around the globe are being forced step by rapid step into a radically different way of life, one that involves far less personal, physical and financial freedom and agency

Here is the template for rolling this out.

Step 1

A new virus starts to spread around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) declares a pandemic.

International agencies, public-health officials, politicians, media and other influential voices fan fear by focusing almost exclusively on the contagiousness of the virus and the rising numbers of cases, and by characterizing the virus as extremely dangerous.

Within a few days governments at national and local levels also declare states of emergency. At lightning speed they impose lock-down measures that confine most people to their homes - starting with closing schools - and shut down much of the global economy. World markets implode.

The stunned, fearful and credulous public - convinced over the previous few years that their bodies do not have the natural ability to react to pathogens by producing antibodies that confer long-lasting immunity - largely complies willingly.

The first weekly virtual class on local emergency and crisis responses to COVID19 is held for mayors and other city officials around the world. Coordinated by a handful of American organizations in the academic, medical, financial, political and transportation spheres, the classes feature guests ranging from Barack Obama to Bill Gates.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Best of the Web: Nobel-winning scientist who discovered HIV claims SARS-CoV-2 virus 'contains HIV genetic sequence', likely 'leaked from a lab'


Livemint
Sun, 19 Apr 2020 19:15 UTC

Comment: Of course, he gets the source wrong (Wuhan, China), but still, what a bombshell if true that this thing has been genetically modified by mad scientists. Even IF this came out of the Wuhan BSL-4 bio-lab, that's a WHO-accredited facility with heavy academic and govt links to US and European bio-weapons labs...


laboratory
© ANIFile Photo
French Nobel prize winning scientist Luc Montagnier has sparked a fresh controversy by claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus came from a lab, and is the result of an attempt to manufacture a vaccine against the AIDS virus.

In an interview given to French CNews channel and during a podcast by Pourquoi Docteur, professor Montagnier, who co-discovered HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), claimed the presence of elements of HIV in the genome of the coronavirus and even elements of the "germ of malaria" are highly suspect, according to a report in Asia Times.

"The Wuhan city laboratory has specialized in these coronaviruses since the early 2000s. They have expertise in this area," he was quoted as saying.

The theory that Covid-19 virus originated in the lab is making rounds for quite some time.


Comment: See also: Coronavirus now has thousands of strains and mutations, some rare, some more pathogenic

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Nuke

Best of the Web: The U.S. government's secret history of grisly experiments

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Wed, 22 Apr 2020 19:29 UTC
"They were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don't recognize them for what they are until it's too late." — Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
tuskegee experiment syphilis
I have never known any government to put the best interests of its people first, and this COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.

Now this isn't intended to be a debate over whether COVID-19 is a legitimate health crisis or a manufactured threat. Such crises can — and are — manipulated by governments in order to expand their powers. As such, it is possible for the virus to be both a genuine menace to public health and a menace to freedom.

Yet we can't afford to overlook the fact that governments the world over, including the U.S. government, have unleashed untold horrors upon the world in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances, all packaged in the guise of the greater good.

While the U.S. government is currently looking into the possibility that the novel coronavirus spread from a Chinese laboratory rather than a market, the virus could just as easily have been created by the U.S. government or one of its allies.

After all, grisly experiments, barbaric behavior and inhumane conditions have become synonymous with the U.S. government, which has meted out untold horrors against humans and animals alike.
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Dollar Gold

Best of the Web: Millionaire 'Democrat' Nancy Pelosi 'relates to the suffering masses' by showing off $24,000 dollar fridge stocked with $13 pots of ice cream

James Corbett
Corbett Report
Wed, 22 Apr 2020 19:20 UTC
Marie Antoinette didn't actually say "Let them eat cake" but you won't believe who is saying "Let them eat ice cream." Join James for this edition of #PropagandaWatch as he explores the latest fad among the celebrities and political puppets: Shaming poor people!
Queen Pelosi
© CDN
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X

Best of the Web: Is lockdown essential? Comparing the Swedish experience with the Imperial College model suggests otherwise

