A group of business owners and several residents in Philadelphia are pushing back against the city’s indoor mask mandate. The group filed a lawsuit over the weekend claiming the city does not have the authority to reimpose a mandate, which went into effect Monday.
Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa said the CDC failed to follow the proper rule-making and failed to justify the decision.
US District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, in Florida, said that the authority of the Centres for Disease Control didn’t extend to public transportation, and that the implementation of the mandate was a violation of administrative law
“Starting today, we’re asking businesses to dig up those ‘masks required’ signs and start hanging them in your windows,” city health commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said Monday. “Beginning Monday, April 18, our health inspectors will begin enforcing the mask mandate again.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy tested positive for COVID-19 but is “feeling well” and not showing any symptoms, a spokesman said Thursday.
Murphy, 64, is vaccinated and boosted but is considered high risk because he had a cancerous tumor removed from his kidney in 2020, according to NJ.com.
I am concerned that existing HIPAA regulations are threatening the lives of our citizens and depriving Pennsylvania residents of knowing if – and when – they were exposed to a contagious person. This emergency measure is necessary to share vital and life-saving medical information with those who may have been subjected to this dangerous virus. The new information that would become available would help us combat the spread of the Coronavirus.
It is deeply concerning that the federal government did not proactively roll back this dangerous policy, which endangers our people. This situation changes daily – it remains my top priority to do what is in the best interest of protecting public health, and this measure will increase transparency in an effort to quell the spread of this virus.
According to new survey data released Thursday, more than 44 percent of American teens reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” while nearly 20 percent seriously considered suicide, and nine percent actually did attempt suicide in 2020.
“According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of blood donor samples, conducted in December and updated last month, an estimated 95% of Americans ages 16 and older have developed identifiable Covid antibodies,” CNBC reported on Tuesday. “Those come from both vaccinations — roughly 77% of the U.S. population has received at least one Covid vaccine dose, according to the CDC — and prior Covid infections.”
On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. She referenced the 95% immunity figure in her testimony.
A new analysis published at the scientific journal “Lancet” has provided further evidence that Covid policies implemented by public health experts around the globe failed to substantially lower excess deaths.
(Natural News) Dr. Scott Atlas, former medical advisor to the Trump administration, lamented the damage caused by Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdowns. He also denounced the globalist-backed medical tyrants responsible for these draconian measures.
Atlas gave a presentation about the disastrous effects of COVID-19 policies on March 23 to students of Michigan State University.
He referenced several studies that revealed the full extent of the damage caused by lockdowns. These include excess deaths, severe mental health issues and lasting economic damage to the lower echelons of society. Atlas also pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic drew a clear line among those brainwashed and those that remain able to think independently and rationally.
According to the former White House Coronavirus Task Force adviser, the pandemic opened people’s eyes to totalitarian government – and how many will submit to any command no matter how ridiculous they may be. “This kind of stuff is shocking. There is going to be another pandemic. We always have another crisis on the horizon. People want to bring back lockdowns for global warming, for instance,” said Atlas.
He also lamented the “loss of humanity” and “loss of common decency” in the U.S. and called for the need “to get past the behavior that we have now normalized.”
“First of all, there is no quick solution. The country is in a bad place. We have a severely damaged younger generation. They’re not just fearful; it’s worse. They’re unhealthy, they have psychiatric and psychological disease. I don’ t know if we have seen the tip of the iceberg on that. It’s very sad.”
Atlas also denounced COVID-19 mask mandates as “a psychological conditioning ritual.” He elaborated: “What they’ve done here is they have turned the public into assuming that everyone else is dangerous to them. You are hurting them by not believing in the mask. The data show that widespread population masking does not work; the masks are proven to not work, including specifically in schools. It is absurd.”
Despite the negative outlook, Atlas pointed to a sliver of hope, saying: “We have to change the mentality of people to where they have a healthy skepticism of everything, which I finally see developing now.” (Related: The unscientific attack on the science of Dr. Scott Atlas.)
