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<h1><b>Moon of Alabama – It’s time to say goodbye…in which we debunk a
“debunking”<br><br>
</b></h1><h6><b>Kit Knightly
<a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/16/__trashed-2/%A0%A0" eudora="autourl">
https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/16/__trashed-2/ </a> </b></h6>Oct
16, 2020 <br>
<a href="http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=181023#181023" eudora="autourl">
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=181023#181023<br><br>
</a>Bernhard, the proprietor of alternate-news site Moon of Alabama, has
taken it upon himself to
<a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/09/in-which-we-debunk-a-coividiots-pamphlet.html#more">
“fact-check” one of our many Covid-related articles</a>. It was done
without informing us of his intent, or indeed offering us a right of
reply.<br><br>
Whilst this is regrettable – and highly unprofessional – I do understand,
given the nature and quality of the article, why he would neither want us
to read it, nor respond to it.<br><br>
Nevertheless, read it I did, and respond we must.<br><br>
<br>
<h4><b>PREAMBLE</b></h4>I would like to start with a few words of regret,
mourning for the age of solidarity now passed. Until very recently I had
believed – perhaps “hoped” is the better word – that all of us in the
“alternate news” sphere were more or less on the same side. After all,
OffGuardian and MoA have a long history – continuing to this day – of
agreement.<br><br>
On Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Russia-gate, Assange and MH17 our opinions and
coverage have always almost totally aligned. This pattern is solid up to
this very day, with the obvious attempted coup Belarus forming the most
prominent recent example.<br><br>
I would hope that such numerous strokes of agreement – accompanying as
they do a broadly similar world-view – would therefore be able to
comfortably encompass such diversions of opinion as are sure to manifest
between even the most like-minded of people. I had assumed that any such
conflicts of interpretation which did eventually arise would be handled
with, if not amiable good humour, at least passing civility.<br><br>
Sadly, that is not the case, and whilst “B” is not noted in the alt-media
world for either his good humour or social skills, it is nonetheless sad
to find a former ally has become so willing an enemy. Disagreeing is one
thing, but publicly attacking our intentions and honesty is quite
another.<br><br>
<i>Secondly,</i> I would like to make note of certain contradictions –
not only from MoA, but across a lot of those who consider themselves
“independent journalists” or “alternative news” or “alt-media” or
whatever their preferred nomenclature. Specifically the contradiction of
picking and choosing when and how to trust the mainstream.<br><br>
Many of these people devote their entire careers, if not their lives, to
debunking and contradicting the mainstream media – and yet, when a story
appears with which they agree, which reinforces their preconceived ideas
or bolsters their own particular biases – they gladly accept it. MoA’s
“fact-check” is a prime example. I have to say I fundamentally disagree
with this approach.<br><br>
The modern media is not a machine you can trust. Not ever. It is a
construction built to control and corral opinion. To shuffle the public
mind around a game-board they do not know they are on, based on rules
they must never be allowed to understand. It serves no other function. It
doesn’t “tell the truth sometimes”; it isn’t “occasionally trustworthy”.
