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.
Grateful for the walkbacks but there needs to be some changes. I swear if this end sup like Russiagate where the punditry class never concedes it'll drive me crazy
Yes, I think that's how it will end...everybody pretending 2020 to 2021 hasn't happened at all. It will take about 20 years until somebody begins to revisit the past on this.
Until the mass die-offs from the clot shots, which have been swept under the "covid deaths" carpet, now will be hanging out there for people to question how these horrible sudden deaths continue in the realm of mild omicron. 🤔
I've noticed in my area that the farther you get from the urban center the more it's obvious people are done with it. In the urban center, people are wearing double masks outdoors and instituting vax passes. One town outwards, it's masking in stores, some outdoor maskers, and people wearing N95 and double masks indoors. One town beyond that and masks in stores are "recommended" but over 50% of the people are not wearing them.
Schools have 10-20% of the students out coming off winter break, either with an infection or close contact, often a household member.. so will be infected soon (or never). It's obvious to anyone with working senses and brain that there's no stopping it, and the new variant is not very dangerous. Zoom calls at work are full of cognitive dissonance since they are all rabid vaxxers, getting sick left and right.
So, I go shopping in the outer towns and try to attend as few zoom calls as possible.
Traveling around the Western USA, in both rural and urban environments, I notice exactly the same thing. On the ranches, on the secondary highways, at rodeos, no one cares. In LA, they are apoplectic.
Same here in Philadelphia area. They just imposed vax mandate, people mask and eat outside. I live 20 miles away where people mask optionally. Restaurants and bars are bustling. People who are scared stay home and order takeout. I will simply never go to the city again for a night out until the mandates are lifted. There's plenty to do in the suburbs and the city is sketchy with exploding crime anyway.
Same here. I work for a Fortune 500 firm, fully remote, and we got word that we need to be vaccinated by 2/1 “for the good of the community” or we lose our careers. My guess is that Corporate just needs the bullet point for a marketing slick that testifies to our compliance, right next to the one about all of the ethics awards we’ve won.
As well as local health authorities and government. The feds are pushing companies and states to do the dirty work. This is what came out today in Washington state…..home of Gates…..
PROPOSED POLICIES:
Allow local health officers to use law enforcement (WAC 246-100-070) to force an emergency order to involuntarily detain a person or group of persons (families) to be isolated in a quarantine facility (WAC 246-100-045) following refusal to voluntarily comply with requests for medical examination, testing, treatment, counseling, vaccination (WAC -246-100).
Include the Covid-19 injections as part of school immunization requirements using (WAC 246-105.
I'd tell that company to F right off! good luck in whatever you decide to do. I made the decision long ago, I will never bend the knee to this shot... NEVER!
Yep. The SWA and another (United iirc) CEOs themselves said this to Congress and Delta's in an interview asking for comment. I don't blame businesses for not wanting to enforce ridiculous govt mandates that just expose them to costs and lawsuits.
I don't know where you are seeing your walkbacks. Bay Area is now mandating N-95s for even nursery schoolers. I got an email this week that no parent without a booster is allowed to chaperone the field trips anymore. Mandated boosters are definitely coming. SF teachers are planning a sick out because they feel underprotected, this with already a shortage of more than 600 because of dumb quarantine regimes.
My thinking is, this is the mildest Covid is likely to ever be. Maybe it will stay this way or maybe it will regress to some sort of viral mean. But any health measure that is active now, is highly likely to be around for a very long time.
Bay Area, and to an extent NYC are the last strongholds of the cult. IMHO, I have always felt that people living in these big cities have a cult like mentality anyway (I lived in NYC for a while, and was simply amazed how people kept singing praises of the Great city, with great food and amazing whatever) paying insane rents and prices for what would pass of as sub-standard in other parts of the world. Same for the "I love SFO" crowd that ignores the poo, hypodermic needles and rampant crime. So with a plethora of people with that mindset, it is not surprising that they are actually the last holdouts.
From my personal experience - no one ACTUALLY enjoys living in NYC (and I speak from the many many folks that left and then thought-what the F was I doing there). But they praise it to high heaven because its the thing to do. Really - does living in a shoebox, paying a fortune, heavy tax etc appeal to most people? No. It does to some - but as in a cult - there is a core group that truly enjoys the cult, and then the periphery that goes along to be 'cool'. Only when you leave the cult do you think "wtf"
So the spell will break. As the cult demands more and more for less and less - only the most hardcore will remain. It is not a coincidence that the corona mania ended first in the middle of the country states and very very slowly started to break in the coastal states. Everything to do with the mindset of the people that choose to live in those places.
I lived in NYC, and then visited several times over the course of 15 years. NYC is the best place in the world because New Yorkers say so. No other reason. I found the restaurants fair, the nightlife decent, the costs astronomical, the crowds and traffic maddening. My sister went to school in the Bay Area. Same thing. SF is a cute little city, in the same way that Quebec City is or whatever. Maybe if youre LGBTQ SF has more to offer in terms of community. But I didn't care for it.
Boy has SF been an underwhelming place to live. Especially compared to Berlin where I lived previously. I could rant on it for a long time.
I part ways with the two of you a bit when I think of being a 20 something New Yorker in the 90s, trying to find himself. That was a pretty good time and I can't think of anyplace where it is so easy to change up who you are and what your crowd is.
Once I settled down and had a baby of course we immediately left. Beyond that point you are definitely in the cult. I am also told I would not recognize NYC anymore as it is totally Bloombergified.
Yes. True. Lived in NYC in the 80s and 90s, good times.....We left with with 4 month old baby in tow, and now our youngest kid (18) living there and Uuugh.....a pale imitation of what it once was, and even she is realizing it's not all it's hyped to be. Hoping she will exit stage left soon:))
"New Yorkers like to boast that if you can survive in New York, you can survive anywhere. But if you can survive anywhere, why live in New York?" - Edward Abbey
I actually lived in NYC for a few years. If I never see the city again, that's more than fine with me. Although, to be fair, the parks were quite nice.