Atlas has strong words for the medical tyrants
“When they make freedom and individual liberty dirty, they are hurting lower-income people [and] poor people more than anyone else. Realize this: The people in charge are an elitist group [and the] lockdowns are a luxury of the rich,” Atlas said.
A radiologist by training, Atlas became an adviser to former President Donald Trump in August 2020. However, former Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner warned Atlas that globalist-backed forces would “destroy” him if he went on board as an adviser. The expert remained unfazed despite the risks.
“There’s no one that has been more livid than I have, with what I saw in the White House. The gross incompetence, the politicization of everything, these folks on the White House COVID-19 Task Force – the medical people, at least – were grossly incompetent,” revealed Atlas.
He explained that entrenched public health bureaucrats in Washington, including White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, have held their jobs for decades because of their sycophancy toward the current administration rather than scientific expertise. Atlas also denounced the federal scientific cartel that has a tight grip on research.
“The underlying problem here is the National Institutes of Health (NIH). One group of people controls science because [it] controls the funding of science. [The NIH] controls the promotion of science because everyone is reliant on [its] grant money. [It] controls all the publications.”
Atlas ultimately called for the federal bureaucracy to be defanged, saying: “I was never for term limits, but I’m for term limits for people who have these appointed positions.”
The high court in a brief order Friday sided with the Biden administration and said that while the lawsuit plays out, the Navy may consider the sailors’ vaccination status in making deployment, assignment and other operational decisions. The group that sued includes mostly Navy SEALs.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that there was a “simple overarching reason” that he agreed with the court’s decision. The Constitution makes the president, “not any federal judge,” the commander in chief of the armed forces, he wrote, noting that courts have been traditionally “reluctant to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in military and national security affairs.”
Three conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — noted that they disagreed with their colleagues’ decision and would have sided with the group of SEALs.
Results in the Politico-Harvard survey showed that 46% of parents with children in grades K-12 where schools required masks during the past year said students’ social learning and interactions were hurt by the mandate.
A total of 41% said masks hurt “the general schooling experience” and 39% said they hurt students’ “mental and emotional health.”
“Today, in preparation for travel to Europe, I took a PCR test this morning. That test came back positive, which means I will be adhering to CDC guidance and no longer be traveling on the President’s trip to Europe.”
The pilots’ lawsuit against the Centers for Disease & Control (CDC) is the first legal challenge to the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate (FTMM) filed by airline workers.
The resolution, spearheaded by Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, picked up bipartisan support in a 57-40 vote. The vote comes after the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced Thursday that they would extend the current mask mandate for public transportation through April 18. Eight Democrats voted in favor of Paul’s resolution and only one Republican voted against it, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.
Allegedly “fully-vaccinated” and “boosted” Barack Obama has tested positive for Covid-19 and is showing symptoms. His wife, Michelle, has tested negative.
A new analysis published at the scientific journal “Lancet” has provided further evidence that Covid policies implemented by public health experts around the globe failed to substantially lower excess deaths.
As the Lancet article, “Estimating excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of COVID-19-related mortality, 2020–21,” explains, “the magnitude and distribution of many other causes of death might have changed because of social, economic, and behavioural responses to the pandemic, including strict lockdowns. Under these conditions, excess mortality can provide a more accurate assessment of the total mortality impact of the COVID-19 pandemic than reported COVID-19 deaths.”
“Our excess mortality estimates reflect the full impact of the pandemic on mortality around the world, and not only deaths directly attributable to SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the article explains about its model, which incorporated all-cause mortality reports for 74 countries and territories and 266 subnational locations.
Pfizer and Moderna vaccine rollouts began in January 2021. Screenshot: The Lancet.
The main finding of the study was its estimate that about three times as many people died worldwide due to the “global pandemic” than is suggested by Covid-related mortality figures.