It’s a buffet of poisoned courses, selectively stacking your plate to
suit your palate will not spare you the toxic effects. You’ll just smile
as you choke.<br><br>
To choose to believe or disbelieve the media only when it suits your case
is as foolish as being entirely oblivious to its nature. Perhaps more
foolish, because you cannot hide behind blameless ignorance. You,
notoionally, know better.<br><br>
Scepticism is a lens through which one must examine everything, or
nothing. It cannot be put aside lightly when you want to score easy
points, or salve your own sense of panic, or you just feel like fitting
in for once. To do so is moral cowardice.<br><br>
Using the mainstream propaganda term “covidiot” is a perfect example. It
is the product of the same Deep State-media thinktanks and focus groups
that birthed “conspiracy theorist” into the public consciousness. More
recently we have seen “Russian bots” and “Assad apologist” and “Kremlin
stooge” join these ranks – alongside the ubiquitous “denier”.<br><br>
These are labels designed to encourage groupthink, to “other” dissenters
and stifle intelligent and informed debate. To use them is to debase both
yourself and the conversation.<br><br>
<b><i>Thirdly, and finally, I would like to add a few words about
professionalism, integrity and the ethics of journalism. Journalistic
ethics are not really different from the natural decency with which one
hopes everyone seeks to comport themselves.<br><br>
</i></b>It is unseemly, we can all agree, to attack someone and give them
no chance to defend themselves. For example, blocking someone on twitter
and continuing to bad-mouth them or their work when they can offer no
refutation, is not generally speaking “the done thing”. Likewise, it is
basic professional practice that, if you intend to refute someone’s work,
you inform them of this. It would usually be considered right to offer
them space to reply.<br><br>
Likewise selectively quote-mining is always considered bad form.<br><br>
Claiming that <i>“It makes little sense to review and refute the whole
mess”</i>, and choosing to <i>“concentrat</i> [sic] <i>on the 6 of the 8
</i>[sic]<i> “Take Home Messages”</i> might seem, at first glance, to be
an effort at maintaining brevity. However a more cynical reader might
point out that, in doing so, MoA has chosen the only section of the text
with no hyperlinked sources.<br><br>
Throughout the original 5,000 word article<i> there are over 60 linked
references</i>, the majority to academic journals and peer-reviewed
studies. Bernhard does not refute one of these sources, in fact he
doesn’t even acknowledge their existence. Instead choosing to attempt to
refute 75% of the article’s conclusions, whilst ignoring 100% of the
arguments and facts upon which those conclusions are based.<br><br>
Lies by omission are poor form, you could even call them the hallmark of
hack journalism.<br><br>
With all that said, let us turn our attention to the task at hand. I will
address each of Bernhard’s criticisms in turn, firstly quoting the
original article authored by Dr Jeanmonod, then Bernhard’s response, and
then my thoughts. Dr Jeanmonod has been informed on MoA’s attack on his
work, and has given his blessing to us to make a response; while we don’t
speak for him, we hope he can approve.<br><br>
<br>
<h4><b>1. CORONAVIRUSES, COLDS, SARS AND MERS</b></h4>In the
<a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/09/22/do-you-remember-a-winter-without-a-cold/">
original article for OffG</a>, Dr Jeanmonod wrote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>1. Corona viruses are one of the viral agents of the common cold,
which, just like the flu, invade the whole planet every year. They cause
largely widespread, mostly benign, yearly pandemics of respiratory tract
infections.<br><br>
</dl>MoA’s response fits a familiar pattern – a rather pedantic nitpick,
and then rather dishonest conclusion.<br><br>
There are seven distinct corona viruses that infect humans. Four of those
can cause the common cold. The infections are generally mild. At times
they have more severe consequences like pneumonia. The infection fatality
rate for these four corona viruses is estimated to be about
0.1%.<br><br>
This is broadly speaking true. It also doesn’t, in any way, contradict
anything Jeanmonod says.<br><br>
This, however, is a misleading and irrelevant tangent:<br><br>
The three other corona viruses, SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2 are very
different beasts. They cause very severe symptoms in a significant