This! Even my know it all 18 year old, who we subsidize to live in NYC at vast expense to pursue becoming a ballet dancer....even SHE is beginning to wonder wtf? and maybe NYC isn't the B-All and End-All, that there's more out there in the world!!! Of course, she has to listen to our jaded views on the Pandemonia, but maybe, just maybe....the penny is dropping. We have relatives in the Bay Area, and yes, as you say, they are completely indoctrinated in The Cult. We can barely have conversations these days, only if we discuss the weather and such!!!
I think, in the US, the very high level elites in the Biden administration have decided to attempt a pivot - look at the messaging coming from Fauci, Wen, etc. - but that hasn't trickled down yet to those below them (many of whom are probably true believers). So we've ended up with this very schizophrenic situation where schools*, colleges, and blue cities are clamping down even harder, while the Biden admin and its puppets are simultaneously making noises about how it might be time to move on.
* US teachers, who have proven themselves as a group to be profoundly lazy, also have an incentive to keep this going: it means they barely have to work, and can use masking as an easy discipline tool. Even if covid regimes fall in all other areas of life, I'd expect them to attempt to cling to restrictions until the sun burned out.
Or at least, those elites are trying to extricate themselves. Historically, they are not expected to care about the useful idiots who benefited for a while. It's an interesting moment.
Exactly what I was thinking. Where? Ontario is locked down. I live in Montreal and the province of Quebec is locked down, with a curfew, schools are closed again, etc. Unjabbed people are going to be blocked from buying alcohol and marijuana at government-run stores. The Prime Minister of Canada has said that the unvaccinated are oftentimes racist, misogynist, anti-science, and it needs to be asked if they are to be tolerated. Meanwhile, the criticism of cloth masks in the US isn't to move away from masks, it's to force 7 year olds to wear N95s and to force Grannies to wear a surgical mask with a cloth one on top when she walks her Yorkshire Terrier. Half the young and healthy people I know are desperately trying to get boosted. I don't see government dungeon opening up and they are coming for my child's rights now.
When our PM says that the people who don't want to get the jab are racists and stupid...does he not ever read statistics (obviously not) that show black canadians are the largest unvaxxed group in the country? He wants people to picture someone in Rural Alberta holding a pitchfork in one hand and a rifle in another. The facts are slightly different. So he basically called a bunch of people of color stupid and racist and the media cheered him on. This country is on life support.
In Quebec they just announced that the booster will be added to the fascist passports in the near future-February was the floated date. I am not seeing a crumbling of the Covid regime in Canada. The 2 most populous provinces are all in. 2/3 of Canada's population.
Good to hear. We will head to a red state and be done with this and I appreciate how fortunate that is. It's the purple states I worry about. Will a place like Wisconsin walk this back or go full permanent stupid, to the cost of everyone. Or will it just be Dane County that is stupid.
A lot of Californians aren't 'Californian'. I moved there for work a long time ago, of course I have since left (in 2005) but there probably a bunch of other midwesterners who said "bugger this" and moved on.
I saw an article by Roger Simon which was just anecdotal but investigative reporting nonetheless. It does seem like this migration is a bit different and more of a "Right flight". I hope so. Although everyone's kids will have to head out to the coasts for that elite education and risk getting indoctrinated.
I just drove from Vermont to Florida and back through NY, PA, WV, VA, TN, MD, NC, SC, and GA. Nobody I met cares at all, there's no Covid except in crazy big blue cities--except, of course, mandatory mask rules in NY (ignored by many), Asheville, NC (also crazy) and the Dali Museum in St. Pete's. Museums, as we all know, are dangerous hot-spots for disease. LOL.
Our schools in Cobb County, GA, are defending their no-mask policy in court against a few moron parents trying to muzzle everyone else for their little darlings. Free virtual school is available to them if they want it, but they are still pushing masks. I appreciate the school district dropping that nonsense after last year and dropping the contact tracing and forced quarantining!
Generally correct. In fact virus fatality Isnt directly correlated with transmission. Transmission takes place mainly in the first 5 days. So the virus doesnt "care" if you die after 20 days.
Thus omicron higher rate of trasmission is connected to its higher reprod rate at the Up. Resp. System. Probably if u have such a high affinity for the up Resp System u cant have the same affinity for the lower. So the lab leak vol 2 worked!
My business requires that I speak with a lot of people on the phone. I spoke with several people on the phone today that obviously had "the sniffles" (no coughing, they sounded fine. You know, they sounded like they had a seasonal *cold*) that immediately told me, "I'm quarantined because.... I have "covid". I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It's obvious that there is still way too much irrational fear out there. We have our work cut out for us.
"The very high level of our vaccine coverage is what is keeping us as safe as we are right now. I don't even want to think about what Omicron might look like if we didn't have vaccination," said Nova Scotia Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang.
"Masking remains critically important, not just in schools [but] everywhere. A minimum of a three-layered or three-ply cloth mask, no longer the one or two layered masks. Those need to be worn and worn as much as possible and worn … [properly]."
Q&A article:
'This pandemic will end': What Strang wants Nova Scotians to know about COVID-19 this new year:
One possibility is that they realize perfectly well that Omicron will end it, and they are just setting themselves up to take credit with mask and vax recommendations.
statements like this are an enormous risk for him (and his political minders), given the level of hysteria. he's been burned before. he and others must be very desperate to disassociate themselves from the worst of this.
I do think that governments and people like him can change course without admitting they were wrong. They can rationalize that they're following "the science", as they always have been. They say now that Omicron is mild so we don't need the extreme measures anymore, but thank goodness we did extreme measures before because this would have been soooo much worse! 🤤 They won't increase vaccination levels with this line of reasoning, and it will also be hard to increase surveillance via vaccine passports. Psychologically it must be hard to accept that the pandemic ended without every moving living breathing being vaccinated; a loss to their virtuous self-image and the campaign that gave their lives virtuous meaning.
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.
I get what you're saying, but these things are all bound up with each other. if we don't have to worry about Omicron and breakthrough infections should be considered normal, there's not much left in the argumentative toolbag of the vaccinators.
Yes, as long as you keep the logic in the discourse but I have the impression that the communication around omicron is not in sync with what is happening on the field. Instead of adjusting downwards they are doing it upwards. The threshold starts at vaccination. Germany will apply the 2-G policy with omicron and thus disregards the opportunity that a natural vaccination could occur via omicron.
