Month: January 2022

The following is a study out of Israel from last summer titled:

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections

The Conclusions: This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant.

This study showed that natural immunity is 13 times more effective than vaccines in protecting individuals. “SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccines had a 13-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected.”

A smaller CDC study offers a different conclusion, namely that the vaccines offer better protection. According to the study authors, “These findings suggest that among hospitalized adults with COVID-19-like illness whose previous infection or vaccination occurred 90–179 days earlier, vaccine-induced immunity was more protective than infection-induced immunity against laboratory-confirmed COVID-19.”

While the Israeli study had 10 times more people, they primarily used the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. In the U.S., three are approved, including the Pfizer, the Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and editor in chief of MedPage Today, argues that mandating vaccines for “every living, walking American” is, as of now, not well-supported by science.

In September, Makary shared that there are more than 15 studies that have demonstrated the power of immunity acquired by previously having the virus. This affirmed a June Cleveland Clinic study of health-care workers (who are often exposed to the virus), in which none who had previously tested positive for the coronavirus got reinfected. The study authors concluded that “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from covid-19 vaccination.” In May, a Washington University study found that even a mild COVID infection resulted in long-lasting immunity.

So it seems to me at this point that the preponderance of evidence suggests that natural immunity is better than vaccine induced immunity … the one CDC study notwithstanding. 

What I do not understand is why the CDC doesn’t collect data that either confirms or denies that natural immunity is protective. In a recent bizarre twist of logic, two Supreme Court Justices felt one way about Biden’s generalized vaccine mandates (6-3 against), but yet felt the opposite (5-4 for) when confronted with a similar question concerning health care workers. 

What makes this so befuddling to me is that healthcare workers undoubtedly have had a much higher exposure to Covid and logically thus a much higher incidence of prior Covid infections. If prior infection does indeed confer natural immunity, then it would stand to reason that this group would actually be the group that could logically argue against mandated vaccination!

At this point, my recommendation to anyone who has had  a positive Covid test …”keep a hard copy of this positive test result,” as in the near future this test result could be your escape clause for vaccination and for further boosters.

1/21/22

A while back I learned a few things that I found interesting and had not known before. What initially spurred me on was an article from the Epoch Times that was sent to me. I had never heard of, much less ever read the Epoch Times. The article was “State Department Rebukes China’s ‘Decadeslong War on Faith.’” While I was aware that the mass detentions of Uyghurs, a Moslem ethnic minority in the Xinjiang province of northwest China, is an ongoing issue, I was not aware of the repression of Tibetans and Buddhists and Falun Gong as well as Christians in China. 

I then decided to google “Falun Gong,” because I knew nothing about them, and that’s where it got interesting. Falun Gong was founded in 1992. It is an ancient Chinese spiritual discipline in the Buddhist tradition. At the core of Falun Gong are the values of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance. This all sounds good, but apparently not in China.

By 1999, Falun Gong had grown to become the largest and fastest growing practice of the sort in Chinese if not world history. In just seven years since its 1992 introduction to the public, an estimated 100 million people were practicing Falun Gong. The Communist China Party did not like the fact that there were so many Chinese practicing Falun Gong, and hence, their repression.

Millions of innocent people in China have been fired from their jobs, expelled from school, jailed, tortured, or killed simply for practicing Falun Gong. 

For the tens of millions of people who practice Falun Gong today in China, each day they live at risk of being taken away by Chinese authorities to be jailed, tortured—or worse. ‘Worse’ meaning that the organs of those who practice Falun Gong are being used in China for transplants . . . against their wishes!

Okay, so what is the segue to us in the U.S.? (Keep in mind that not surprisingly, I did not read about the following in my local newspaper.) 

On June 2,2020 President Trump signed an executive order that declared support for religious freedom a foreign policy priority. It mandated that “the United States will respect and vigorously promote this freedom abroad.” Is this not a good thing? Why did I not read about this in my local liberal newspaper?

The Religious persecution in China has intensified over the past year as the regime continues with its “decadeslong war on faith,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said while presenting his department’s annual assessment on the religious freedom record around the world.

I must have again missed this in my local liberal anti-Trump newspaper. Why ?

What is our present administration’s and our State Department’s stance on the persecution of Falun Gong and the Uyghurs? Hmmm!

Here’s a hint:

On 6/16/21, House Democrats voted against an amendment that would have required companies to inform their shareholders if they engaged in activities with a Chinese official or company using forced labor.

The amendment, introduced by Kentucky Republican Rep. Andy Barr, would require companies to disclose to shareholders annually their activities with any “foreign entity” that “engages in, is responsible for, or facilitates the forced labor of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted on 6/16/21 in response,

“The ‘Woke’ party’ would rather keep turning a blind eye than stand against human rights’ abuses.”

Who do you think the ‘Woke party’ is?

