Long Covid associated with beliefs, not antibodies

Mind over matter? Long Covid study sparks controversy | MedicalXpress: 

November 12, 2021 - "A large-scale French study suggesting symptoms of so-called long COVID may be more due to psychological factors than to infection with the virus has sparked debate among patients and scientists. The report that appeared earlier this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association focused on nearly 27,000 participants across France who took antibody tests to screen for COVID infection. After the subjects had received the antibody test results, researchers asked them whether they believed they had been infected with COVID and to report on symptoms like fatigue, breathlessness or impaired attention.

"The vast majority of respondents — over 25,000 people — tested negative for COVID antibodies and believed they had never been sick. Of the some 1,000 who tested positive, about 450 believed they had contracted the virus. Finally, about 460 people who received negative antibody tests said they nonetheless believed they had had COVID.

"Researchers found that people who believed they had had COVID, whether or not they had had a positive test, were more likely to report long-term symptoms. A positive antibody test, meanwhile, was only consistently associated with one long-term symptom: loss of smell. They concluded that persistent physical symptoms 'may be associated more with the belief in having been infected with SARS-CoV-2 than with having laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection'.

"The study coordinated by Cedric Lemogne, head of psychiatry at the Hotel-Dieu hospital in Paris, suggested the findings were important in order to allow research into other causes of the symptoms. 'A medical evaluation of these patients may be needed to prevent symptoms due to another disease being erroneously attributed to "long COVID",' it said."

Read more: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11-mind-covid-controversy.html

Long Covid doesn't exist, volume one zillion | Substack - Alex Berenson:

November 10, 2021 - "The Journal of the American Medical Association has another stunning paper out ... on post-Covid symptoms.... Researchers asked people to report whether they had had Covid and whether they had any of 18 lasting symptoms like insomnia, fatigue, or cough. They found that self-reported Covid was very strongly associated with nearly every symptom. 

"But the scientists ... also ... compared self-reported symptoms in people with antibodies — that is, people who had actually been infected and recovered from Covid — to the general population. And they found no difference in almost any symptom. Covid was not a risk factor for chest pain, or breathing difficulties, or trouble focusing, or stomach pain, or any of the many, many other complaints that long Covid 'patients' and interest groups say are real. There was one interesting exception; people with Covid antibodies did have a much higher rate of anosmia, losing one’s sense of smell. Because anosmia is a known and lasting side effect, it serves as a useful control of sorts.

"The researchers also found that almost 60 percent of the people with antibodies HAD NO IDEA THEY HAD EVEN HAD COVID AT ALL. Meanwhile ... more than half the people who said they had had Covid had no antibodies.... The study strongly suggests that many people are using previous Covid diagnoses — either real or imagined — to help explain away common physical symptoms such as joint pain or cough. It also suggests that actually being infected [with] Covid is far less risky than thinking you have been infected with Covid for many people..... 

"This study should slow, if not stop, the rush to medicalize long Covid. It is yet more proof that the illness is a group of squishy (if painful and difficult) symptoms looking for a name - and more importantly a billing code. But so many patients and physicians and public health experts are now invested (in some cases literally) in making long Covid real that the gravy train will likely roll on."

Read more: https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/long-covid-doesnt-exist-volume-one

Read study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2785832

Sweden shows futility of lockdown experiment

How Sweden swerved Covid disaster | Unherd - Johan Anderberg:

November 8, 2021 - "Until recently, prohibition remained the largest experiment in social engineering a democracy had ever undertaken. And then, in early 2020, a new virus began to spread from China. Faced with this threat, the world’s governments responded by closing schools, banning people from meeting, forcing entrepreneurs to shut their businesses and making ordinary people wear face masks. Like prohibition, this experiment provoked a debate. In all the democracies of the world, freedom was weighed against what was perceived as security; individual rights versus what was considered best for public health.