“Although reported COVID-19 deaths between Jan 1, 2020, and Dec 31, 2021, totalled 5.94 million worldwide, we estimate that 18.2 million (95% uncertainty interval 17·1–19·6) people died worldwide because of the COVID-19 pandemic (as measured by excess mortality) over that period. The global all-age rate of excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic was 120.3 deaths (113·1–129·3) per 100 000 of the population, and excess mortality rate exceeded 300 deaths per 100,000 of the population in 21 countries. The number of excess deaths due to COVID-19 was largest in the regions of south Asia, north Africa and the Middle East, and eastern Europe.”
However, the “global pandemic” did not directly cause millions of these estimated deaths; the Covid policies, such as lockdowns, contributed greatly to the final tallies, as the Lancet study itself notes (cited above). Agency matters.
An exhaustive Johns Hopkins University comparative analysis published in January found that strict lockdowns failed to significantly reduce Covid-related deaths.
“Lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe had little or no impact in reducing deaths from COVID-19, according to a new analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University,” the Washington Times reported. “The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies.”Advertisements
“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote.
Importantly, the Covid lockdowns and policy mandates were unprecedented in their scope for any global pandemic in world history. They caused a massive amount of economic damage and social division, but produced virtually insignificant net benefits for public health.
“Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the authors conclude. “Our results are in line with the World Health Organization Writing Group (2006), who state, “Reports from the 1918 influenza pandemic indicate that social-distancing measures did not stop or appear to dramatically reduce transmission.”
Source: Nature
“The use of lockdowns is a unique feature of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the authors added. “Lockdowns have not been used to such a large extent during any of the pandemics of the past century. However, lockdowns during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic have had devastating effects. They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy. These costs to society must be compared to the benefits of lockdowns, which our meta-analysis has shown are marginal at best. Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.”
The Covid-19 pandemic is also unique in that the overwhelming number of people who died with the virus were near life expectancy and had underlying health conditions. In 2020 that the average age of mortality for Covid-19 related deaths (77 years old) was about that of life expectancy (78 years old). It is now estimated globally to be between 73 and 79 years old. As noted by the CDC, 95% of all Covid-related deaths have at least one ‘comorbidity,’ and the average number of Covid-related comorbidities is 4.0.
As reported exclusively here in November, such all-cause mortality rates did not decrease as expected in advanced nations despite the substantial vaccination rates. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), show that excess mortality rates did not decline in 2021 in many advanced nations, despite lockdowns and relatively high vaccination rates.
In the United States, for example, despite the vaccines, there was no significant decline in excess mortality. (There were actually more reported Covid-related deaths in 2021 than in 2020.) The U.K. similarly saw no overall decline in excess mortality.
Covid policies were imposed in many cases around the world by emergency decree, without a consideration for democratic processes, medical norms such as informed consent, legal recourse in a court of law due to liability shields, or respect for individuals’ constitutionally protected due process rights. Vaccine and mask mandates, as well as strict lockdowns, nonetheless inflicted massive amounts of economic damage, social division, and mental health trauma on large segments of the respective populations.Advertisements
Excess mortality rates are the gold standard for evaluating whether the ‘experts’ succeeded in preventing Covid deaths. That data is in. And the answer is ‘no.’
The New York Times said vaccinations, booster shots and masks have not caused a major difference in case rates between parts of the country with different levels of COVID-19 precautions in a Wednesday morning newsletter.
The article compared COVID-19 case rates for Democratic and Republican areas, noting that Democrats were more likely to wear masks, get vaccinated and boosted, avoid public spaces and shut down in-person schools over virus fears.
“These factors seem as if they should have caused large differences in case rates. They have not. And that they haven’t offers some clarity about the relative effectiveness of different Covid interventions,” David Leonhardt wrote in the NYT newsletter
TSA officials have indicated that the masking requirements are under review, in consultation from the CDC. The decision on whether they will remain in place will come March 18, when they are set to expire.