From where I sit (Quebec) it's an ill-tempered vaccinated majority driving the worst vaccine mandates. Notice that passports aren't happening in places that should "need" them, where vaccination rates are lowest, but in places where populations are almost completely vaccinated. Here, people are being told by the government that the reason things are still falling apart is the unvaccinated minority, and they believe it despite the fact that many barely vaccinated territories to the south are doing just fine. This can't last forever.
This standoff can most easily end with the idiotic mass booster campaigns that are now kicking off. Incorporating boosters can do nothing but reduce the "adequately vaccinated" majority, until the point that Canadian provinces start to resemble most US states in terms of who's eligible for a passport. There's a limit to how much of society you can systematically abuse.
Bonsoir Nathan. It's evening in Europe. Here the passport is a QR-code and you'll get scanned in bars, restaurants, museums, gyms,... pretty everywhere in places where there is entertainment and sports.
At first I thought its use would disappear after a while, but then the boosters came and soon you won't be able to comply without a booster. This applies to the whole of the EU. The only country applying a direct national mandate is Austria, so I wonder if there will soon be any point in using a passport if the entire population is vaccinated. I think they are going to keep it for the simple reason that there will very probably be updates of the vaccine formulas. You have to know that mass vaccination subjects the virus to a selection pressure which will be driven by a vaccinated population, in order to bypass vaccine-immunity. In other words, a perpetual movement is set in motion that can create vaccine dependency. This is just the opposite of herd immunity. I see no other valid argument to explain the existing scenario put in place, now that they are vaccinating adolescents and children. These groups formed the protective buffer to build up a superior form of group immunity to C19 which would benefit the whole population, and this is now being eliminated by vaccination. The vaccine passport will initially be a means of checking the dynamics of your vaccine status. The passport is clearly conditional. It will be a matter of time to merge or integrate other services into a medium that will be used on a daily basis. The digital ID is coming and the conditional information on the vaccine status will be integrated automatically. Then there will be the digital wallet and before you know it, access control will be the main use, just to open doors. Personally, I believe it has long since ceased to be solely about the disease, given the further deepening to vaccinate population groups under pressure that were not among the victims. There is no valid scientific argument for injecting children and young people with a substance that can hardly be called a vaccine. Group immunity might have been the only reason, but this no longer holds true with a leaking vaccine.
I'm sorry to say, following my hypothesis, that most probably even the lesser vaccinated regions in Quebec will be confronted one day with mandatory passports in certain venues.
My thinking is still speculative but it should need full attention for obvious reasons and it should be opposed. It's worth to check this out: [Paul Kingsnorth: Why I changed sides in the vaccine wars - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_uAwsVn10Y&t=10s)
It’s much the same here, QR coded passports across the province since September. I haven’t used them despite having had the two doses. They are now talking about requiring a third dose for the passport, but not if you’ve tested positive after two doses since it’s not medically recommended. At the same time they have no way to know who’s tested positive since they’re no longer pcr testing the general population, telling people to rely on the self administered rapid tests. It really is collapsing under its own enormous weight here, I believe. If not, I’ll have to sell my property and leave. I don’t want to do it but I’m glad I have an escape, as a US citizen.
Well, it becomes difficult to have a PCR here also, creating more fuzz to obtain a free pass, which is valid for 6 months for the unvaccinated. Being fully vaxxed represents already 3 shots in France and on term, most probably in the whole of EU.
I see no direct reason for you to move back to the US at this moment. Apparently, the red states are becoming popular destinations, like Florida and Texas. I don't think it'll be possible to escape geographically the policies that drives the population gradually into a broad digital ID environment. Opposition should come from the inside.
we'll never be allowed to be right, at least not until the authors of these policies have retired or left public life. as you say, they'll just quietly withdraw the restrictions, stop enforcing or let them expire without explanation.
Well... Fauci is in his 80s. He could retire (or simply die) soon. Once that happens, and once the Republicans hold the Senate, House, and (in a few years) presidency, interesting things could happen. We'll have to wait and see. But if it happens in the US, it's likely to spread, and some of Europe's medical totalitarians could wind up in prison.
There are enough scenarios not to exhaust the narrative, as they are willing to step into a retrospective story mode where the argument will be used not to allow repetition, for example by providing annual updates on the vaccines. The vaccine passport will not simply disappear, even if it turns out that Sars-Cov-2 will eventually become more like the few other existing zoonotic coronaviruses that affect humanity.
yes, very good point. I've been very pessimistic about the possibility of court rulings striking this down, but they'll be a useful finally when the policies are being retired or withdrawn.
US courts have been ruling against vax policies consistently. The timing couldn't be better for SCROTUS to drive a final stake through the heart of mandates, especially as no emergency ixisys and the executive cannot make law. This is an easy lay-up. It would further our momentum to drop this scam.
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.
FWIW, I was told by someone who is working on c0vid drug trials for Pfizer that "this was cooked up in a lab, so natural immunity does not work." LOL. She is on her third shot, even though she's had c0vid at least twice.
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.
"Mistakes", or were their evil intentions discovered and resisted?
Now they have to make a half believable excuse that it has all worked out just fine and being the beneficent leaders that they are, will graciously return freedom to their people.
I tend to believe that their incompetence was more of an issue than their evil intentions. Not that some of their incompetence didn't lead to absolutely evil outcomes.
Otherwise I agree - it's going to be all "our enlightened measures have overcome this evil virus, with the help of all you good people minus the unvaxxed, we restore all your freedoms (but reserve to take them away again whenever it is necessary)". Oh please get me a bucket, quick.
I honestly think that Fauci, Trudeau, Andrews, Gunner, Arden and the heads of each vaccine company are dangerously evil tyrants.
Others like Schallenberg, Pelosi, Cuomo, and Walinsky, the complicit media and the big tech companies are far from incompetent, so evil is a valid opinion.
Biden is actually incompetent, but he's been a useless, arrogant asshole for his entire career.
If we were able to work out that their methods would only cause harm and that the jabs were more deadly than the flu, then these leaders have absolutely no excuses in being so wilfully misinformed.
