We are seeing similar walkbacks in the USA - especially against masks etc. Basically what I have known from the beginning is catching (or not catching) Corona is a matter of probabilities and little else. If there is high community spread, you are more likely to catch it and vice versa. Mitigation measures are akin to sun dances to make the sun rise. Omicron has blown those probabilities out of the water. With its much higher infectiousness you are much more likely to meet an infected person than not. And therefore mitigation is exposed for the sham that it is.
Also the fact that it is infectious and mild is not happenstance - that is how viruses work. A lethal virus is less likely to propagate since its host will be knocked down before they can spread things around. Which is why this whole prognostication of "what if Omicron was infectious and deadly" is a bit disingenuous. It COULD happen but it would need someone to engineer it.
If only one had access to this corona astrologer's bank accounts in the BVIs, there would be a clear view of the source of his spontaneous and professional insights.
The problem is not the lock-downs since the last year, outside a few countries, but the further erosion of mobility opportunities for the unvaccinated, combined with the further push for vaccines. The changing strategy has primarily to do with the infection rate of omicron, knowing that nothing can be done anyway to perpetuate a success story through the vaccinated group now becoming massively infected. I have yet to see a change in attitude on vaccination, nor any serious questions on the use of the vaccine passport. Italy is making vaccination compulsory from the age of 50 and France is declaring war on the unvaccinated and expanding the use of vaccine passports. The battle lies there, not in lock-downs or mask requirements. These were used as motivating arguments to encourage vaccination.
Heretic..!!! Misinformation...!!! He must be stopped. There is no natural immunity that the shots cannot cure. We must suppress the un-shot from participating in life. They are holding back big pharma and big government profits. Wait .... Maybe this guy is onto something. I wouldn't hold my breath that he is allowed to continue in the public forum. Open dialogue must be crushed at all cost. Freedom is evil. Stop it. The only place worse than Australia is the EU zone led by Italy. Fools all of them. America may hold. We shall see. Resist. Resist. Resist.
I found yesterday's article very thought-provoking because it forced me to clarify my own thoughts and position on the issue of who gets to decide what in the Covid Crisis. I mostly agree with Eugyppius - it's a messy, real-world situation where thousands of mid-tier worker ants at various degrees of hysteria get to flesh out the rough drafts some big shots that may or may not have ulterior motives hand to them.
I also agree with Eugyppius' assessment of the current situation, namely that policy change is afoot at least here in my madder corner of a mad world. Just think about it - in Austria, they are making mumbling noises about "reassessing" vaccine mandates after the omicron wave. "They" being the "Gecko", a seriously forlorn outpost of various bureaucrats and one army person (since that worked quite well in Portugal, I suspect), who now get to tell the public what politicians don't really want to get involved in any more - both Gecko and reassessment are marked changes to what we had before. Germany - Drosten has been mentioned, debate in the Bundestag about Covid mandates has been postponed to the end of January, Bavaria's prime mover, Mr Soeder, who has told us for MONTHS that draconian measures are necessary because he's on "Team Cautiousness" has now told a (doubtlessly baffled) journalist that he's now "Team Sense of Proportion" - so important people are backpedalling, and backpedalling quickly. On the other hand, there's the Covid Hysteria camp doing absurd things (e.g. shorter quarantines ONLY FOR THE HOLY AND SAVED BOOSTERED), which does not make any sense at all if we consider that one of the main problems now is the Pingdemic, where healthy people end up in prolonged quarantines. The UK went through this in early autumn. In Germany, apparently they are also planning to stick to 2G+ for anyone and everything except for the Holy Order of the Boostered, which is simply a case of breathtaking and brazen impertinence.
But on the whole, I am beginning to feel a bit more relaxed about the situation - I possibly won't have to go to court about the vaccine mandates. At the same time, I am livid with rage that we will be made to jump through these absurd hoops for another few months until even the most bullheaded policymakers will have realized that the Good Old Days are over and measures have to be abolished and until they have found a face-saving way of doing so.
My best friend has been to hospital because of panic attacks as the result of fearmongering of politicians, I have had to deal with the awful fallout of school closures , this has all been a strain on my marriage, has wasted precious months in my parents' lives, the media has criminalized people like me, people I share a country with have turned out to be raving fascists (sorry, I am beyond subtlety on this) - and it's going to go on for MONTHS like this, only because a caste of privileged people can't admit their mistakes.