numbers of the infected people. The infection fatality rate for SARS was
9% and for MERS it is even 37%.<br><br>
Equating SARS and MERS with the other four coronaviruses he already
mentioned neglects an important difference: The four “common cold”
coronaviruses cause around 15% of the world’s “colds”. That is literally
100s of millions of cases every year. Conversely, there have been only
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome">
10,617 officially recognised cases</a> of SARS and MERS
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome">
combined</a> in over 18 years.<br><br>
Clearly, Jeanmonod is justified in claiming the vast majority of
coronavirus infections as “mostly benign”.<br><br>
SARS and MERS, themselves already the subject of hysterical “global
health scares”, have fatality rates based on such small samples as to
make them meaningless. They are suffering from the same problem the
Sars-Cov-2 outbreak was suffering from back in spring – we have only
hospital admissions to go on. We have only severe case data.<br><br>
There have been very, very few seroprevalence studies done on these
viruses, thus we have no data for how widespread these viruses are. How
many asymptomatic infections for SARS or MERS have there been? We don’t
know. How many mild cases dismissed as “the flu” or “colds” etc.? We
don’t know.<br><br>
However, even if we accept the high fatality for SARS and MERs, that is
irrelevant, which Bernhard himself admits in the next sentence…<br><br>
The true infection fatality rate for SARS-CoV-2 depends on various
circumstances (health service availability, social and medical conditions
of the population etc.) but is currently estimated to be around
1%.<br><br>
Firstly, the fatality rate for Sars-Cov-2 is not 1%. It is substantially
lower than that. In May the CDC estimated it to be 0.26%, they then
<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios-archive/planning-scenarios-2020-09-10.pdf">
changed it to 0.65%</a>. Dozens of studies have been done
<a href="https://swprs.org/studies-on-covid-19-lethality/">all around the
globe which roughly confirm 0.2%</a> (the numbers range from 0.08% to
0.3%). According to the WHO’s “best estimate”
<a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/08/who-accidentally-confirms-covid-is-no-more-dangerous-than-flu/">
it’s likely around 0.14%</a>.<br><br>
But let’s put that aside (we’ll go into it in more detail in point 2) –
let us temporarily concede that MoA’s figure is correct – that Sars-Cov-2
has a fatality rate of 1%. Why is he then listing it alongside diseases
which have fatality rates between 10 and 37 times higher?<br><br>
He has conceded that the IFR for Sars-Cov-2 is nothing like as high as
the other viruses. Introducing the fatality rates of SARS and MERS is a
good example of the Association Fallacy – an attempt to put some large
scary numbers into the mix, by claiming an irrelevant connection. All it
really does is demonstrate that the Sars-Cov-2 fatality rate is
comparatively low.<br><br>
Summary: The fatality rate of Sars-Cov-2 is much less than 1%, as
evidenced by many studies. The fatality rates for SARS and MERS are
entirely irrelevant to discussion of Sars-Cov-2.<br><br>
<br>
<h4><b>2. DEATH RATES, SELECTIVE REASONING AND FILLER</b></h4>In the
original article for OffG, Dr Jeanmonod wrote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>2. COVID-19, the infection caused by SARS-CoV-2, the current corona
mutation, is not more lethal than the flu, with a 0.1-0.2% infection
fatality rate.<br><br>
</dl>Bernhard’s response to this is in two halves – firstly a pedantic
focus on the word “mutation” and a lot of text about genomes, second an
accusation of dishonesty.<br><br>
This is a. outright nonsense that has no scientific basis and b. a
lie.<br><br>
The paragraphs devoted to waffling about genomes are irrelevant. Viruses
<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2020/04/27/2020.04.23.20076075.full.pdf">
mutate very rapidly</a>, for a number of reasons, and it seems undeniably
clear that Dr Jeanmonod is using the word “mutation” as shorthand to
refer to this seasonal generation of respiratory viruses, that is
all.<br><br>
The accusation of dishonesty is far more serious. He calls Jeanmonod’s
claim that Sars-Cov-2 has a fatality rate in line with seasonal flu “a
lie”, and claims it is “outright false and easy to refute.”<br><br>
For some reason best known to himself, he then chooses to ‘refute’ this
by doing his own maths using rough, months old data from New York City.