I do think most of them started out as overwrought and incompetent, some of them relied too much on their Zero Covid advisors. What makes some of them evil at this point - and this does not necessarily mean they had evil intentions from the beginning - is their turning on the unvaccinated. Macron, the Austrians, the Germans, the Italians - they are gleefully punishing people for not obeying them in a matter of personal choice, and they full well know that they are siccing citizens on unvaccinated citizens. This is evil.
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?
I read that in some places in the US the schools beg the positive testing teachers with mild or no symptoms, to come to the schools and work anyways. It sounds like some at least start to realize that the virus is now a common cold, and that it is not necessary to close their schools for it. I hope other people have read this, too. I also read that in other places schools are closing again... one never knows. The school bus came by here this morning. The world turns on.
Nor in Minnesota. The annual meeting of the Medical Staff has been cancelled at nearly the last minute. Committee meetings and patient care conferences that had resumed near normalcy (except masks) are now being held by Zoom once again. I used to kid that it does not take a rocket scientist to be a brain surgeon; the last two years have convinced me that it is no joke. I am blessed that two of my three practice partners are free-thinking individuals, or I would not have been able to keep practicing here.
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.
Extinction is what happens when a behavior that was previously reinforced (intentionally or not) is no longer reinforced. It eventually stops.
Extinction Bursts
Extinction Bursts occur when an individual uses a social behavior to either get their way or get the desired reaction from someone. When someone isn’t getting the reaction they want or expect, they up the ante. They escalate the behavior in severity in an attempt to get the usual reaction they anticipated. This is one of those concepts that once you understand it, everything changes
The burst refers to when someone ups the ante to new highs. Your child/adult toddler will perform even more of the bad behavior you are trying to get rid of. They continue to escalate the behavior searching for that old reliable reaction.
It gets worse before it gets better, but if you are consistent and do not reward the bad behavior, they eventually stop, because there is no reward for the bad behavior/tantrum anymore.
It Makes Sense, I hope you are right! It sounds very plausible. Never knew there was an official name for "digging in," but you got it. I hope to hell those morons doing so will find a way to take a U-turn. Pride surely interferes with this process.
Respectfully disagree. This is the point where these policies got "pantsed." Workers are quitting rather than stand in hours long lines for Covid tests only to await results for days or over a week. Schools in NYC are being forced to open, Chicago will likely see same. That pathetic MSNBC whiner got ratioed on Twitter complaining about the restaurant vax policy for the 4yo. Awful video emerged of the crying child getting thrown out of Burger King in NY. Federal courts continue to shut down mandates. Loser leftist weaklings are ashamedly confessing that, despite all precautions, they, too got covid, which has been incredibly mild. The wheels are coming off this pig in the US.
Breakthrough infection shifts the blame from the magic potion to the human getting sick. Despicable! Also, the constant refrain that Omicron is mild blames those who get very sick or even die from it. Have a triple shot neighbor very sick at the moment and folks are asking her what she has done wrong.
The language also implies that the vaccines are like the solid wall of a fortress, with only a few of the evil spike proteins able to break through the protective wall. It makes each breakthrough infection sound like an isolated incident.
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.
It may be that the Astrologer's problem isn't really incompetence, but cowardice. Maybe he knows the whole thing is a charade, but he still goes along with it because he doesn't want to be thrown to the lions by the media. The media has no idea what it's talking about, but what does that have to do with anything?
Sweden avoided the worst of the mess not because its chief epidemiologist was a genius, but because he had courage. Unlike all the others.
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.
I know it might be off topic on here, but, what point are we at, in planetary terms? I understand most of this mess coincided with some extraordinary planetary happenings, is it correct?
"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.
Lorenzo, what do people on the ground in Italy think? Do they believe the vaccine mandates will stand a chance in court? Or in the political process, for that matter? Do you see a bit of backtracking in Italian politics, or are politicians still on board with government measures?
Vast majority of people are in favor of the measures. Information has been very one-sided & the rhetoric towards "no-vax" very strong.
Several people we know (and I am talking educated ones) still believe all of the issues are the fault of the "no-vax". There is really a sort of mass psychosis where people do not find it extremely odd to have to show their pass numerous times every day.
Recall that when the pass was introduced last summer, PM Draghi stated, it will be the guarantee to get into environments where contagion will be impossible....
Overall, Italy has possibly the strongest measures of the West. As I mentioned in a previous comment, Italy has somehow been a political laboratory of bad ideas for a century. Something to pay attention to.
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.
exactly right.
Grateful for the walkbacks but there needs to be some changes. I swear if this end sup like Russiagate where the punditry class never concedes it'll drive me crazy
Yes, I think that's how it will end...everybody pretending 2020 to 2021 hasn't happened at all. It will take about 20 years until somebody begins to revisit the past on this.
Until the mass die-offs from the clot shots, which have been swept under the "covid deaths" carpet, now will be hanging out there for people to question how these horrible sudden deaths continue in the realm of mild omicron. 🤔
I predict that those will NEVER come to light. Sadly.
I've noticed in my area that the farther you get from the urban center the more it's obvious people are done with it. In the urban center, people are wearing double masks outdoors and instituting vax passes. One town outwards, it's masking in stores, some outdoor maskers, and people wearing N95 and double masks indoors. One town beyond that and masks in stores are "recommended" but over 50% of the people are not wearing them.
Schools have 10-20% of the students out coming off winter break, either with an infection or close contact, often a household member.. so will be infected soon (or never). It's obvious to anyone with working senses and brain that there's no stopping it, and the new variant is not very dangerous. Zoom calls at work are full of cognitive dissonance since they are all rabid vaxxers, getting sick left and right.
So, I go shopping in the outer towns and try to attend as few zoom calls as possible.
Traveling around the Western USA, in both rural and urban environments, I notice exactly the same thing. On the ranches, on the secondary highways, at rodeos, no one cares. In LA, they are apoplectic.
Same here in Philadelphia area. They just imposed vax mandate, people mask and eat outside. I live 20 miles away where people mask optionally. Restaurants and bars are bustling. People who are scared stay home and order takeout. I will simply never go to the city again for a night out until the mandates are lifted. There's plenty to do in the suburbs and the city is sketchy with exploding crime anyway.
I think that's also why you see more people choosing to live outside these urban centers...