"Few now remember that for most of 2020, the word 'experiment' had negative connotations. That was what Swedes were accused of conducting when we — unlike the rest of the world — maintained some semblance of normality. The citizens of this country generally didn’t have to wear face masks; young children continued going to school; leisure activities were largely allowed to continue unhindered. This experiment was judged early on as 'a disaster' (Time magazine), 'the world’s cautionary tale' (New York Times), 'deadly folly' (the Guardian).... The hypothesis of the outside world was that ... absence of restrictions, open schools, reliance on recommendations instead of mandates and police enforcement would result in higher deaths than other countries. Meanwhile, the lack of freedom endured by the citizens of other countries would 'save lives'. At this stage, it was not unreasonable to conclude that Sweden would pay a high price for its freedom. Throughout the spring of 2020, Sweden’s death toll per capita was higher than most other countries.

"But the experiment didn’t end there. During the year that followed, the virus continued to ravage the world and, one by one, the death tolls in countries that had locked down began to surpass Sweden’s. Britain, the US, France, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain, Argentina, Belgium — countries that had variously shut down playgrounds, forced their children to wear facemasks, closed schools, fined citizens for hanging out on the beach and guarded parks with drones — have all been hit worse than Sweden. At the time of writing, more than 50 countries have a higher death rate.... If Sweden was a part of the US, its death rate would rank number 43 of the 50 states. 

Graph courtesy CTV News

"This fact is shockingly underreported. Consider the sheer number of articles and TV segments devoted to Sweden’s foolishly liberal attitude to the pandemic last year.... Suddenly, it is as if Sweden doesn’t exist.... 

"From a human perspective, it is easy to understand the reluctance to face these numbers. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that millions of people have been deprived of their freedom, and millions of children have had their education gravely damaged, for little demonstrable gain. Who wants to admit that they were complicit in this? But what one American judge called the 'laboratories of democracy' have conducted their experiment — and the result is increasingly clear.

"Exactly why it turned out this way is harder to explain, but perhaps the 'noble experiment' of the 1920s in the US can offer some clues. Prohibition didn’t win because the freedom argument prevailed. Nor was it because the substance itself had become any less harmful.... The reason for the eventual demise of the alcohol ban was that it simply didn’t work. No matter what the law said, Americans didn’t stop drinking alcohol.... The mistake the American authorities made was to underestimate the complexity of society. Just because they banned alcohol did not mean that alcohol disappeared. People’s drives, desires and behaviours were impossible to predict or fit into a plan. 

"A hundred years later, a new set of authorities made the same mistake. Closing schools didn’t stop children meeting in other settings; when life was extinguished in cities, many fled them, spreading the infection to new places; the authorities urged their citizens to buy food online, without thinking about who would transport the goods from home to home.

"If the politicians had been honest with themselves, they might have foreseen what would happen. For just as American politicians were constantly caught drinking alcohol during the prohibition, their successors were caught 100 years later breaking precisely the restrictions they had imposed on everyone else. The mayors of New York and Chicago, the British government’s top advisor, the Dutch Minister of Justice, the EU Trade Commissioner, the Governor of California all broke their own rules.

"It isn’t easy to control other people’s lives. It isn’t easy to dictate desirable behaviours in a population via centralised command. These are lessons that many dictators have learned. During the Covid pandemic, many democracies have learned it too. The lesson has perhaps not yet sunk in, but hopefully it will eventually. Then perhaps it will be another 100 years before we make the same mistake again."

Read more: https://unherd.com/2021/11/how-sweden-swerved-covid-disaster/

UK gov't set to fire 50,000 care home workers

Care homes in England set to lose 50,000 staff as Covid vaccine becomes mandatory | The Guardian - Robert Booth:

November 10, 2021 - "Tens of thousands of care home residents face losing vital support as unvaccinated carers clock off for the last time before double vaccinations become mandatory. About 50,000 care home staff who have not had two doses in England will not be allowed to work from Thursday. Analysis by the Guardian suggests that on current staff/resident ratios and without other measures to tackle the problem, the care of about 30,000 people could be affected.