Doing this he produces an IFR of 1.29%.<br><br>
As we discussed above, this is much too high.<br><br>
The World Health Organization estimated the IFR to be 3.4% back in the
Spring. This was an absurdly high number which totally disregarded the
possibility of mild or asymptomatic cases. We now know that the majority
of infections are symptomless, and the vast majority of those who get
symptoms only ever get mildly ill. The corollary of this is the IFR has
tumbled.<br><br>
If Bernhard were being an honest broker on this issue he would, at this
point, acknowledge that OffG has been shown to completely right about
this. We have been writing that the IFR was inflated and would surely
drop since May. Whereas
<a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/04/on-coronavirus-and-smoking-infection-fatality-rates-and-more.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef025d9b4a84a2200c#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef025d9b4a84a2200c">
his own predictions</a> relating to IFR have not aged half so
well.<br><br>
Jeanmonod himself links to two studies showing an IFR of
<a href="https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01691-x">
0.2%</a> and
<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v3#:~:text=Seroprevalence%20estimates%20ranged%20from%200.222,epicenters%20with%20high%20death%20tolls.">
0.1%</a> respectively. At least a dozen other studies around the world
have demonstrated similar numbers.<br><br>
Of course, Bernhard is free to disagree with Jeanmonod’s interpretation,
and to pick and choose which evidence he puts weight on and which he does
not. But to ignore these data sources and claim the author is lying is
incredibly dishonest.<br><br>
Summary: The 0.1-0.2% fatality rate is based on seroprevelance studies
from scientific journals. It is not “a lie”.<br><br>
<br>
<h4><b>3. ON AGE AND CO-MORBIDITIES</b></h4>In the original article for
OffG, Dr Jeanmonod wrote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>3. An immense majority (95%) of fatal evolutions happen in old and
frail individuals with premorbidities, with an average age of death at or
above 80 years old.<br><br>
</dl>Bernhard responded with:<br><br>
That claim is again an outright lie<br><br>
I’m going to be charitable and assume that Bernhard’s mistake here is to
misread some admittedly ambiguous wording.<br><br>
He calls the claim “an outright lie”, and proceeds to try and debunk the
idea that 95% of Covid19 deaths are over 80 years old, but that is not
what Dr Jeanmonod said. The “95%” here refers to having serious
comorbidities, not the age. But, as I said, I will cede that this
conclusion is ambiguously worded.<br><br>
Of course, if Bernhard had bothered to tackle the entire article – and
not just 6 of the 8 bullet-pointed conclusions – he would know that. Here
is the full quote from the body of the text (with sources
included):<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>For example in Italy, 95% of the fatalities happened for patients
suffering from one up to three or more pre-existing morbidities, and the
<a href="https://www.epicentro.iss.it/en/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-COVID-2019_22_july_2020.pdf">
mean age of the deceased patients was 82</a>. Such a mean fatality age is
very close to the average life expectancy of developed, e.g. European
countries (83.6 years for Switzerland).<br><br>
</dl>As you can see, there is no ambiguity here. The “95%” here refers to
pre-existing medical conditions, not the ages.<br><br>
That the vast majority of alleged Covid19 deaths have serious
comorbidities is not just limited to the figures from Italy – it has been
shown to be the case
in<a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/09/report-over-95-of-uk-covid19-deaths-had-pre-existing-condition/">
UK</a> and
the<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Comorbidities">
US</a> as well. In fact basically everywhere.<br><br>
Bernhard does make a claim that these co-morbidities don’t cause death
and the virus does. This is unsourced conjecture, and is not in any way
verifiable.<br><br>
What IS verifiable is that government officials all around the world
<a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/05/covid19-death-figures-a-substantial-over-estimate/">
have gone out of their way to point out</a> how loose their definition of
“covid death” is, that it has already lead to
<a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/07/17/uk-govt-finally-admits-covid-statistics-are-inaccurate/">
huge over-counts</a>.<br><br>
It is also true that the average age of those who allegedly die from/with
covid19 is over 80 (you can see a list of average age by
country<a href="https://swprs.org/studies-on-covid-19-lethality/#age">
here</a>). Bernhard does not refute this, because he can’t.<br><br>
Summary: His claim this statement is “a lie” is based on either an
accidental misreading of an ambiguously worded sentence, or deliberate
quote-mining to take the author’s words out of context. Either way, the
original claim is demonstrably true, and sourced to official
reports.<br><br>
<br>
<h4><b>4. ON T CELLS, HERD IMMUNITY AND THE “SECOND WAVE”</b></h4>In the
original article for OffG, Dr Jeanmonod wrote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>4. Antibody studies, cross immunization with other corona strains and
the completion of the death toll curve in many countries are strong
evidence that the human population is developing herd immunity against
SARS-CoV-2. In this context, a severe “second wave” for SARS-CoV-2 is
improbable. We may rather expect a new cold episode from it just like
every year, but of regular or even weak intensity thanks to the gained
herd immunity.<br><br>
</dl>Bernhard’s response to this is flawed in a few ways.