I wish someone would tell that to corporate America!
Fear and outrage produces more click$ than good news.
"If it bleeds, it leads."
Same here. I work for a Fortune 500 firm, fully remote, and we got word that we need to be vaccinated by 2/1 “for the good of the community” or we lose our careers. My guess is that Corporate just needs the bullet point for a marketing slick that testifies to our compliance, right next to the one about all of the ethics awards we’ve won.
As well as local health authorities and government. The feds are pushing companies and states to do the dirty work. This is what came out today in Washington state…..home of Gates…..
PROPOSED POLICIES:
Allow local health officers to use law enforcement (WAC 246-100-070) to force an emergency order to involuntarily detain a person or group of persons (families) to be isolated in a quarantine facility (WAC 246-100-045) following refusal to voluntarily comply with requests for medical examination, testing, treatment, counseling, vaccination (WAC -246-100).
Include the Covid-19 injections as part of school immunization requirements using (WAC 246-105.
Details: https://s oh.wa.gov/Meetings/MeetingInformation/2022/January12Online
(Should be underlined)
Comments for next week’s meeting must be submitted by 12:00 tomorrow.
He is a sick, greedy man.
I'd tell that company to F right off! good luck in whatever you decide to do. I made the decision long ago, I will never bend the knee to this shot... NEVER!
I read that 3 mayor aircarriers, one of them Delta, plan on omitting the masks. See what happens.
Source?
news feed. I don't remember which item but will try to find it
https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/12/17/airline-ceos-congress-mask-mandate-factcheck-flight-attendant/?sh=7af4a6a36666
Yep. The SWA and another (United iirc) CEOs themselves said this to Congress and Delta's in an interview asking for comment. I don't blame businesses for not wanting to enforce ridiculous govt mandates that just expose them to costs and lawsuits.
not sure what Ingrid read, but this is what I have been able to find: 2 (American and Southwest) https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/15/business/airline-ceos-question-masks-on-plane-rule/index.html
Delta backed them up.
Get UnMask if you need to fly frequently for work like I do. look 'em up.
I don't know where you are seeing your walkbacks. Bay Area is now mandating N-95s for even nursery schoolers. I got an email this week that no parent without a booster is allowed to chaperone the field trips anymore. Mandated boosters are definitely coming. SF teachers are planning a sick out because they feel underprotected, this with already a shortage of more than 600 because of dumb quarantine regimes.
My thinking is, this is the mildest Covid is likely to ever be. Maybe it will stay this way or maybe it will regress to some sort of viral mean. But any health measure that is active now, is highly likely to be around for a very long time.
Bay Area, and to an extent NYC are the last strongholds of the cult. IMHO, I have always felt that people living in these big cities have a cult like mentality anyway (I lived in NYC for a while, and was simply amazed how people kept singing praises of the Great city, with great food and amazing whatever) paying insane rents and prices for what would pass of as sub-standard in other parts of the world. Same for the "I love SFO" crowd that ignores the poo, hypodermic needles and rampant crime. So with a plethora of people with that mindset, it is not surprising that they are actually the last holdouts.
From my personal experience - no one ACTUALLY enjoys living in NYC (and I speak from the many many folks that left and then thought-what the F was I doing there). But they praise it to high heaven because its the thing to do. Really - does living in a shoebox, paying a fortune, heavy tax etc appeal to most people? No. It does to some - but as in a cult - there is a core group that truly enjoys the cult, and then the periphery that goes along to be 'cool'. Only when you leave the cult do you think "wtf"
So the spell will break. As the cult demands more and more for less and less - only the most hardcore will remain. It is not a coincidence that the corona mania ended first in the middle of the country states and very very slowly started to break in the coastal states. Everything to do with the mindset of the people that choose to live in those places.
I lived in NYC, and then visited several times over the course of 15 years. NYC is the best place in the world because New Yorkers say so. No other reason. I found the restaurants fair, the nightlife decent, the costs astronomical, the crowds and traffic maddening. My sister went to school in the Bay Area. Same thing. SF is a cute little city, in the same way that Quebec City is or whatever. Maybe if youre LGBTQ SF has more to offer in terms of community. But I didn't care for it.
Boy has SF been an underwhelming place to live. Especially compared to Berlin where I lived previously. I could rant on it for a long time.
I part ways with the two of you a bit when I think of being a 20 something New Yorker in the 90s, trying to find himself. That was a pretty good time and I can't think of anyplace where it is so easy to change up who you are and what your crowd is.
Once I settled down and had a baby of course we immediately left. Beyond that point you are definitely in the cult. I am also told I would not recognize NYC anymore as it is totally Bloombergified.
Yes. True. Lived in NYC in the 80s and 90s, good times.....We left with with 4 month old baby in tow, and now our youngest kid (18) living there and Uuugh.....a pale imitation of what it once was, and even she is realizing it's not all it's hyped to be. Hoping she will exit stage left soon:))
Same here. Well said.
Stronghold here in the Phila metro area. Big boosts, big masks, big cases. Glad to be departing for Florida on Saturday weather permitting.
"New Yorkers like to boast that if you can survive in New York, you can survive anywhere. But if you can survive anywhere, why live in New York?" - Edward Abbey
I actually lived in NYC for a few years. If I never see the city again, that's more than fine with me. Although, to be fair, the parks were quite nice.
This! Even my know it all 18 year old, who we subsidize to live in NYC at vast expense to pursue becoming a ballet dancer....even SHE is beginning to wonder wtf? and maybe NYC isn't the B-All and End-All, that there's more out there in the world!!! Of course, she has to listen to our jaded views on the Pandemonia, but maybe, just maybe....the penny is dropping. We have relatives in the Bay Area, and yes, as you say, they are completely indoctrinated in The Cult. We can barely have conversations these days, only if we discuss the weather and such!!!
On a humorous note, have you seen this tweet? It's apparently deadly serious.
https://twitter.com/damintoell/status/1474394380186406917
As someone who has eaten a lot of pizza in Italy... that looked disgusting
I think, in the US, the very high level elites in the Biden administration have decided to attempt a pivot - look at the messaging coming from Fauci, Wen, etc. - but that hasn't trickled down yet to those below them (many of whom are probably true believers). So we've ended up with this very schizophrenic situation where schools*, colleges, and blue cities are clamping down even harder, while the Biden admin and its puppets are simultaneously making noises about how it might be time to move on.