Rob Slane
The Blogmire
Wed, 22 Apr 2020 17:54 UTC
imperial college
I wonder how many people who claim that lockdown is essential to dealing with Covid-19 have actually looked at the original Imperial College report, which sparked the British Government's decision to shut down much of the economy and place the most draconian measures on the population ever seen. Had they done so, they might have been shocked to find that the modelling they used assumes the measures would be put in place for 5 months:
"Suppression strategies are assumed to be in place for 5 months or longer." (p. 6)

"The blue shading shows the 5-month period in which these interventions are assumed to remain in place." (p. 10)
Would those who accepted lockdown as absolutely necessary have been quite so ready to accept it had they known that it would need to be put in place for 5 months? My guess is no, yet that is what "the science" they followed actually calls for. Of course it remains to be seen whether the Government will continue on this course, or whether most of the media and large sections of the public who demanded and welcomed the draconian measures are prepared to continue backing that particular horse, but if they are to be consistent and "led by the science", as they have so far claimed, they are going to have to insist that lockdown should continue until late August, as the Imperial College model says it should.

But as I have said repeatedly, I see no evidence for the necessity of lockdown, for two reasons. Firstly because the case fatality rate of Covid-19 does not warrant it (the evidence points to between 0.1%-0.5%, and a recent study from Stanford University suggests it may be between 0.12% and 0.2%). And secondly, because I have seen no evidence to suggest that a lockdown strategy makes any real difference in reducing cases and deaths.
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Heart - Black

Best of the Web: Criminal! NY issues do-not-resuscitate guideline for cardiac patients amid induced coronavirus panic

Carl Campanile and Kate Sheehy
New York Post
Tue, 21 Apr 2020 17:44 UTC

Comment: This is exactly what they've rolled out in Europe too. The premise is supposedly that the virus is so deadly, it will kill medics if they try to resuscitate people 'suspected' of having it. As everyone should be able to see by now, the virus is not deadly to 99.99% of people, which means that this protocol is going to ramp up deaths-by-medical malpractice...


FDNY ambulance
© Taidgh Barron/NY PostAn FDNY ambulance responds to a call in the East Village.
New York state just issued a drastic new guideline urging emergency services workers not to bother trying to revive anyone without a pulse when they get to a scene, amid an overload of coronavirus patients.

While paramedics were previously told to spend up to 20 minutes trying to revive people found in cardiac arrest, the change is "necessary during the COVID-19 response to protect the health and safety of EMS providers by limiting their exposure, conserve resources, and ensure optimal use of equipment to save the greatest number of lives,'' according to a state Health Department memo issued last week.

First responders were outraged over the move.

"They're not giving people a second chance to live anymore,'' Oren Barzilay, head of the city union whose members include uniformed EMTs and paramedics, fumed of state officials.

Comment: No, these changes are orders handed down from the One World Govt.

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Health

Best of the Web: Fake pandemic: Army field hospital for Covid-19 surge leaves Seattle after 9 days. It never saw a patient

Liz Brazile
kuow.org
Wed, 08 Apr 2020 13:05 UTC
seattle field hospital empty
© KUOW Photo/Megan FarmerU.S. Army soldiers set up a military field hospital inside CenturyLink Field Event Center on Sunday, April 5, 2020, in Seattle. The 250-bed hospital for non COVID-19 patients was deployed by soldiers from the 627th Army Hospital from Fort Carson, Colorado, as well as soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Gov. Jay Inslee's office on Wednesday announced that the state will be returning a field hospital deployed to CenturyLink Field Event Center to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The 250-bed facility, for which setup began on March 30, was intended to help Washington state's health care system tend to non Covid-19 patients in the event of a hospital surge.

But just three days after announcing the facility was ready to receive patients, officials say they're returning the hospital to the federal government.

Comment: That's some real cognitive dissonance right there. Framing this as the hospital not being needed because of the effectiveness of social distancing is confirmation bias at the extreme. Perhaps, just perhaps, the hospital would have never been needed, even if social distancing had not been instituted, because the virus is over-hyped and hospitals are not being overrun with sick patients.

See also:

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