Finland has coped with Covid without lockdowns

Finland: The Covid Success Story No-One is Talking About - Lockdown Sceptics - Oliver Robinson:

March 8, 2021 - "Finland has not implemented a lockdown at any point during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, compared with its neighbour Sweden, which has been in the constant media spotlight for its lack of lockdowns, Finland’s avoidance of them has gone largely unacknowledged.

"The measures that Finland has imposed have not come close to the OECD definition of a lockdown (i.e., stay at home order plus school closures of non-essential business/venue closures). Finland has never implemented a stay-at-home order, or a limit on household mixing or any restriction on travel within the country, just non-binding guidance. So, what interventions did the Finnish Government make? From March to May 2020, schools were closed, public meetings were limited to 10 people, borders were shut and citizens returning from abroad were put into quarantine. Guidance was given to people with symptoms to stay at home, and over-70s were requested to avoid social contact unless essential (this last measure is notably similar to the Great Barrington Declaration’s proposed approach of ‘focused protection’). On June 1st, the number of people allowed to meet was increased to 50 and public indoor places were opened gradually. Since then, various selective international travel restrictions have been imposed.

"According to the Blavatnik School of Government’s COVID-19 Response Tracker, Finland’s response to COVID-19 was marginally stricter than Sweden from March to early April 2020, then the same level of strictness from April to May, then less strict than Sweden, something which remains true to this day. You can check for yourself here.

"So how has Finland done in terms of health outcomes during the pandemic? Exceptionally well. In terms of mortality, Finland has the second lowest Covid deaths per million in the whole of Europe. Its excess deaths statistics have never increased above ... the normal range.... 

"What’s the explanation? Is it down to low population density? Unlikely. Finland may be a large country with a small population, but over 85% of its population lives in towns and cities, where opportunity for viral transmission is the same as in more urban areas. Furthermore, somewhat surprisingly, research shows no relationship between Covid mortality rates and population density. How about obesity? Are Finns unusually thin? No. The obesity level is average for European countries at 22% (same as Belgium).

"One factor that helped Finland may be the early border closures and border quarantine for the first few months, which research shows can be effective in the early stages of this pandemic. But this is a long way from the Zero Covid approach of New Zealand or Australia. Finland’s borders have been open to the majority of countries since May 2020.

"Another factor could be Finland’s intensive focus on building public health into all aspects of Finnish life.For example, Vitamin D deficiency is a predictor of COVID-19 disease, and Finland has mandatory fortification of milk and margarine with Vitamin D. Or another more tenuous suggestion is that Finns are prolific users of saunas, and there’s some research evidence that saunas boost the immune function.

"Whatever the reason, one thing is for sure: Finland is an important case study in showing that success in managing the COVID-19 pandemic is NOT a function of strict lockdowns. Finland shows that if you manage your borders properly, keep people healthy, active and social connected, and give them clear information not panic-inducing propaganda, a pandemic need not turn into a catastrophe."

Dr Oliver Robinson is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Greenwich.

Read more: https://lockdownsceptics.org/finland-the-covid-success-story-that-no-one-is-talking-about/

YouTube removes Canadian doctors' Covid video

Concern mounts over censorship of Canadian doctors |  iPolitics - Rachel Emmanuel:

March 9, 2021 - "A video of Canadian doctors listing reasons not to be afraid of COVID-19 was censored within minutes of being posted to YouTube, says a group advocating to end government lockdowns. Liberty Coalition Canada posted the video to YouTube on Monday morning, and 20 minutes later, the video-sharing platform removed the post citing a violation of its policy....

"The move is indicative of the escalating censorship for anyone questioning the government’s approach to COVID-19, contended Independent MP Derek Sloan, a member of the End the Lockdowns National Caucus. 'What we’re seeing is: whatever the prevailing consensus is — if you run counter to that, then you’re silenced,' Sloan told iPolitics on Tuesday. 'But good science is all about consent and discussion, and we seem to be seeing the shutdown of that debate.'

"The video in question was created by The Canada Health Alliance, a group of medical doctors, nurses and other health practitioners with a goal to protect patients’ freedom of choice and autonomy through informed consent. Some professionals in the Canada Health Alliance are also part of the Liberty Coalition initiative Professionals Against Lockdowns. 