* US teachers, who have proven themselves as a group to be profoundly lazy, also have an incentive to keep this going: it means they barely have to work, and can use masking as an easy discipline tool. Even if covid regimes fall in all other areas of life, I'd expect them to attempt to cling to restrictions until the sun burned out.
Or at least, those elites are trying to extricate themselves. Historically, they are not expected to care about the useful idiots who benefited for a while. It's an interesting moment.
See my post about WA state
Exactly what I was thinking. Where? Ontario is locked down. I live in Montreal and the province of Quebec is locked down, with a curfew, schools are closed again, etc. Unjabbed people are going to be blocked from buying alcohol and marijuana at government-run stores. The Prime Minister of Canada has said that the unvaccinated are oftentimes racist, misogynist, anti-science, and it needs to be asked if they are to be tolerated. Meanwhile, the criticism of cloth masks in the US isn't to move away from masks, it's to force 7 year olds to wear N95s and to force Grannies to wear a surgical mask with a cloth one on top when she walks her Yorkshire Terrier. Half the young and healthy people I know are desperately trying to get boosted. I don't see government dungeon opening up and they are coming for my child's rights now.
When our PM says that the people who don't want to get the jab are racists and stupid...does he not ever read statistics (obviously not) that show black canadians are the largest unvaxxed group in the country? He wants people to picture someone in Rural Alberta holding a pitchfork in one hand and a rifle in another. The facts are slightly different. So he basically called a bunch of people of color stupid and racist and the media cheered him on. This country is on life support.
In Quebec they just announced that the booster will be added to the fascist passports in the near future-February was the floated date. I am not seeing a crumbling of the Covid regime in Canada. The 2 most populous provinces are all in. 2/3 of Canada's population.
Same thing in Maine. Apparently our idiotic dem legislature just voted to mandate weekly testing & masks for unjabbed workers. SCIENCE!!!!
So stupid. And for how long, right? Forever? What is the end point for this madness?
"The science" is not much better on this side of the Gulf of Maine :(
Good to hear. We will head to a red state and be done with this and I appreciate how fortunate that is. It's the purple states I worry about. Will a place like Wisconsin walk this back or go full permanent stupid, to the cost of everyone. Or will it just be Dane County that is stupid.
Or will so many Californias move to western states that they will turn blue and fall to stupid, like Colorado.
A lot of Californians aren't 'Californian'. I moved there for work a long time ago, of course I have since left (in 2005) but there probably a bunch of other midwesterners who said "bugger this" and moved on.
I saw an article by Roger Simon which was just anecdotal but investigative reporting nonetheless. It does seem like this migration is a bit different and more of a "Right flight". I hope so. Although everyone's kids will have to head out to the coasts for that elite education and risk getting indoctrinated.
I just drove from Vermont to Florida and back through NY, PA, WV, VA, TN, MD, NC, SC, and GA. Nobody I met cares at all, there's no Covid except in crazy big blue cities--except, of course, mandatory mask rules in NY (ignored by many), Asheville, NC (also crazy) and the Dali Museum in St. Pete's. Museums, as we all know, are dangerous hot-spots for disease. LOL.
Our schools in Cobb County, GA, are defending their no-mask policy in court against a few moron parents trying to muzzle everyone else for their little darlings. Free virtual school is available to them if they want it, but they are still pushing masks. I appreciate the school district dropping that nonsense after last year and dropping the contact tracing and forced quarantining!
Generally correct. In fact virus fatality Isnt directly correlated with transmission. Transmission takes place mainly in the first 5 days. So the virus doesnt "care" if you die after 20 days.
Thus omicron higher rate of trasmission is connected to its higher reprod rate at the Up. Resp. System. Probably if u have such a high affinity for the up Resp System u cant have the same affinity for the lower. So the lab leak vol 2 worked!
"someone to engineer it"
Shudder.
My business requires that I speak with a lot of people on the phone. I spoke with several people on the phone today that obviously had "the sniffles" (no coughing, they sounded fine. You know, they sounded like they had a seasonal *cold*) that immediately told me, "I'm quarantined because.... I have "covid". I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It's obvious that there is still way too much irrational fear out there. We have our work cut out for us.
Is this a walkback, or a dance:
"The very high level of our vaccine coverage is what is keeping us as safe as we are right now. I don't even want to think about what Omicron might look like if we didn't have vaccination," said Nova Scotia Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang.
"Masking remains critically important, not just in schools [but] everywhere. A minimum of a three-layered or three-ply cloth mask, no longer the one or two layered masks. Those need to be worn and worn as much as possible and worn … [properly]."
Q&A article:
'This pandemic will end': What Strang wants Nova Scotians to know about COVID-19 this new year:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/strang-covid19-new-year-pandemic-1.6302664
Exactly. Why does this guy think the pandemic will ever end. I don't see it ever being any milder and this person is saying triple mask.
One possibility is that they realize perfectly well that Omicron will end it, and they are just setting themselves up to take credit with mask and vax recommendations.
Are you allowed to put up your hand and ask him, "Are you aware of the epidemiology in South Africa?"
Or in Denmark? Q: What would it be like without vaccination? A: Lower case rate.
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.
statements like this are an enormous risk for him (and his political minders), given the level of hysteria. he's been burned before. he and others must be very desperate to disassociate themselves from the worst of this.
No question. But these are not "little white lies" that can be easily swept under the rug; these are whoppers. Agreed?
Drosten's cell should be right next to Fauci Collins Baric and Daszak
I do think that governments and people like him can change course without admitting they were wrong. They can rationalize that they're following "the science", as they always have been. They say now that Omicron is mild so we don't need the extreme measures anymore, but thank goodness we did extreme measures before because this would have been soooo much worse! 🤤 They won't increase vaccination levels with this line of reasoning, and it will also be hard to increase surveillance via vaccine passports. Psychologically it must be hard to accept that the pandemic ended without every moving living breathing being vaccinated; a loss to their virtuous self-image and the campaign that gave their lives virtuous meaning.