Firstly:<br><br>
Antibody prevalence even in hard hit place [sic] like New York City is
way below the 80% or so that would be needed for some kind of “herd
immunity”. In the U.S. and Europe antibody prevalence is in total way
less than 10%. The bay area for example has only some 2%. Is the U.S.
ready to give 10 times more lives than the 266,000 who have already died
of Covid-19 to achieve a only potentially temporary herd
immunity?<br><br>
His figure of 80% exposure for herd immunity is old, and based on flawed
modelling which assumed there was no pre-existing mucosal and cellular
immunity, this has been shown to be incorrect.<br><br>
The Herd Immunity Threshold (HIT) for any disease is always, at best, a
rough estimate and Sars-Cov-2 is no exception. It was stated as 80% back
in April, but back then they said the UK would get 500,000 deaths and the
IFR was 3.4%. Sweden worked on the model of 60% HIT. An article in Nature
suggested it<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00451-5">
was closer 50%</a>. Another
model<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-thresholds-for-effective-herd-immunity-could-be-lower-than-predicted-heres-why-145069">
put it at 43%.</a><br><br>
More recent
<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.27.20081893v3">
preprints have suggested </a>the herd immunity threshold is
<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160762v2">
closer to 20%</a> or even as
<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.15.20154294v2">
low as 10%</a>.<br><br>
The point is the HIT is not nailed down, and Jeanmonod’s statement is
backed up by scientific studies which Bernhard ignores.<br><br>
Secondly:<br><br>
Cross immunization with other corona viruses is a conjecture. We have so
far no data that shows that there is cross immunity from other viruses
that works against SARS-CoV-2.<br><br>
This is simply completely untrue. There are many papers and studies
showing pre-existing cross-reactive T-cells, likely the result of
previous coronavirus infections. Here’s
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2598-9">1</a>,
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z">2</a>,
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2095096/">3</a>,
<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420306103">
4</a> of them.<br><br>
Thirdly:<br><br>
The “improbable” second wave of Covid 19 is already developing in several
European countries. Just take a look at France. And don’t worry. The rise
in the still low death toll WILL follow the infection curve with a four
weeks lag.<br><br>
He illustrates this point using a graph of cases from France, insisting
that the fatalities will lag but are coming soon (his tone regarding
predicting the deaths of 1000s of people, is slightly odd, almost
gleeful, but we’re not here discuss his psychology).<br><br>
What he doesn’t mention is that cases have spiked – not just in France,
but the rest of the Western world – ONLY thanks to a huge increase in the
number of tests. If you test 100,000s of people, using a test with a
known false-positive rate (more on this in point 5), looking for a
disease with a high percentage of asymptomatic infections, you will
undeniably get a spike in “cases”.<br><br>
And that’s not actual cases, but “cases”.<br><br>
You see, before 2020 a “case” of a disease was someone who got sick and
developed symptoms. For some reason Covid19 has recently changed that,
throwing
<a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-does-a-case-of-covid-19-really-mean-">
all previous clinical practice out the window</a>.<br><br>
Summary: The statement about immunity and antibodies is backed up by
several scientific papers, and MoA’s herd immunity threshold is out of
date. The “second wave” is likely being generated by huge numbers of
tests finding asymptomatic cases and false positives.<br><br>
<br>
<h4><b>5. ON PCR TESTS AND THE CASEDEMIC</b></h4>In the original article
for OffG, Dr Jeanmonod wrote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>5. PCR testing of SARS-CoV-2 presence does not give any reliable
prognostic evidence of its infectious power and lethality. The monitoring
of the pandemic state and evolution is given only by the daily evolution
of fatalities. In Switzerland as in many other countries, there is no
longer any excess mortality attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Positive test rate is low (around 3%), and tests have as always a
technical false positive rate and react to inactive viral fragments or to
other corona strains.<br><br>
</dl>Since Bernhard’s response to this is refreshingly brief, I will
quote it in full:<br><br>
The author says that to evaluate the state of the pandemic we should
follow the number (death) that is known to lag at least four weeks behind
infections instead of following the number of new infections per day.