"The video, which was posted yesterday, and had been viewed on Rumble nearly 57,000 times at the time of iPolitics’ publication, begins with an introduction from B.C. medical doctor Stephen Malthouse. Malthouse lists a range of reasons not to be afraid of the novel coronavirus, including that: the vast majority of people with COVID-19 have few or no symptoms of being sick; there are less patients in the ICU than in the previous three years; and that yearly deaths since 2001 have remained relatively steady, other than a slight uptick in deaths in 2020, which he attributes to an aging population. He also says COVID deaths in children are so rare the death rate is statistically zero. Meanwhile, the survival rate for those under 50 is greater than 99.9 per cent, or 94.6 per cent for those over 70, before early treatment like Vitamin C or D.... 

"In what Sloan describes as the most controversial part of the video, Malthouse says PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests are 'practically worthless,' with research now showing that only three per cent of people with a positive PCR actually have COVID-19. This is worth debating because Ottawa is basing most of its decisions off case-counts determined by PRC tests, said Sloan.

Read more: https://ipolitics.ca/2021/03/09/concern-mounts-over-censorship-of-canadian-doctors/

The Covid model that 'keeps being wrong'

This coronavirus model keeps being wrong. Why are we still listening to it? Vox - Kelsey Piper: 

May 2, 2020 - "How many people are likely to die in the United States of Covid-19? How many hospital beds is the country going to need? When will case numbers peak? To answer those questions, many hospital planners, media outlets, and government bodies — including the White House — relied heavily on one particular model out of the many that have been published in the past two months: the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

"The model first estimated in late March that there’d be fewer than 161,000 deaths total in the US; in early April, it revised its projections to say the total death toll through August was projected to be 60,415 (though it acknowledged the range could be between 31,221 and 126,703). 

"The model has been cited often by the White House and has informed its policymaking. But it may have led the administration astray: The IHME has consistently forecast many fewer deaths than most other models, largely because the IHME model projects that deaths will decline rapidly after the peak — an assumption that has not been borne out.

"On Wednesday [April 29], the US death count passed the 60,000 mark that the IHME model had said was the likely total cumulative death toll. The IHME on April 29 released a new update raising its estimates for total deaths to 72,433, but that, too, looks likely to be proved an underestimate as soon as next week. Even its upper bound on deaths — now listed as 114,228 by August — is questionable, as some other models expect the US will hit that milestone by the end of May, and most project it will in June. [U.S. figures showed 110,000 deaths by June 1 - gd]

"One analysis of the IHME model found that its next-day death predictions for each state were outside its 95 percent confidence interval 70 percent of the time — meaning the actual death numbers fell outside the range it projected 70 percent of the time.... This track record has led some experts to criticize the model. 'It’s not a model that most of us in the infectious disease epidemiology field think is well suited' to making projections about Covid-19, Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told reporters.... Yet it’s the IHME model that has generally guided policymakers, for the most part, in the direction of focusing on a return to normal....

"The criticism of the IHME model, and an emerging debate over epidemiology models more broadly, has brought to light important challenges in the fight against the coronavirus. Good planning requires good projections. Models are needed to help predict resurgences and spot a potential second wave. Dissecting what the IHME model got wrong, what other models got right, and how the public and policymakers read these models is essential work in order to create the best pandemic plans possible....

"Models usually lay out some foundational assumptions and offer projections based on those assumptions. The IHME model seeks to project death rates and hospitalization rates assuming widespread social distancing and strong measures to prevent the spread of the virus. But as the weeks have passed, it has become clear that the IHME’s projections have been too optimistic, and slow to adjust to reflect the fact that deaths have plateaued rather than rapidly decreasing to zero. The IHME has been regularly updating its model as new data comes in, but the updates have often been slow enough that the numbers are absurd by the time they’re changed in an update. For example, in late April the model still stated the expected total death toll was 60,000, even as the US was clearly only a few days from that milestone.