Do they want to end this or do they want to begin the ass covering? I get suspicious whatever the group think and the group think is currently let’s learn to live with Omicron. Why the sudden change from 2 weeks ago?
Am perceiving wildly divergent trends at the moment. Some are seeking to double down and others, as @Eugyppius points out, are seeking exit strategies.
Biden (US), Trudeau(CA), Macron(FR), Lauterbach(DE) ratcheting up the demonising rhetoric of the unvaxxed with police in Netherlands and Germany increasingly prepared to shut down public protests with violence. Italy (IT) announces vax mandate for over 50's, France (FR) pass plans to further ostracise unvaxxed from social life.
Meanwhile Bavaria Premier and German Bundeskanzler (DE) and others slowly making utterances indicating a slowdown if not a retreat on vax mandates and the restrictions on unvaxxed. And US, Germany and others start relaxing quarantine regulations for Omicron.
Yes were are now at the beginning of the end. Johnson in the UK is leading the way. But we can't let up in our opposition. The demonstrations must continue, the blog posts as well, anything really even if it is to put doubt in one person's mind. Subtly of course without rancour but with kindness. The masses don't think deeply as we do, they just go along with the zeitgeist. My view is that if the masses were so easily drawn into the covid hysteria then they can just as easily be led out of it.
I must admit I missed the desire claimed in E's assertion that 'It has been clear, since the summer, that the political leadership and the upper bureaucratic ranks want to end lockdowns, and are in fact desperate to do so.' It would make a good blog post for eugyppius to elaborate on this.
At some point, in October 2021 I think, he said that it is not appropriate to say things like it is a "Pandemic of the unvaccinated". What happened then was that the media basically crucified him for dancing out of the party line. Two weeks later he came back pushing the same old narrative. So it is a lot of media enforced narrative and giving voice to complacent experts.
Thanks for this. But I request that you cease using the term "astrologer" as a slander, for in fact you are then slandering many serious individuals, of whom I am one, who have studied that stellar science for decades and find it utterly true and helpful in its basics, no matter how many may misuse or misunderstand it. I am not going to waste time here defending astrology but if you were to read serious works on it and set up charts yourself to test what they say you would be convinced of its value.
"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." ~ Thomas Sowell
The Media in Canada is hyperventilating because the case numbers are not going through the roof. They are not being as 'enabled' as they were previously with fear porn statistics from the Officials. They are upset the government is not giving 'accurate' numbers due to lack of testing every living creature in the country. They will be the hardest to sway into the realm of thought we hope to do. They have been soooo important for the last 2yrs...breathlessly reporting every intubation and hang nail that happens. They don't want to be sidelined, they are the problem right now IMO.
This piece of news provides some hopes, a nice counter to what was announced yesterday from Italy.
Note in Italy Omicron has caused the issuance of 3 decrees in 3 weeks, one per week. Yesterday's decree was issued before the previous one got into effect (because of some technical delay & holiday period), it is that crazy.
Anyway, the news are
- Over 50, vas is mandatory
- If you are working & over 50, you need to be vaxxed to work
- If you are over 50 & not employed, you need to be vaxxed anyway
- The "green pass" remains into effect irrespective of above
- Irrespective of age, you need to be vaxxed to go to the barber shop, to work in universities (incl. professors) and other things. As per another recent decree, you need to be vaxxed to use public transport of any sort, including coming & going from islands where there are no airports
- There was a proposal to require proof of vaccination also to access banks, post offices and any public office, but it did not go through
- For those under 50, you need to either be vaxxed or tested every other day to work, go to the gym, practice any sport, etc
Vaxx rate in Italy is extremely high. Passes of this sort have been in effect for months. Of course, they do not work as caseload has been skyrocketing. Hospitals are not even that overwhelmed.
Some pro-government virologists are starting to distance themselves from this latest round of measures (which have no clear exit ramp) with the result that the most extremist faction has now the largest share of voice in government & media. Not very pretty. Luckily, we do not live in Italy at the moment.
However, Italy's measures could cause a cascade throughout Europe. Germany's decisions & mood are extremely important from this point of view.
We are seeing similar walkbacks in the USA - especially against masks etc. Basically what I have known from the beginning is catching (or not catching) Corona is a matter of probabilities and little else. If there is high community spread, you are more likely to catch it and vice versa. Mitigation measures are akin to sun dances to make the sun rise. Omicron has blown those probabilities out of the water. With its much higher infectiousness you are much more likely to meet an infected person than not. And therefore mitigation is exposed for the sham that it is.