"On Wednesday, care leaders pleaded with the health secretary for an 11th hour reprieve, urging Sajid Javid to allow unvaccinated carers to keep working at least until NHS staff face mandatory vaccines from next April.... Nadra Ahmed, executive chair of the National Care Association, which represents independent providers who are expected to be worst hit by staff shortages, said: 'There is still time to bring the deadline in line with the NHS and support the sector to have a fighting chance to get through the winter months. It may avoid the closure of essential beds when we most need them as a nation.'

"Care operators and health leaders have warned that staff shortfalls could prevent thousands of people from being discharged from hospitals this winter, limiting admissions and clogging up wards. They say it will increase pressure on remaining care staff to work longer hours, despite many being already exhausted.

"One of the largest not-for-profit operators, MHA, estimates that about 750 care homes may have already stopped taking new admissions because of the staffing crisis. Seven of its homes are closed to new entrants and it is losing up to 150 staff because of the vaccine policy this week....

"The Department of Health and Social Care has said councils will help care operators with staff shortages, that it has provided town halls with over £1bn of additional funding for social care this year, and that it is running a TV recruitment campaign.

"The National Care Forum, which represents not-for-profit care homes, said a snap survey last week showed that on average 3.5% of operators’ staff have already left as a result of resignation or dismissal, and estimate a further 4.4% might leave. Care operators fear remaining staff may be so stretched they will have no choice but to limit help with all but the most essential services, meaning trips out, games and entertainment, which create the sense of living rather than merely existing, will be reduced.

"On Wednesday, the Relatives and Residents Association warned that care home residents’ human rights continue to be breached as 'the only group still living under stringent government restrictions whilst the rest of the country gets back to normal'. Amid anger at ongoing visiting restrictions, it has told an investigation into the issue by parliament’s joint committee on human rights that it 'hears daily [on its helpline] about the devastating impact measures to manage the pandemic have had on the lives of older people'."

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/10/care-homes-in-england-set-to-lose-50000-staff-as-covid-vaccine-becomes-mandatory 

US gov't employees file suit against vax mandate

NCLA & TPPF File Class-Action Suit for Naturally Immune Fed. Employees Against Covid Vaccine Mandate | New Civil Liberties Alliance (press Release):

November 5, 2021 – "Federal workers with naturally acquired immunity to COVID-19 filed a class-action lawsuit today against their employer, the U.S. government, as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci and other members of the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force, the group designated to act as the intermediate enforcer of the executive order mandating that all federal employees get vaccinated. The lawsuit, James Joseph Rodden, et al. v. Dr. Anthony Fauci, et al., filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil liberties group, contends that the Federal Employee Vaccine Mandate violates employees’ constitutional and statutory rights. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institution based in Austin, Texas, serves as co-counsel in the case.

"The named plaintiffs in this case are employed by government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Secret Service. All possess naturally acquired immunity as confirmed by recent SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests and a medical expert. In addition to James Rodden, they include: Isaac McLaughlin, Gabriel Escoto, Michelle Morton, Waddie Jones, Ryan Biggers, Carole Mezzacapo, Edward Surgeon, Susan Reynolds, Roy Egbert, and George Gammon.

"The Executive Order issued by the Biden administration in September proclaims that 'it is necessary to require COVID-19 vaccination for all Federal employees' to halt the spread of the disease. NCLA argues the Vaccine Mandate undermines Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to bodily integrity and to decline medical treatment, and their statutory right to withhold informed consent. It conditions their employment on their willingness to take a vaccine that is medically unnecessary for them given their existing antibody levels. Their proof of antibodies demonstrates sufficient natural immunity to protect their co-workers as well or better than approved vaccines for COVID-19.