"[IHME researcher Ali Mokdad] Mokdad told me when we talked that a fix was in the works, and it went up a few days later: The model now projects 73,433 deaths by August. That, too, is probably an underestimate — most other models project that total will be reached next week." [U.S. figures showed over 188,000 deaths by August 30 - gd]

Read more: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/2/21241261/coronavirus-modeling-us-deaths-ihme-pandemic

Connecticut lifts some Covid restrictions

Connecticut dramatically rolls back COVID restrictions, allowing full indoor dining, increased entertainment and sports capacity; travel ban lifted | Hartford Courant - Emily Brindley, Eliza Fawcett, and Alex Putterman: 

March 4. 2021 - "Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday announced that he will roll back COVID-related restrictions in Connecticut starting March 19, including allowing restaurants to operate at full capacity, loosening rules on sports and entertainment venues and lifting the state’s travel ban. The state will maintain some key measures, including a mask mandate, social distancing rules, a curfew for restaurants and the closure of all bars. 

"Restaurants, retail stores, houses of worship and other businesses will be allowed to reopen at full capacity, within the confines of the remaining rules. Sports will be allowed to resume fully, with outdoor venues permitted up to 50% capacity, capped at 10,000 visitors, and indoor venues permitted up to 10% capacity. Travelers will still be recommended to quarantine after arriving in Connecticut, but they will not be required to do so....

"Lamont emphasized that Connecticut had not gone as far as Mississippi and Texas, states which drew sharp criticism from President Joe Biden after revoking their mask mandates.... Still, Connecticut’s new plan defies guidance from Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who recommended earlier this week that states move slowly in reopening.... Lamont said that he looked at other states’ reopening approaches. Massachusetts, for instance, recently announced a similar reopening plan, including lifting capacity caps at restaurants.....

• "Beginning on March 19, Connecticut restaurants will be permitted to move from 50% capacity to 100% capacity, with social distancing and mask requirements still in place.... Restaurants will also have an 11 p.m. curfew for on-site dining, and tables will be limited to a maximum of eight patrons. Bars that only serve beverages will still not be permitted to open at all.... 
• Retail stories, offices, houses of worship, gyms, libraries, person services such as nail and hair salons will all be allowed to reopen at full capacity on March 19. Masks and social distancing will be required....
• Lamont’s reopening plan also significantly opens up the playing field for sports teams. According to Lamont’s plan, all sports teams will be allowed to fully practice and compete — including in tournaments — beginning on March 19.... As of April 2, indoor sports venues will be allowed to open at 10% capacity and outdoor event venues will be able to increase to 50% capacity, capped at 10,000 people.

"Lamont’s emergency powers are set to expire April 20, but the governor said Thursday some of his executive orders — such as masking — will likely need to be continued beyond April 20. The governor implied that he does not plan to extend his emergency powers but that he will work with the legislature on those issues."

Read more: https://www.courant.com/coronavirus/hc-news-coronavirus-daily-updates-0304-20210304-56d7cbx6k5da7auqqroznhhdfa-story.html

How Covid became a cult

How Covid became a (very bad) religion | Twitter (via Tom Woods) - John Hayward: 

March 4, 2021 - "Every crisis becomes a religion if it lasts long enough. One factor in that transformation is the Beautiful Theory phenomenon: the power elite insists its remedies are logical and politically correct so they must work, even if the actual evidence shows they obviously don't. When Beautiful Theories crash into hard, cold reality and shatter, faith is the glue used by the elites to put their precious ideas back together. They need militant faith to get the job done: true believers eager to crush doubt and compel obedience by making war on the infidels.

"Some are swept into the faith because they desperately crave a sense of control over the crisis. They need to believe Something Can Be Done, and they'd rather invest their faith in debunked Beautiful Theories than have no faith at all..... Some crave social approval, and the purveyors of Beautiful Theories have immense political, economic, and cultural power to make their faith seem fashionable. Virtue signaling is such a plague in modern society because the signals are pre-packaged and made very easy to send.

"Some aren't even hoping they can assert control over a crisis by converting to its religion. They'll settle for just having some meaning, some simplicity, a sense that the righteous will fare better than the unbelievers, that virtue will be rewarded while sin is punished. That's a very common impulse with the Church of Covid, since the Beautiful Theories were so very obviously wrong. There isn't much left of the faith except the visceral communal satisfaction of hoping unbelievers will be punished for their blasphemies with sickness and death.

"That sort of thing happens with all of the crisis religions, although not usually as quickly and obviously as with the Church of Covid.... The last resort of every crisis religion, the last thing that puts asses in the pews, is that addiction to misery porn, the collective hope that unbelievers will suffer someday, and everyone will admit the True Faith was right all along as Judgment Day crashes down upon them.

