December 1, 2020 (American Thinker) — As many Americans recover from their “virtual Thanksgiving,” sharing prayers and turkey across the internet, the media is pushing their November propaganda narrative, that Dementia Joe really won the presidential election and that COVID cases are once again surging across America.
The Washington Post claims that Wuhan coronavirus cases are “skyrocketing” while the New York Times wails that “It has hit us with a vengeance.” Yet the media is oblivious, either ignorantly or deliberately, to the reality that positive tests are not the same thing as cases.
PETITION UPDATE (8/27/2020)
Thank you for continuing to SIGN and SHARE this petition, which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse mandatory mask orders within their borders.
Facebook has restored the share link for this petition, saying that the decision to block it was a 'mistake...'
Please share with your Facebook friends, but we should all take heed of this warning: when an organization or individuals have to beg, plead and cajole just to express objective truths, it may be time to start looking for other social networking platforms.
Facebook needs to treat its users with respect, no matter their political persuasion. Moreover, Facebook needs to treat objective reality and facts with more respect.
One-size-fits-all oppressive government mask mandates must stop!
Healthy adults and children should not be forced - by the state - to wear masks when the risk of infection is low and the benefit of wearing a mask is highly questionable.
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PETITION UPDATE (8/25/2020)
Facebook is actively censoring this petition, saying that some people find it 'abusive.'
How anyone could find alternate facts about oppressive mask mandates 'abusive' is incredible...that is, impossible to believe.
This is exactly the kind of censorship which Big Tech is getting a bad reputation for.
The fact that Facebook calls differing opinion and objective reality "abusive" says a lot about Facebook and their agenda to silence reason and logic, not just conservatives and Christians.
But, people are more intelligent than Facebook give them credit for.
And, the more this continues, the more reasonable people will look alternate platforms to share their thoughts and connect with their friends and family. The more that happens, the less revenue Facebook will generate.
All of us have a decision to make, and the time is coming where we might have to tell our Facebook friends that we are moving to another platform.
We are encouraging people to continue SIGNING this petition and SHARING it via other platforms such as Parler and Gab, and to share the link below with your family and friends on Whatsapp, Telegram, Threema and Signal.
Thank you!
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One-size-fits-all oppressive government mask mandates must stop!
Healthy adults and children should not be forced - by the state - to wear masks when the risk of infection is low and the benefit of wearing a mask is highly questionable.
Please SIGN this petition which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse mandatory mask mandates within their borders.
Public health policies should be based on science and logic, not on the type of political posturing and virtue-signaling which led Joe Biden to recently call for a national mask mandate.
And, public health policies certainly shouldn't lead to a situation where more people could become sick.
But, that is exactly what these mandatory mask mandates are doing.
Here are four inconvenient facts about masks:
1) Masks** are largely ineffective at stopping the transmission of viruses.
The vast majority of masks worn by the public are made from material which cannot filter-out viruses because virus particles are too small to catch or obstruct. Wearing cloth masks to stop a virus is like putting a bee in a bird cage to keep it from flying away.
Wearing a mask for long periods of time ensures that the wearer has a warm and moist receptacle around his or her mouth, on which viruses and bacteria can land and accumulate.
Thus, masks are actually likely to have little effect in stopping the spread of COVID-19 acting as a barrier, but could actually make things worse acting as a receptacle.
2) Mandates which call for masks to be worn outdoors are both absurd and oppressive.
3) There are clearly documented hazards of wearing masks for long periods of time.
4) And, since school is on everyone's mind...
Notwithstanding the above information on the ineffectiveness of most masks against viruses, we don't know if asymptomatic children can even transmit the virus.
But, it was a reported in an article in the July 21, 2020 Uk Times that: "There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the UK government's leading scientific advisers."
And, we also know that children are extremely unlikely to get seriously ill or die from COVID infections. In any case, children cannot possibly be expected to wear a mask properly in a way that would cut transmission.
There are still a lot of unknowns about COVID-19, but we have grown in our understanding of this disease since the beginning of the crisis.
The knowledge we have gained should allow government and health authorities to make more nuanced policies than the current one-size-fits-all mask mandates.
Where are the legislative hearings in county commissions, and state, provincial or federal legislatures before these drastic actions are mandated? Where are the open and transparent debates among experts that provide our representatives with the necessary information to make good policy decisions?
The real pandemic is the panic and the resulting tyranny that is being caused by dictatorial governors, corporate media and the monopolistic Big Tech.
The truth is that COVID-19 is like a bad cold for most people; this is not ebola or the plague.
Of course, the very elderly and those with serious health conditions should take precautions or be quarantined, but the rest of society should begin the long process of returning to normality.
The frenzy to force everyone to wear a mask, at all times, has gone beyond all comprehension, and goes against science and logic.