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.
I get what you're saying, but these things are all bound up with each other. if we don't have to worry about Omicron and breakthrough infections should be considered normal, there's not much left in the argumentative toolbag of the vaccinators.
Yes, as long as you keep the logic in the discourse but I have the impression that the communication around omicron is not in sync with what is happening on the field. Instead of adjusting downwards they are doing it upwards. The threshold starts at vaccination. Germany will apply the 2-G policy with omicron and thus disregards the opportunity that a natural vaccination could occur via omicron.
The vaccinator toolbar has been empty for several months. The nutjobs don't care.
Authoritarian control freaks are one of the winners in this debacle.
From where I sit (Quebec) it's an ill-tempered vaccinated majority driving the worst vaccine mandates. Notice that passports aren't happening in places that should "need" them, where vaccination rates are lowest, but in places where populations are almost completely vaccinated. Here, people are being told by the government that the reason things are still falling apart is the unvaccinated minority, and they believe it despite the fact that many barely vaccinated territories to the south are doing just fine. This can't last forever.
This standoff can most easily end with the idiotic mass booster campaigns that are now kicking off. Incorporating boosters can do nothing but reduce the "adequately vaccinated" majority, until the point that Canadian provinces start to resemble most US states in terms of who's eligible for a passport. There's a limit to how much of society you can systematically abuse.
Bonsoir Nathan. It's evening in Europe. Here the passport is a QR-code and you'll get scanned in bars, restaurants, museums, gyms,... pretty everywhere in places where there is entertainment and sports.
At first I thought its use would disappear after a while, but then the boosters came and soon you won't be able to comply without a booster. This applies to the whole of the EU. The only country applying a direct national mandate is Austria, so I wonder if there will soon be any point in using a passport if the entire population is vaccinated. I think they are going to keep it for the simple reason that there will very probably be updates of the vaccine formulas. You have to know that mass vaccination subjects the virus to a selection pressure which will be driven by a vaccinated population, in order to bypass vaccine-immunity. In other words, a perpetual movement is set in motion that can create vaccine dependency. This is just the opposite of herd immunity. I see no other valid argument to explain the existing scenario put in place, now that they are vaccinating adolescents and children. These groups formed the protective buffer to build up a superior form of group immunity to C19 which would benefit the whole population, and this is now being eliminated by vaccination. The vaccine passport will initially be a means of checking the dynamics of your vaccine status. The passport is clearly conditional. It will be a matter of time to merge or integrate other services into a medium that will be used on a daily basis. The digital ID is coming and the conditional information on the vaccine status will be integrated automatically. Then there will be the digital wallet and before you know it, access control will be the main use, just to open doors. Personally, I believe it has long since ceased to be solely about the disease, given the further deepening to vaccinate population groups under pressure that were not among the victims. There is no valid scientific argument for injecting children and young people with a substance that can hardly be called a vaccine. Group immunity might have been the only reason, but this no longer holds true with a leaking vaccine.
I'm sorry to say, following my hypothesis, that most probably even the lesser vaccinated regions in Quebec will be confronted one day with mandatory passports in certain venues.
My thinking is still speculative but it should need full attention for obvious reasons and it should be opposed. It's worth to check this out: [Paul Kingsnorth: Why I changed sides in the vaccine wars - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_uAwsVn10Y&t=10s)
It’s much the same here, QR coded passports across the province since September. I haven’t used them despite having had the two doses. They are now talking about requiring a third dose for the passport, but not if you’ve tested positive after two doses since it’s not medically recommended. At the same time they have no way to know who’s tested positive since they’re no longer pcr testing the general population, telling people to rely on the self administered rapid tests. It really is collapsing under its own enormous weight here, I believe. If not, I’ll have to sell my property and leave. I don’t want to do it but I’m glad I have an escape, as a US citizen.
Well, it becomes difficult to have a PCR here also, creating more fuzz to obtain a free pass, which is valid for 6 months for the unvaccinated. Being fully vaxxed represents already 3 shots in France and on term, most probably in the whole of EU.
I see no direct reason for you to move back to the US at this moment. Apparently, the red states are becoming popular destinations, like Florida and Texas. I don't think it'll be possible to escape geographically the policies that drives the population gradually into a broad digital ID environment. Opposition should come from the inside.
we'll never be allowed to be right, at least not until the authors of these policies have retired or left public life. as you say, they'll just quietly withdraw the restrictions, stop enforcing or let them expire without explanation.
Well... Fauci is in his 80s. He could retire (or simply die) soon. Once that happens, and once the Republicans hold the Senate, House, and (in a few years) presidency, interesting things could happen. We'll have to wait and see. But if it happens in the US, it's likely to spread, and some of Europe's medical totalitarians could wind up in prison.
There are enough scenarios not to exhaust the narrative, as they are willing to step into a retrospective story mode where the argument will be used not to allow repetition, for example by providing annual updates on the vaccines. The vaccine passport will not simply disappear, even if it turns out that Sars-Cov-2 will eventually become more like the few other existing zoonotic coronaviruses that affect humanity.
yes, very good point. I've been very pessimistic about the possibility of court rulings striking this down, but they'll be a useful finally when the policies are being retired or withdrawn.
US courts have been ruling against vax policies consistently. The timing couldn't be better for SCROTUS to drive a final stake through the heart of mandates, especially as no emergency ixisys and the executive cannot make law. This is an easy lay-up. It would further our momentum to drop this scam.
Oh how I wish I could agree.
My favourite refrain at the moment has become:
The vaxxed will never forget how their politicians and fellow citizens readily demonised and ostracised them.
The unvaxxed will never apologise.
The question remains, will the vaxxed forgive?
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.
The leading countries of course are the old axis trio. Austria, Germany and Italy followed by tiny napoleon.
FWIW, I was told by someone who is working on c0vid drug trials for Pfizer that "this was cooked up in a lab, so natural immunity does not work." LOL. She is on her third shot, even though she's had c0vid at least twice.
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.
"Mistakes", or were their evil intentions discovered and resisted?
Now they have to make a half believable excuse that it has all worked out just fine and being the beneficent leaders that they are, will graciously return freedom to their people.