The new CDC guidance divides communities into high, medium and low risk categories based on COVID metrics like hospitalizations. People in communities that are deemed high risk are advised to wear a mask indoors, but those in low or medium risk areas are advised only to get vaccinated and get tested if sick.
In medium risk communities, vulnerable individuals are encouraged to seek the advice of their doctor on whether or not to wear a mask. Roughly 70% of American counties fall in the medium or low risk groups, meaning those residents aren’t advised to mask.
“Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data “because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” She said the agency’s “priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.”
Ahhh, the plebs are not ready to know the truth.
Another reason is fear that the information might be misinterpreted, Ms. Nordlund said.”
The data has been withheld for more than a year, the report notes:
…the C.D.C. has been routinely collecting information since the Covid vaccines were first rolled out last year, according to a federal official familiar with the effort. The agency has been reluctant to make those figures public, the official said, because they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective.
A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered further review of United Airlines’ coronavirus vaccine mandate, calling it “coercive” and reversing a lower court ruling.
Since Monday, 11 different states have announced either the end of most mask mandates, or the easing of some restrictions, even despite protests from the federal government.
According to ABC News, the changes have mostly focused on the highly contentious indoor mask mandates, and particularly mask mandates in schools. The 11 states that have announced such changes are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
The state of Nevada allowed both its universal indoor mask mandate and indoor school mask mandate to expire yesterday, February 10th; New York’s indoor mask mandate expired the same day, while the indoor school mandate remains in effect. Indoor mask mandates in Delaware and Rhode Island both expire today; while California’s indoor mandate will expire on February 15th.
Their appeal was directed to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who handles cases from that region.
Sotomayor rejected an earlier challenge, filed in October, to the city’s vaccine mandate. And on Friday she rejected this one, too, with no explanation, which is the court’s usual procedure. She did not ask the city for a response, either — another sign that the request for an injunction would likely fail.
According to the governor, the statewide indoor mask mandate, which requires individuals kindergarten aged and up to wear a mask regardless of vaccination status, will end Friday, February 11. However, the school mask mandate will not end for nearly two more months, expiring March 31, 2022.
However, the Johns Hopkins study received no mention on any of the five liberal networks this week. According to Grabien transcripts, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC all ignored the anti-lockdown findings after having spent much of the pandemic shaming red states with minimal restrictions and events deemed by critics as “superspreaders.”
From May 2020 to April 2021, the U.S. recorded 100,306 drug overdose deaths, a 28.5% increase from the 78,056 deaths that were recorded in the previous 12-month period, according to CDC data.
Studies that looked at only shelter-in-place orders found they reduced COVID-19 mortality by 5.1%, but studies that looked at shelter-in-place orders along with other lockdown measures found that shelter-in-place orders actually increased COVID-19 mortality by 2.8%.
The researchers concluded that limiting gatherings may have actually increased COVID-19 mortality.
“[Shelter-in-place orders] may isolate an infected person at home with his/her family where he/she risks infecting family members with a higher viral load, causing more severe illness,” the researchers wrote.
A study from the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice last year found that domestic violence incidents increased 8.1% in the U.S. after lockdown orders were issued.
About 97% of U.S. teachers said that their students have experienced learning loss during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Horace Mann survey last year.
The unemployment rate peaked nationwide at 14.8% in April 2020, but declined to 3.9% in December, which is still slightly higher than the 3.5% rate it was at in February 2020.
“These costs to society must be compared to the benefits of lockdowns, which our meta-analysis has shown are marginal at best,” the researchers in the Johns Hopkins University study wrote. “Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.”
Former FDA commissioner and Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Sunday said a two-shot COVID inoculation series for very young children could be approved by March..
In a January 25 statement, OSHA announced the withdrawal of the vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard, which it issued on November 5, 2021. In its statement, it pitched the mandate as a means to “protect unvaccinated employees of large employers with 100 or more employees from workplace exposure to coronavirus.”