"The federal government does not consider employees fully vaccinated until two weeks after receiving a single-shot series or the second dose of a two-shot series. They must get the vaccine by November 8 to comply with the Vaccine Mandate. Those who do not comply with the looming, aggressive deadline face potential disciplinary action, including termination of employment. As established through their declarations, several experts attest that it is medically unnecessary for these individuals to undergo vaccination at this point. Though the COVID-19 vaccines appear to be relatively safe at a population level, they still carry a risk of side effects, including severe adverse reactions and even death in rare cases. And once administered, there is no way to un-vaccinate someone.

"Given naturally acquired immunity, the Federal Defendants cannot establish a compelling governmental interest in overriding Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights and personal autonomy by making their continued employment contingent upon their receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. The Federal Vaccine Mandate also violates the Emergency Use Authorization law, which allows the government to authorize drugs that have not yet received full FDA approval and make them available to people who want them, on a strictly voluntary basis. The statute specifies that patients have a right to informed consent and to refuse administration of an EUA drug. But the Task Force has turned a permissive procedure to get possibly helpful drugs on the market in a crisis into an unlawful mandate.

"Plaintiffs request temporary and permanent injunctive relief from the Federal Employee Vaccine Mandate, and a declaratory judgment that the mandate infringes upon their constitutionally and statutorily protected rights'....

"For more information visit the case page here." 

Read more: https://nclalegal.org/2021/11/ncla-tppf-file-class-action-suit-for-naturally-immune-fed-employees-against-covid-vaccine-mandate/

Melbourne Australia's largest pandemic protest

‘KILL THE BILL’: Largest protest in Melbourne so far | Rebel News - Alexandra Marshall:

November 05, 2021 - "Thousands have marched through the streets of Melbourne towards Parliament in a major protest event. The crowd gathered on the steps of Parliament to protest the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021 put forward by the Daniel Andrews government. 

"This is the largest crowd by far to assemble since the beginning of the pandemic, stretching beyond view in all directions. According to independent journalist Rukshan – who was on the ground covering the event live – the protest was ten times larger than the protest last weekend. Protesters promised to assemble next weekend with double the number.

"'Each one standing here is a hero,' said one protester, on the steps of Parliament. 'We shouldn’t have to be standing here. Each one of you is standing here giving away the livelihoods that they [the government] are taking away from us.' The crowd [chanted] 'Kill the Bill!' in between announcements.

"The ... new pandemic Bill ... has been described by lawyers as affording the Premier ‘indefinite dictatorial powers’ over the state of Victoria. It is expected that the Bill will pass with the support of Labor and some independent parties, including the Animal Justice Party, Reason Party, and the Greens....

"The protest moved peacefully through the street with police monitoring, rather than interacting, with the demonstrators.... 

"'There is an army of people here today to protect Australia,' said another protester, talking about the destruction of human rights in Victoria. Australian flags were flown upside down to show 'dire distress in an instance of extreme danger to life or property'.

"'Obviously the numbers of people are growing, who are prepared to show some courage,' said ex-policeman Craig Backman. 'The bullshit narrative is crumbling all over the world. They have been lying to us for two years. The virus is fear. The pandemic is greed. There's always someone who wants to rule the world.'

"In particular, the speakers rallied against Daniel Andrews discriminating against people based on their vaccination status, including the Premier's threats to 'lock them out of the economy' well into 2022.

"'The media needs to take a hard look at themselves, because they participated in betraying the people,' said Rukshan, talking about the portrayal of protesters in the mainstream media as 'far right'. There have been numerous attempts to discredit Freedom, anti-lockdown, and 'Kill the Bill' protesters in Victoria with Labor politicians going so far as to call them 'man-baby Nazis' when CFMEU [Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union] workers protested outside the CFMEU headquarters."

Read more: https://www.rebelnews.com/_kill_the_bill_largest_protest_in_melbourne_so_far

SIGN THE PETITION TO KILL THE BILL. 