"The elite will never have the humility to admit they were wrong, and they'll never give up on politically or financially profitable 'solutions' even when they obviously don't solve the problem. Founding a crisis religion means they never have to say they're sorry. That applies to some very longstanding crises, like the War on Poverty, whose nostrums long ago transformed into fantastically expensive articles of religious faith even as mountains of data accumulated that proved they were utter failures, and often made the problems worse.

"You can look for some telltale signs of a crisis transforming into a religion. The most obvious one is when the high priests tell you the 'war' you've been drafted into will never end. They become very angry when asked to define success or failure, or lay out exit strategies. Watch for the moment when you're told 'science' means not asking questions, defying dogma, or challenging 'consensus.' That is the literal definition of faith, not science. Always keep an eye out for Moving Goalposts, which are the signature miracle of crisis religions.... Crisis religions work very hard to make their faith unfalsifiable by constantly changing the standards of evidence. Check to see if certain people are accumulating huge amounts of money and power from a crisis. That's a pretty good sign it's turning into a religion. A crisis should be solved as quickly and efficiently as possible. Don't let it fester long enough to become a special interest. 

"Above all, look for the whiff of arrogance to develop around a crisis. Wise religions and effective crisis managers have ... a sense of humility. Crisis religions are militant faiths that quickly become arrogant, smug, and totalitarian. Dedicated people who truly want to solve a problem will look for evidence their analysis is wrong, or their policies aren't working, and make adjustments as quickly as possible, no matter the cost or embarrassment to themselves.... Crisis religions ... reject criticism, insist their Beautiful Theories must be right because they're ideologically pure... Their plans only fail because their commands were disobeyed or sabotaged. The high priests of a crisis religion see devils everywhere, leering at them from the rubble of every failure. Only sin can explain why their Beautiful Theories are tarnished. Failure is never their fault, so it must be yours."

Read more: https://twitter.com/Doc_0/status/1367470476528934919

Not much 'Covid Relief' in Biden bill

Senate Democrats eke out 50-49 COVID-19 relief bill victory | The Week - Tim O'Donnell:
March 6, 2021 - "President Biden is another step closer to signing his administration's COVID-19 relief bill into law. The Senate on Saturday passed the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan along party lines with a 50-49 vote."
Read more: https://theweek.com/speedreads/970690/senate-democrats-eke-5049-covid19-relief-bill-victory

The 'COVID Relief Bill' Is Mostly an Expensive Bundle of Politically Motivated Giveaways |  Reason - Eric Boehm:
March 4, 2021 - "As the Senate prepares to take a final vote on President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, it's time to be honest about one thing. This isn't a COVID-19 relief bill. We should stop calling it that.... [T]he bill that the Senate is likely to pass this week is a larded-up bounty of mostly Democratic policy goals that will add $1.9 trillion to the federal budget deficit..... 

"Only about 5 percent of that total is funding public health efforts related to the pandemic, according to the nonpartisan number crunchers at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). There are a few other things in the bill that could be counted as 'relief,' like the $7 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and another $40 billion in emergency loans for restaurants, bars, music venues, airlines, and other industries.... Beyond that, however....

"$500 billion, is a bailout of state and local governments that for the most part do not need one.... But it's not just a bailout; it's a bailout in which the funding is allocated based on the size of each state's unemployed population. In other words, states that imposed draconian and unnecessary economic lockdowns during the past year are going to get a larger share of the federal cash than states that managed to balance public health needs and the economy....

"Another $400 billion of the bill's spending would provide an additional round of stimulus checks to Americans who haven't lost their jobs or income due to the pandemic. The version of Biden's bill passed last month by the House would fund $1,400 in direct payments to individuals who earned up to $100,000 last year and couples who earned up to $200,000.... There is no reason for Congress to be sending checks to families that earn six-figure incomes and have experienced minimal financial losses.... If putting more money in Americans' pockets is a priority for Congress, it should accomplish that goal by reducing income taxes (and cutting an equal amount of future spending) on a permanent basis, not by engaging in deficit-hiking games merely because 'free' money from the government is politically popular.