That is lunatic. Its driving at high speed while only looking into the
rear view mirror. During a highly dynamic pandemic we need current
infection data and predictions, not reviews.<br><br>
Also: SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests DO NOT react to other coronaviruses. The RNA
strings they are reacting to are unique to SARS-CoV-2. The tests can not
even ‘see’ any other ones.<br><br>
Before we address the flaws in what Bernhard does say, let’s take a
second to focus on what he does not say.<br><br>
He doesn’t, for example, refute the statement that PCR tests are of
almost no diagnostic use. Because he can’t.
<a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/05/pcr-inventor-it-doesnt-tell-you-that-you-are-sick/">
Because it’s true</a>.<br><br>
He doesn’t, you may notice, refute that PCR tests have a noteworthy
false-positive rate. Because he can’t.
<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895843/S0519_Impact_of_false_positives_and_negatives.pdf">
Because it’s true</a>.<br><br>
And he doesn’t, interestingly, refute that there is no longer any
appreciable excess mortality. Because he can’t.
<a href="https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps">Because it’s
true</a>.<br><br>
Now, let’s move on to what he does say.<br><br>
Firstly, his assertion that “new infections per day” is the best way to
track the pandemic.<br><br>
This is seriously flawed in more than one way:<br><br>
The term “new infections per day” is incorrect. Just because Person A is
tested on Monday and Person B is tested on Tuesday does not mean B is a
“new infection”, that is absurdly bad logic. If you start widespread
testing, testing 10,000s of people every day – you have no way of knowing
which infections are “new” and which are old. You could only get “new
infections per day” by testing everybody every single day, which is
obviously impossible.<br><br>
If your test can’t tell the difference between viral RNA fragments and
living virions (which PCR does not, and cannot), then you can’t tell the
difference between someone who is actively infected and someone who was
previously exposed to the virus and either never got sick, or got sick
and recovered.<br><br>
If your test doesn’t assess viral load (which PCR does not, and cannot)
then you have no way to distinguish between a person who has enough
virions to cause disease and someone who does not.<br><br>
If your test can
<a href="https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/pcr-positives-what-do-they-mean/">
react to the RNA of other viruses </a>(which, counter to MoA’s
assertions,
<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895843/S0519_Impact_of_false_positives_and_negatives.pdf">
some studies</a> suggest
<a href="https://www.instand-ev.de/System/rv-files/340%20DE%20SARS-CoV-2%20Genom%20April%202020%2020200502j.pdf#page=12">
it does</a>), then you have no idea who is “positive for Sars-Cov-2” and
who just had a cold a couple of weeks ago.<br><br>
All in all the “cases” number is unreliable and borderline meaningless.
To use it as a measure of the pandemic would be to create a forever war
on an enemy which may already be defeated.<br><br>
Summary: The PCR tests have been shown to be highly unreliable in more
than one way, and are a potentially disastrous way of “tracking a
pandemic”. Jeanmonod’s preference for dealing with confirmed deaths
instead of misleading test results is backed by science and experts in
epidemiology.<br><br>
<br>
<h4><b>6. ON LOCKDOWNS, DEATH AND HYPOCRISY</b></h4>In the original
article for OffG, Dr Jeanmonod wrote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>General isolation, distancing and lockdown measures, by limiting
social contacts, freedom and basic human rights, add to the death toll
through an upsurge of psychosocial and economic destabilization,
worsening of psychiatric and demented individuals and reduction of
medical care to the whole population. We have thus a combined causality
for an excess mortality of COVID-19, a significant part of it being not
due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself but to the worldwide COVID-19 panic
wave and the imposed introduction of drastic and inhumane
measures.<br><br>
</dl>Bernhard responds with his trademark tact and charm:<br><br>
That is the “Lockdowns kill” thesis that many covidiots use to claim that
negative side effects of pandemic control measures outweigh their
positive effects.<br><br>
The thesis is wrong. Spain had a total lockdown everywhere between March
14 and May 9. It also had a lot of excess death. A large countrywide