I tend to believe that their incompetence was more of an issue than their evil intentions. Not that some of their incompetence didn't lead to absolutely evil outcomes.
Otherwise I agree - it's going to be all "our enlightened measures have overcome this evil virus, with the help of all you good people minus the unvaxxed, we restore all your freedoms (but reserve to take them away again whenever it is necessary)". Oh please get me a bucket, quick.
I honestly think that Fauci, Trudeau, Andrews, Gunner, Arden and the heads of each vaccine company are dangerously evil tyrants.
Others like Schallenberg, Pelosi, Cuomo, and Walinsky, the complicit media and the big tech companies are far from incompetent, so evil is a valid opinion.
Biden is actually incompetent, but he's been a useless, arrogant asshole for his entire career.
If we were able to work out that their methods would only cause harm and that the jabs were more deadly than the flu, then these leaders have absolutely no excuses in being so wilfully misinformed.
I do think most of them started out as overwrought and incompetent, some of them relied too much on their Zero Covid advisors. What makes some of them evil at this point - and this does not necessarily mean they had evil intentions from the beginning - is their turning on the unvaccinated. Macron, the Austrians, the Germans, the Italians - they are gleefully punishing people for not obeying them in a matter of personal choice, and they full well know that they are siccing citizens on unvaccinated citizens. This is evil.
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?
They want to salvage whatever they can. Vax-pass, some credibility in the vaccines , the idea that they allow you to do things and have a social life
I read that in some places in the US the schools beg the positive testing teachers with mild or no symptoms, to come to the schools and work anyways. It sounds like some at least start to realize that the virus is now a common cold, and that it is not necessary to close their schools for it. I hope other people have read this, too. I also read that in other places schools are closing again... one never knows. The school bus came by here this morning. The world turns on.
Not in Maine. Idiots have decided to double down.
Nor in Minnesota. The annual meeting of the Medical Staff has been cancelled at nearly the last minute. Committee meetings and patient care conferences that had resumed near normalcy (except masks) are now being held by Zoom once again. I used to kid that it does not take a rocket scientist to be a brain surgeon; the last two years have convinced me that it is no joke. I am blessed that two of my three practice partners are free-thinking individuals, or I would not have been able to keep practicing here.
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?
It's an extinction burst.
Extinction is what happens when a behavior that was previously reinforced (intentionally or not) is no longer reinforced. It eventually stops.
Extinction Bursts
Extinction Bursts occur when an individual uses a social behavior to either get their way or get the desired reaction from someone. When someone isn’t getting the reaction they want or expect, they up the ante. They escalate the behavior in severity in an attempt to get the usual reaction they anticipated. This is one of those concepts that once you understand it, everything changes
The burst refers to when someone ups the ante to new highs. Your child/adult toddler will perform even more of the bad behavior you are trying to get rid of. They continue to escalate the behavior searching for that old reliable reaction.
It gets worse before it gets better, but if you are consistent and do not reward the bad behavior, they eventually stop, because there is no reward for the bad behavior/tantrum anymore.
Oh my, Justin Trudeau will be a difficult case.
It Makes Sense, I hope you are right! It sounds very plausible. Never knew there was an official name for "digging in," but you got it. I hope to hell those morons doing so will find a way to take a U-turn. Pride surely interferes with this process.
Respectfully disagree. This is the point where these policies got "pantsed." Workers are quitting rather than stand in hours long lines for Covid tests only to await results for days or over a week. Schools in NYC are being forced to open, Chicago will likely see same. That pathetic MSNBC whiner got ratioed on Twitter complaining about the restaurant vax policy for the 4yo. Awful video emerged of the crying child getting thrown out of Burger King in NY. Federal courts continue to shut down mandates. Loser leftist weaklings are ashamedly confessing that, despite all precautions, they, too got covid, which has been incredibly mild. The wheels are coming off this pig in the US.
All crises must end, but some crises are more endless than others.
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.
Breakthrough infection shifts the blame from the magic potion to the human getting sick. Despicable! Also, the constant refrain that Omicron is mild blames those who get very sick or even die from it. Have a triple shot neighbor very sick at the moment and folks are asking her what she has done wrong.
The language also implies that the vaccines are like the solid wall of a fortress, with only a few of the evil spike proteins able to break through the protective wall. It makes each breakthrough infection sound like an isolated incident.
All the best to your neighbor.
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.
It may be that the Astrologer's problem isn't really incompetence, but cowardice. Maybe he knows the whole thing is a charade, but he still goes along with it because he doesn't want to be thrown to the lions by the media. The media has no idea what it's talking about, but what does that have to do with anything?
Sweden avoided the worst of the mess not because its chief epidemiologist was a genius, but because he had courage. Unlike all the others.
Agree on Tegnell. Courage and cowardice have been very much at play in all of this.
Perhaps he has secured a plane ticket out of the country, for him and his loved ones.
One thousand "likes" for this comment!
Media is getting sick. Publicly. One after another.
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.
I know it might be off topic on here, but, what point are we at, in planetary terms? I understand most of this mess coincided with some extraordinary planetary happenings, is it correct?
Astronomer?
"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.
Enemy of the people.
The media has succeeded in convincing Canadians they need to test themselves. There is a great desire to get hold of rapid test kits.
Australia going this way too
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.
Lorenzo, what do people on the ground in Italy think? Do they believe the vaccine mandates will stand a chance in court? Or in the political process, for that matter? Do you see a bit of backtracking in Italian politics, or are politicians still on board with government measures?
Vast majority of people are in favor of the measures. Information has been very one-sided & the rhetoric towards "no-vax" very strong.
Several people we know (and I am talking educated ones) still believe all of the issues are the fault of the "no-vax". There is really a sort of mass psychosis where people do not find it extremely odd to have to show their pass numerous times every day.
Recall that when the pass was introduced last summer, PM Draghi stated, it will be the guarantee to get into environments where contagion will be impossible....
Overall, Italy has possibly the strongest measures of the West. As I mentioned in a previous comment, Italy has somehow been a political laboratory of bad ideas for a century. Something to pay attention to.
Thanks a lot, that sounds rather disheartening. I was sort of hoping for the Italians to be a bit less compliant than the Germans. *sigh