"The bill spends $129 billion on K-12 education — money that you might assume is being used to reopen schools quickly and safely. Wrong. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the bill found that 'the bulk' of those dollars wouldn't be spent until 'after 2021.' Some of it won't be distributed until 2024.

"$480 million in the bill will be spent on 'miscellaneous' educational matters like 'grants to fund activities related to the arts, humanities, libraries, and museums, and Native American language preservation and maintenance. Even if those are items that might be worth spending federal tax dollars to support, it's difficult to understand  how they are 'COVID-19 relief' by any meaningful definition of the terms. The same is true for the bill's funding of a new subway in San Jose, California, and the new bridge connecting New York state to Canada — top priorities of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.), naturally, but not anything that belongs in a pandemic relief bill....

[T]he bill also includes a $14 billion provision creating a new paid family leave program—one that applies only to employees of the federal government.... Note that this special giveaway to federal employees is being funded with twice as much money as the PPP.... The bill spends another $86 billion to bail out multi-employer pension funds, which are retirement accounts operated by private sector unions.... Many of these retirement accounts are deep in the red — but even if there is a good reason for federal taxpayers to pick up the tab, what does this have to do with the pandemic?...

"Using the waning pandemic as an excuse for a spending free-for-all when the country is $28 trillion in debt is beyond irresponsible. And trying to pass off this bloated list of politically motivated handouts as essential to America's public health is dishonest and cowardly."

Read more: https://reason.com/2021/03/04/the-covid-relief-bill-is-mostly-a-expensive-bundle-of-politically-motivated-giveaways/

Cuomo's office altered care home deaths report

Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll | New York Times - J. David Goodman & Danny Hakim: 

March 4, 2021 - "Top aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo were alarmed: A report written by state health officials had just landed, and it included a count of how many nursing home residents in New York had died in the pandemic. The number — more than 9,000 by that point in June — was not public, and the governor’s most senior aides wanted to keep it that way. They rewrote the report to take it out, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.

"The extraordinary intervention, which came just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act yet known in what critics have called a monthslong effort by the governor and his aides to obscure the full scope of nursing home deaths.

"After the state attorney general revealed earlier this year that thousands of deaths of nursing home residents had been undercounted, Mr. Cuomo finally released the complete data, saying he had withheld it out of concern that the Trump administration might pursue a politically motivated inquiry into the state’s handling of the outbreak in nursing homes. But Mr. Cuomo and his aides actually began concealing the numbers months earlier, as his aides were battling their own top health officials, and well before requests for data arrived from federal authorities.... 

"The central role played by the governor’s top aides reflected the lengths to which Mr. Cuomo has gone in the middle of a deadly pandemic to control data, brush aside public health expertise and bolster his position as a national leader in the fight against the coronavirus.... The aides who were involved in changing the report included Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s top aide; Linda Lacewell, the head of the state’s Department of Financial Services; and Jim Malatras, a former top adviser to Mr. Cuomo brought back to work on the pandemic. None had public health expertise....

"The tension over the death count dated to the early weeks of the pandemic when Mr. Cuomo issued an order preventing nursing homes from turning away people discharged from the hospital after being treated for Covid-19. The order was similar to ones issued in other states aimed at preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. But by late spring, Republicans were suggesting that the order had caused a deadly spread of the virus in nursing homes. Mr. Cuomo disputed that it had. Still, critics and others seized on the way the state was publicly reporting deaths: Unlike other states, New York excluded residents who had been transferred to hospitals and died there, effectively cloaking how many nursing home residents had died of Covid-19....

"Health officials, nursing home operators and even some of Mr. Cuomo’s aides expressed bafflement at the governor’s apparent insistence on delaying the release of the data for so long, as none of the information released so far has changed the overall number of Covid-19 deaths in New York — now more than 47,000, including more than 15,000 nursing home residents. 

"But the July report allowed Mr. Cuomo to treat the nursing home issue as resolved last year, paving the way for him to focus on touting New York’s success in controlling the virus. ''I am now thinking about writing a book about what we went through,' Mr. Cuomo said four days after the report’s release.... By that point, he was already seeking formal approval from a state ethics agency to earn outside income from book sales, according to a person with knowledge of his planning at the time."

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/nyregion/cuomo-nursing-home-deaths.html