Studies confirm Covid-vaccine protection waning

Study shows dramatic decline in effectiveness of all three COVID-19 vaccines over time | Los Angeles Times - Melissa Healystaff:

November 4, 2021 - "As the Delta variant became the dominant strain of the coronavirus across the United States, all three COVID-19 vaccines available to Americans lost some of their protective power, with vaccine efficacy among a large group of veterans dropping between 35% and 85%, according to a new study. Researchers who scoured the records of nearly 800,000 U.S. veterans found that in early March ... the three vaccines were roughly equal in their ability to prevent infections. But over the next six months, that changed dramatically.

• By the end of September, Moderna’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine, measured as 89% effective in March, was only 58% effective.
• The effectiveness of shots made by Pfizer and BioNTech, which also employed two doses, fell from 87% to 45% in the same period.
• And most strikingly, the protective power of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine plunged from 86% to just 13% over those six months. 

"The findings were published Thursday in the journal Science.

"The three vaccines held up better in their ability to prevent COVID-19 deaths, but by July — as the Delta variant began to drive a three-month surge of infections and deaths — the shots’ effectiveness on that score also revealed wide gaps. 

• Among veterans 65 and older who were inoculated with the Moderna vaccine, those who developed a so-called breakthrough infection were 76% less likely to die of COVID-19 compared with unvaccinated veterans of the same age. 
• Older veterans who got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and subsequently experienced a breakthrough infection were 70% less likely to die than were their unvaccinated peers. 
• And when older vets who got a single jab of the J&J vaccine suffered a breakthrough infection, they were 52% less likely to die than their peers who didn’t get any shots.

"For veterans younger than 65, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines provided the best protection against a fatal case of COVID-19, at 84% and 82%, respectively. When younger veterans inoculated with the J&J vaccine suffered a breakthrough infection, they were 73% less likely to die of COVID-19 than were their unvaccinated peers."

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-11-04/study-shows-dramatic-decline-in-effectiveness-of-covid-19-vaccines

Read study: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620

Covid: How long does vaccine based immunity last? | Sebastian Rushworth MD: 

November 5, 2021 - "It’s unfortunate that the drug companies decided to end their trials early, by giving active covid vaccine to the members of the placebo group after just a few months.... This means that we are instead forced to rely entirely on observational data as we try to understand how safe and effective the vaccines are over the longer term. That is why a recent study out of Sweden is so very interesting. It is currently available as a preprint.... The purpose of the study was to determine how effective the vaccines are at protecting against covid over the longer term.... 

"The authors of the study began by identifying all people residing in Sweden who had been fully vaccinated against covid-19 by late May 2021 [who] were then matched individually against people of the same age and gender, and living in the same municipality, who hadn’t been vaccinated. In total, 1,684,958 individuals were included in the study. They were followed until October to see if they developed covid-19....

"[T]he vaccines were very effective at preventing symptomatic covid around two months out from vaccination. This is what the randomized trials showed.... Overall, the reduction in relative risk at 31-60 days out from vaccination was 89%. However, after those first two months, there was a rapid decline in efficacy. At four to six months, the vaccines were only reducing the relative risk of infection by 48%!... One vaccine did still provide a better than 50% relative risk reduction at six months – the Moderna vaccine. At four to six months, the relative risk reduction with the Moderna vaccine was 71%. Pfizer was at the same time point only offering a 47% reduction in risk, and AstraZeneca was at that point not doing anything whatsoever to lower risk....

"By the nine month mark, the Pfizer vaccine is no longer offering any protection whatsoever against symptomatic covid-19. Unfortunately, nine month out data isn’t offered for the Moderna vaccine due to the small number of people for whom that information is currently available, but at six months out, the Moderna vaccine’s ability to prevent symptomatic covid-19 had dropped to only 59%. So there is a continuous decline in effectiveness at each time point measured even for the Moderna vaccine, without any sign of levelling off....