Also the fact that it is infectious and mild is not happenstance - that is how viruses work. A lethal virus is less likely to propagate since its host will be knocked down before they can spread things around. Which is why this whole prognostication of "what if Omicron was infectious and deadly" is a bit disingenuous. It COULD happen but it would need someone to engineer it.
As of today all that is known with certainty is:
1) viruses grow bureaucracies.
2) sitting alone motionless indoors is public health.
3) most highly educated homo sapiens are insane.
This is what happens when you realize you've been horribly wrong about EVERYTHING and hoping that nobody figures it out.
If only one had access to this corona astrologer's bank accounts in the BVIs, there would be a clear view of the source of his spontaneous and professional insights.
The problem is not the lock-downs since the last year, outside a few countries, but the further erosion of mobility opportunities for the unvaccinated, combined with the further push for vaccines. The changing strategy has primarily to do with the infection rate of omicron, knowing that nothing can be done anyway to perpetuate a success story through the vaccinated group now becoming massively infected. I have yet to see a change in attitude on vaccination, nor any serious questions on the use of the vaccine passport. Italy is making vaccination compulsory from the age of 50 and France is declaring war on the unvaccinated and expanding the use of vaccine passports. The battle lies there, not in lock-downs or mask requirements. These were used as motivating arguments to encourage vaccination.
Heretic..!!! Misinformation...!!! He must be stopped. There is no natural immunity that the shots cannot cure. We must suppress the un-shot from participating in life. They are holding back big pharma and big government profits. Wait .... Maybe this guy is onto something. I wouldn't hold my breath that he is allowed to continue in the public forum. Open dialogue must be crushed at all cost. Freedom is evil. Stop it. The only place worse than Australia is the EU zone led by Italy. Fools all of them. America may hold. We shall see. Resist. Resist. Resist.
I found yesterday's article very thought-provoking because it forced me to clarify my own thoughts and position on the issue of who gets to decide what in the Covid Crisis. I mostly agree with Eugyppius - it's a messy, real-world situation where thousands of mid-tier worker ants at various degrees of hysteria get to flesh out the rough drafts some big shots that may or may not have ulterior motives hand to them.
I also agree with Eugyppius' assessment of the current situation, namely that policy change is afoot at least here in my madder corner of a mad world. Just think about it - in Austria, they are making mumbling noises about "reassessing" vaccine mandates after the omicron wave. "They" being the "Gecko", a seriously forlorn outpost of various bureaucrats and one army person (since that worked quite well in Portugal, I suspect), who now get to tell the public what politicians don't really want to get involved in any more - both Gecko and reassessment are marked changes to what we had before. Germany - Drosten has been mentioned, debate in the Bundestag about Covid mandates has been postponed to the end of January, Bavaria's prime mover, Mr Soeder, who has told us for MONTHS that draconian measures are necessary because he's on "Team Cautiousness" has now told a (doubtlessly baffled) journalist that he's now "Team Sense of Proportion" - so important people are backpedalling, and backpedalling quickly. On the other hand, there's the Covid Hysteria camp doing absurd things (e.g. shorter quarantines ONLY FOR THE HOLY AND SAVED BOOSTERED), which does not make any sense at all if we consider that one of the main problems now is the Pingdemic, where healthy people end up in prolonged quarantines. The UK went through this in early autumn. In Germany, apparently they are also planning to stick to 2G+ for anyone and everything except for the Holy Order of the Boostered, which is simply a case of breathtaking and brazen impertinence.
But on the whole, I am beginning to feel a bit more relaxed about the situation - I possibly won't have to go to court about the vaccine mandates. At the same time, I am livid with rage that we will be made to jump through these absurd hoops for another few months until even the most bullheaded policymakers will have realized that the Good Old Days are over and measures have to be abolished and until they have found a face-saving way of doing so.
My best friend has been to hospital because of panic attacks as the result of fearmongering of politicians, I have had to deal with the awful fallout of school closures , this has all been a strain on my marriage, has wasted precious months in my parents' lives, the media has criminalized people like me, people I share a country with have turned out to be raving fascists (sorry, I am beyond subtlety on this) - and it's going to go on for MONTHS like this, only because a caste of privileged people can't admit their mistakes.