seroprevalence study showed where the most people were infected. That
data is available on a granular and localized level.<br><br>
Here we see again the very careful process by which Bernhard selects his
data, choosing to evidence his claim that “lockdowns don’t kill people”
with a rather tortured statistical reasoning based on numbers from six
months ago, and limited to a single country (Spain).<br><br>
This is where the “debunking” lurches from impolite strident arrogance
into complete denial, intellectual dishonesty and – worst of all – abject
hypocrisy.<br><br>
Lockdowns do cause death and destruction, this has never been debated,
even by the people instituting them. The question was whether or not the
risks of Covid19 merited the undoubted toll of collapsing the economy and
shuttering hospitals. No one, on either side of this argument, has ever
suggested they do no harm at all. Until now.<br><br>
Refuting this kind of madness is like having to refute someone claiming
they’re a coffee table or that they have six legs. Yes, it’s easy, and
yes it probably does need to be done…but it’s slightly demeaning, and
since you know they’re only going to ignore you and carry on being crazy,
is there really any point?<br><br>
Nevertheless, here we go: Yes, the lockdowns have killed people, and will
likely continue to do so. They kill people in myriad ways which can be
broadly defined in three categories:<br><br>
Denial of medical treatment. The shuttering of hospitals has lead to
countless tests, screenings, treatments and surgeries being cancelled.
This is not up for debate. The exact number of deaths caused by this is
unknown, but experts estimate
<a href="https://www.dumptheguardian.com/society/2020/jun/01/millions-in-uk-miss-cancer-screenings-tests-and-treatments-due-to-covid-19">
24,000 missed cancer diagnoses in England alone</a>. Writing in the Daily
Mail, a prominent oncologist revealed that
over<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8824833/Lockdown-despair-drove-two-Professors-lives.html">
110,000 patients are waiting to begin their cancer treatments</a>. A
study at Birmingham University found that, globally, over
<a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2020/05/covid-disruption-28-million-surgeries-cancelled.aspx">
28 MILLION surgeries</a> had been cancelled.<br><br>
In a similar vein, the media’s pushing of the message that the virus is
incredibly dangerous, combined with worrying people about over-crowding
hospitals, has lead to a huge drop in people calling for emergency
medical care. Hospital admissions for
<a href="https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)31356-8/fulltext">
heart attacks</a>, strokes etc. are all way down from yearly averages.
According to the British Heart Foundation, this has
<a href="https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2020/september/thousands-of-excess-deaths-from-cardiovascular-disease-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic">
already lead to thousands of excess deaths</a> from heart disease in the
UK.<br><br>
Economic misery and poverty. The destruction of the economy, including
rendering <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/06/1067432">millions
of people unemployed</a> and possibly many thousands literally homeless,
will obviously result in death and suffering.
<a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malnutrition">
Malnutrition</a>,
<a href="https://www.nhs.uk/news/mental-health/recession-linked-to-rise-in-suicides/">
suicide</a>,
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-crime-idUSTRE50Q6FR20090127">
violent crime</a>,
<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395917300877">
drug use</a> and
<a href="https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/news/20111013/as-economy-goes-down-drinking-goes-up#1">
alcoholism</a> all surge as poverty increases.<br><br>
Plus the increased anxiety of financial destitution causes stress-related
disease – ulcers, heart attacks, strokes – which we already established
are not being treated thanks to medical shutdowns. In the United States,
with their private healthcare system, unemployment and poverty can mean
not being able to afford medications you need to live.<br><br>
Fear, Anxiety and Stress. The increased stress isn’t just related to
financial problems, but the pandemic itself. Fear and anxiety – as well
as causing heart attacks etc. – also
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361287/">deplete
the immune system</a>, leading to increased risk of other diseases.