"People over the age of 80 initially show a good response to the vaccine, with a 73% reduction in relative risk of disease at one to two months out from vaccination. However this drops to only 50% at two to four months, and by six months there is no benefit whatsoever. Even for the middle aged (50-64 years) ... the vaccines are completely ineffective at preventing symptomatic disease by the four to six months mark. The only group for whom the vaccines are more than 50% effective by the four month mark is people under the age of 50 (for whom effectiveness at four to six months is 51%)....

"At one to two months out from vaccination, the vaccines provided a 91% reduction in risk of hospitalization or death. By four to six months, that had dropped to 74%. And from six months out, the reduction was down to 42%, although the difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated group was no longer statistically significant. In other words, at the six month time point it was no longer possible to detect a statistically significant effect of vaccination on risk of hospitalization or death....

"As I see it, there are two possible explanations for the rapidly declining effectiveness of the vaccines. The first is that it’s due to ... the vaccines themselves, and the second is that it’s due to ... the rise of the delta variant. If the second reason is true, then there is no reason whatsoever to give people boosters, because the boosters won’t do anything to improve immunity. If the first reason is true, then there is a case to be made for boosters, although it feels pretty absurd to give everyone a booster every four months to protect against a virus that for most people is little more than a cold.... There is however a pretty good case to be made for regular boosting of the multi-morbid elderly every four months, preferentially with the Moderna vaccine....

"The vaccines are much less effective than was initially believed, and effectiveness declines rapidly. With that being the case, the idea that it’s going to be possible for countries to vaccinate themselves out of the pandemic is clearly nonsense. The only way the pandemic ends is by enough people getting infected and developing natural immunity, which is the same way every prior respiratory virus pandemic has ended."

Read more: https://sebastianrushworth.com/2021/11/05/covid-how-long-does-vaccine-based-immunity-last/

Read study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410

UK government split over NHS Covid-vax mandate

NHS staff should be forced to have the jab BEFORE winter says former Health Secretary Matt Hancock as his successor Sajid Javid plans to delay law until April | Daily Mail - Luke Andrews: 

7 November 7, 2021 - "NHS workers should be forced to get two doses of the Covid vaccine before winter, disgraced former Health Secretary Matt Hancock said today. Mr Hancock — who quit in June after breaching his own social distancing rules by kissing a married colleague — said the move would act as another 'tool to save lives' during what is projected to be a harsh winter for the health service. He also scorned NHS staff who are still not vaccinated and don't have a valid medical reason, warning that it was their 'moral duty' and that they had 'ignored all the scientific and clinical advice'.

"Ministers have for weeks been considering whether to make Covid jabs compulsory within the health service after pushing through the requirement for care home workers in the summer. But last week the Health Secretary Sajid Javid appeared to push back the plans until April after being warned by NHS bosses that introducing the policy now could leave hospitals understaffed at a crucial period. There are also concerns about whether the move is even necessary, given that more than nine in 10 NHS staff are already vaccinated.

"Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Hancock, who was Health Secretary for three years, warned ministers against delaying compulsory vaccinations for the sector into the new year. He said: 'Having looked at all the evidence, I am now convinced we must require vaccination for everyone who works not just in social care but the NHS — and get it in place as fast as possible... So as we prepare to a face a difficult winter, let's use all the tools we have to save lives'.... Mr Hancock said doctors and nurses had a 'moral duty' to get the Covid vaccine to protect their patients.

"A SAGE adviser said today it was a 'general standard of hygiene' for anyone in a frontline role in contact with vulnerable patients to be double-vaccinated against Covid. But they stopped short of calling for jabs to be made compulsory, saying this should only be done as a 'last resort'. 

"All care home workers will be required to have had two doses of the Covid vaccine from Thursday or lose their jobs, under a policy brought in while Mr Hancock was Health Secretary."

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10176229/NHS-staff-forced-jab-winter-says-former-Health-Secretary-Matt-Hancock.html

Some 100,000 NHS workers are yet to get at least one dose of the Covid vaccine. The above graph shows the

percentage that have got their first dose (blue line) and the percentage with both doses (orange line) - Daily Mail