Please SIGN this petition which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse any mandatory mask order within the borders of their county, state, province, or country.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Explosion in mandatory masking isn’t driven by science, but fear', PART I - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/explosion-in-mandatory-masking-isnt-driven-by-science-but-fear
'Explosion in mandatory masking isn’t driven by science, but fear', PART II - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/explosion-in-mandatory-masking-isnt-driven-by-science-but-fear-part-ii
OSHA Document on Surgical Masks and Respirators stating that surgical masks do NOT prevent airborne particles (e.g. viruses) from being inhaled - https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3219.pdf
'PETER HITCHENS: Face masks turn us into voiceless submissives - and it’s not science forcing us to wear them, it’s politics' - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8537489/PETER-HITCHENS-Face-masks-turn-voiceless-submissives.html
**Here, we are referring to the masks worn by the vast majority of the public, not to specialist masks or respirator-type masks.
***Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
A “case” has a very specific definition, apparently beyond the intellectual realm of Wolf Blitzer or Neil Cavuto. The CDC provides a specific “case definition.” A case is not just a positive test. Instead, what is needed is “presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence.” Notice the AND, meaning not simply a positive test.
The current COVID surges are positive tests, and even those are suspect, without regard to whether those who test positive are actually sick or not. I was curious about drive-by testing and last weekend gave it a whirl. It only took about 20 minutes and was free, meaning I got what I paid for. Results were promised within three days but took just over seven days to find out that I was virus free.
Given the sensitivity of the COVID PCR test, it is likely that some of those being tested, without any symptoms or exposure, will be reported as test positive and added to the case tickers running constantly on Fox News and CNN.
Saying someone with a positive COVID test is a “case” is fraudulent. For comparison, blood glucose has an upper test limit of 140. Is everyone above that number a diabetic? Even if they just ate a doughnut or ice cream cone before testing? Or does it take more than a single blood glucose level before one is diagnosed with diabetes? Does a single elevated blood pressure test make one hypertensive? Certainly not.
COVID is tested using PCR which amplifies any viral fragments found in the nose repeatedly until the test is positive. This is called the amplification cycle and the higher that number the more likely a positive test will be returned, even if it is clinically insignificant.
From that bastion of right-wing conspiracy, the New York Times,
The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus.
Most of these people are not likely to be contagious, and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time.
The amplification cycle is the problem.
The PCR test amplifies genetic matter from the virus in cycles; the fewer cycles required, the greater the amount of virus, or viral load, in the sample. The greater the viral load, the more likely the patient is to be contagious.
With too high an amplification cycle, the PCR test is hyper-sensitive. Most commercial tests set this threshold at 40, whereas it would be more clinical meaningful if much lower, say at 30. Otherwise as the NY Times notes,
Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left.
The CDC admits the test is too sensitive,
The CDC’s own calculations suggest that it is extremely difficult to detect any live virus in a sample above a threshold of 33 cycles.
In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles.
Garbage in, garbage out. With an overly sensitive test, almost 90 percent of the so-called surge is fake news, fear porn to justify unnecessary lockdowns and business closures.
This is easily understandable basic science and arithmetic, not string theory. If the CDC and NY Times can figure it out and acknowledge it, other “journalists” can as well and should be asking questions and providing caveats to their surge reporting rather than their typical hair on fire reactions.
Also unmentioned by the media is the fact that PCR testing was not designed as a test to screen for viral infection. Don’t take my word for it. That’s the opinion of Kary Mullis who invented PCR and won a Nobel Prize for his efforts.
Beyond cases, when we look at deaths, we see the same 3-card monte. Remember last spring when we heard about deaths rather than cases? Fox news had a death ticker sidebar just as they might have a Dow ticker running during the business day.
Death counts are back in vogue, each and every one blamed on President Trump, even the deaths cause by NY Governor Cuomo sending infected patients into nursing homes. We are told that COVID is killing hundreds of thousands.
Johns Hopkins University recently published a study which found,
In contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.
In other words, the same number of people died this year compared to last year, with the only variable this year being the Wuhan virus.
It seems deaths due to heart and respiratory disease, influenza, and pneumonia are down this year, the difference made up in deaths attributed to COVID, but the total number of deaths unchanged from last year to this year. Such a study is certainly inconvenient to the “shut it all down” narrative and not surprisingly John Hopkins deleted the study from their website.
Perhaps message crafting is related to financial contributions to Johns Hopkins, whether from China or the $1.8 billion from failed presidential candidate and Trump hater Michael Bloomberg. Hopkins’ motto is, “The truth will set you free.” But to paraphrase Orwell, some truths are more equal than others.
The ruling classes and their media allies are happy to play loose with COVID numbers, cherry picking and massaging the data to create fear. For many reasons.
COVID fear was used as an election campaign issue, blaming everything on Trump. It served as an excuse for mail-in ballots and last-minute changes to electoral laws favoring Sleepy Joe Biden. Shutdowns, masks, and distancing are a way of wannabe dictator governors to flex their power, lest the hoi polloi become restless and protest electoral fraud. In the quest for safety and security, American must relinquish freedom and liberty.
It’s almost as if this was all planned out, part of a grand scheme for the administrative state to subversively take over the government, rather than through free elections seeking the consent of the governed.
Keep your eye on the case numbers, which are simply positive tests, perpetuating the big con that things are far worse than they really are.
Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Denver-based physician and freelance writer for American Thinker, Rasmussen Reports, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Parler, and QuodVerum.
Published with permission from the American Thinker.