Further, denial of human contact is known to
<a href="https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2020-07-30/lockdown-isolation-causes-shocking-levels-decline-people-dementia-who-are-rapidly">
accelerate the progress of degenerative disease</a> such as
dementia.<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/07/covid-has-created-looming-mental-health-crisis-royal-college/">
Mental health treatments have been halted</a>, and people already
suffering are at massively increased risk of suicide.<br><br>
Even Dr David Nabarro, World Health Organization special envoy for
Covid-19,
<a href="https://twitter.com/spectator/status/1314573157827858434">said
recently</a>:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the
primary means of control of the virus[…]just look at what’s happened to
the tourism industry…look what’s happening to small-holding farmers[…]it
seems we may have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well
have at least a doubling of child malnutrition […] This is a terrible,
ghastly global catastrophe.”<br><br>
</dl>To argue that lockdowns don’t cause harm, don’t cause death, is
patently absurd. But, as I said, it’s also hypocritical.<br><br>
Throughout this whole ordeal we “Covidiots” – or “pandemic deniers” or
whatever you want to call us – have been told we are putting “money
before people”, that we don’t care about the lives and suffering of human
beings. That we’re saying some lives matter less than others. We’ve been
called “selfish”, “inhumane”, even “genocidal”.<br><br>
And now those authoritarians who are so pro-lockdown are turning around
and not just backing policies which are proven to result in deaths – they
are then refusing to acknowledge the deaths they cause. To wipe thousands
of human lives out of existence, and claim they never existed. It’s
sickening and, frankly, disturbing.<br><br>
Summary:
<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/07/lockdown-killed-two-three-died-coronavirus/">
Lockdowns cause excess deaths.</a> This has been shown across multiple
nations and for multiples causes. Denying that, at this stage, is almost
insane. And one senses, more than anything, that Bernhard is attempting
to soothe his own conscience more than deal with reality.<br><br>
*<br><br>
On the whole, if there were a theme to this “debunking” it would be
“selectivity”.<br><br>
He carefully selects to refute this article, and not the literal dozens
of others we have done over the few months.<br><br>
He carefully selects to refute the only part of this particular article
without linked sources.<br><br>
He carefully selects to refute the death rate with old data from one
city, instead of new data from all around the globe.<br><br>
He carefully selects to refute the idea lockdowns increased mortality
with hastily constructed correlation, instead of officially cited
causation.<br><br>
And all the way through he carefully selects to ignore the academic
sources Dr Jeanmonod references, and choose instead to present him as an
ill-informed man making sweeping statements based on no evidence, rather
than the truth: A highly educated expert making reasoned conclusions
based on dozens of academic sources.<br><br>
It’s not a “debunking” in the true sense. It’s 2000 word strawman,
deliberately twisting the irrefutable original into something with which
he can argue. It’s intellectually flawed, but it’s also sad. MoA is a
site I have always respected, but this is small.<br><br>
His attacks on the author’s honesty, and the integrity of our site, are
likewise unfair and, worst of all, all based on his deliberate
misrepresentation of our position. There is no attempt at even-handedness
or discussion. Only venal rage and abuse.<br><br>
If he wanted to disagree with our article – or any of our hundreds of
articles – he could simply have done so with a logical argument which
acknowledged and attempted to understand our position. That would be
reasonable and display integrity. He could have asked for a right of
reply (we have never denied one to anybody, ever), or offered us one on
his site.<br><br>
If he would simply acknowledge that we cite sources from academic
journals, that our interpretations differ but we have a reasoned argument
based on science, and that our worries stem from a place of genuine
concern for our fellow human beings, then perhaps some kind of
understanding could be reached.<br><br>
Instead he has set about burning a bridge, and claiming we started the
fire. There’s a fevered madness about it. An hysterical refusal to admit
any evidence he doesn’t like even exists at all. I don’t understand it,
and I can’t excuse it.<br><br>
If your only recourse to win an argument is to simply ignore all the
evidence you may be mistaken, whilst spouting abuse and accusing the
other side of dishonesty…isn’t that already an admission of
something?<br><br>
He closes his piece with this quote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>There are quite a number of authors with titles who have preconceived
opinions and defend them even when that requires mangling the facts or to
simply lie about the science.<br><br>
</dl>The irony is apparently totally lost on him.<br>
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