Do they want to end this or do they want to begin the ass covering? I get suspicious whatever the group think and the group think is currently let’s learn to live with Omicron. Why the sudden change from 2 weeks ago?
Am perceiving wildly divergent trends at the moment. Some are seeking to double down and others, as @Eugyppius points out, are seeking exit strategies.
Biden (US), Trudeau(CA), Macron(FR), Lauterbach(DE) ratcheting up the demonising rhetoric of the unvaxxed with police in Netherlands and Germany increasingly prepared to shut down public protests with violence. Italy (IT) announces vax mandate for over 50's, France (FR) pass plans to further ostracise unvaxxed from social life.
Meanwhile Bavaria Premier and German Bundeskanzler (DE) and others slowly making utterances indicating a slowdown if not a retreat on vax mandates and the restrictions on unvaxxed. And US, Germany and others start relaxing quarantine regulations for Omicron.
What is going on?
Please tell Mr. Drosten that there is no such thing as a breakthrough infection.
The correct terminology is Vaccine failure.
You must though forgive me for alluding to the gene therapy as a vaccine, a term which it clearly does not merit.
The trouble is that even as Clown World should now unravel, they will not let go of its bastard child, digital ID.
Yes were are now at the beginning of the end. Johnson in the UK is leading the way. But we can't let up in our opposition. The demonstrations must continue, the blog posts as well, anything really even if it is to put doubt in one person's mind. Subtly of course without rancour but with kindness. The masses don't think deeply as we do, they just go along with the zeitgeist. My view is that if the masses were so easily drawn into the covid hysteria then they can just as easily be led out of it.
I must admit I missed the desire claimed in E's assertion that 'It has been clear, since the summer, that the political leadership and the upper bureaucratic ranks want to end lockdowns, and are in fact desperate to do so.' It would make a good blog post for eugyppius to elaborate on this.
At some point, in October 2021 I think, he said that it is not appropriate to say things like it is a "Pandemic of the unvaccinated". What happened then was that the media basically crucified him for dancing out of the party line. Two weeks later he came back pushing the same old narrative. So it is a lot of media enforced narrative and giving voice to complacent experts.
Thanks for this. But I request that you cease using the term "astrologer" as a slander, for in fact you are then slandering many serious individuals, of whom I am one, who have studied that stellar science for decades and find it utterly true and helpful in its basics, no matter how many may misuse or misunderstand it. I am not going to waste time here defending astrology but if you were to read serious works on it and set up charts yourself to test what they say you would be convinced of its value.
"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." ~ Thomas Sowell
The Media in Canada is hyperventilating because the case numbers are not going through the roof. They are not being as 'enabled' as they were previously with fear porn statistics from the Officials. They are upset the government is not giving 'accurate' numbers due to lack of testing every living creature in the country. They will be the hardest to sway into the realm of thought we hope to do. They have been soooo important for the last 2yrs...breathlessly reporting every intubation and hang nail that happens. They don't want to be sidelined, they are the problem right now IMO.
This piece of news provides some hopes, a nice counter to what was announced yesterday from Italy.
Note in Italy Omicron has caused the issuance of 3 decrees in 3 weeks, one per week. Yesterday's decree was issued before the previous one got into effect (because of some technical delay & holiday period), it is that crazy.
Anyway, the news are
- Over 50, vas is mandatory
- If you are working & over 50, you need to be vaxxed to work
- If you are over 50 & not employed, you need to be vaxxed anyway
- The "green pass" remains into effect irrespective of above
- Irrespective of age, you need to be vaxxed to go to the barber shop, to work in universities (incl. professors) and other things. As per another recent decree, you need to be vaxxed to use public transport of any sort, including coming & going from islands where there are no airports
- There was a proposal to require proof of vaccination also to access banks, post offices and any public office, but it did not go through
- For those under 50, you need to either be vaxxed or tested every other day to work, go to the gym, practice any sport, etc
Vaxx rate in Italy is extremely high. Passes of this sort have been in effect for months. Of course, they do not work as caseload has been skyrocketing. Hospitals are not even that overwhelmed.
Some pro-government virologists are starting to distance themselves from this latest round of measures (which have no clear exit ramp) with the result that the most extremist faction has now the largest share of voice in government & media. Not very pretty. Luckily, we do not live in Italy at the moment.
However, Italy's measures could cause a cascade throughout Europe. Germany's decisions & mood are extremely important from this point of view.