I resurrected this piece about the Falun Gong because of a recent statement by the co-owner of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

Golden State Warriors owner Chamath Palihapitiya said “nobody cares” about China’s brutal mistreatment of Uyghurs. “Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, okay?” said Palihapitiya to his interviewers in a recent podcast. “You bring it up because you care and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care. I’m just telling you a very hard, ugly truth. Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line.” The U.S. has officially designated the Chinese Communist Party’s actions against Uyghurs a “genocide.”

Wow! … Why would this bozo say something like that?

A sign of the times ?

1/20/22

Throughout this entire Covid ordeal, many groups have been unnecessarily stepped on and crushed. The first group that comes to mind is El-Hi students, many of whom have not, at this point, and perhaps will not ever recover from what has been done to them. Here I am referring not only to the lost years of schooling, but also to the widespread psychological damage that has been inflicted upon them.

The second group that has suffered significant damage is college students. Like the El-Hi students, the college-aged students have been quarantined, forced to take their classes online, been robbed of any meaningful college experience, and been forced to pay for an obvious suboptimal college education. The biggest difference between these El-Hi students and the college students is that for the most part college students can be considered as adults, and yet the difference between college students and flocks of sheep has been undetectable. The college students have merely followed meekly along, and continue to get dumped 

on even though the mortality in their age group is minuscule.

The local universities in San Diego have kowtowed willy-nilly to whatever outrageous demands are thrust upon them  … sheep! In fact California university students are like lovable dogs who just want their belly scratched, as they just automatically lie down and roll over. Are there any students anywhere in the U.S. who have any cajones?

Finally, much to the surprise of just about everyone, courage has finally arisen in an unlikely place … at the University of Chicago!

The editorial board of Chicago Thinker student newspaper at the University of Chicago has thrown down the gauntlet with a lengthy, well argued attack on the school’s booster mandate.

The University of Chicago!! … OMG!!

The editorial is very well written and much too long to copy and paste here. However I would encourage everyone to read it. It was written on 1/16/22, and is titled:

Editorial: UChicago Must End Its Booster Mandate—We Are Not Lab Rats.

Even though I am originally from Chicago and lived there for twenty-nine years, I never visited UChicago as it was way at the other end of the city. However after reading this Chicago Thinker editorial, I may have to finally expand my horizons, the next time I visit the Windy City.

1/19/22

I just read an article in Lifesite about the Covid vaccinated/unvaccinated situation in hospitals in Canada. Note that I did specify that the following data was concerning hospitalizations, not cases, in Canada. Remember, that one of the biggest reasons for encouraging the Covid vaccine was that it would make one less sick with Covid and thus less likely to end up in the hospital. 

Now perhaps the reason for the following data and it’s apparent upside down-ness quandary is “the denominator factor,” but I will get to this later.

To cut to the chase, in Canadian ICUs there is approximately an equal number of vaccinated and unvaccinated Covid patients.

According to the data in Ontario, as of January 7,  there are 1,327 “Fully vaccinated cases” in hospitals, compared with just 441 “Unvaccinated cases.” For “Partially vaccinated cases,” there are 100 people in the hospital. Of those in ICU in Ontario, there are 119 “Unvaccinated cases,” 17 “Partially vaccinated cases” and 106 “Fully vaccinated cases.”

When it comes to those who test positive for COVID, Ontario’s data shows that the vast majority come from “fully vaccinated” people.

On January 7, the province reported 9,515 cases in “fully vaccinated” people, compared to 1,543 cases in the vaccine-free. There were 375 cases in those who were “partially vaccinated.”

Well, maybe Ontario is just weird!!

However, data from Alberta and Quebec also shows that the majority of  people in hospitals due to COVID are “fully vaccinated” as well.

In fact in all provinces in Canada, the majority of new COVID “cases” are in those who are fully jabbed.

Is there any reasonable explanation for this Canadian upside-down cake? Actually, to me, there are only two possible expiations.

First, Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA technology used by the vaccines, has said that it is the vaccinated, not the unvaccinated, who are the “super-spreaders” of the disease. This is what is perhaps suggested by the above noted hospitalization data.

The second explanation has to do with “the denominator factor.” (Note that this is a term I made up, but that probably describes reality.) In other words, in Ontario, for instance, for the sake of discussion, let’s assume that the vast majority of the populace is vaccinated … of each 100 residents 90 are vaccinated and 10 are not. If the ICU hospitalization stats are close to 50/50, that could mean that for every 5 ICU hospitalized vaccinated patients, there are 5 ICU hospitalized unvaccinated patients … but here is where “the denominator” comes in.

5 vaccinated patients in the ICU/90 vaccinated individuals in Ontario. This amounts to a 5.5% risk.

Whereas 5 unvaccinated patients in the ICU/10 unvaccinated individuals in Ontario. This amounts to a 50% risk!

So while the overall number of hospitalized patients in ICUs in Ontario may be close to 50-50 (vaccinated-unvaccinated), the risk of ICU hospitalization remains considerably higher for unvaccinated individuals.

Nonetheless, merely being vaccinated does not preclude one from being sick enough to require an ICU bed … at least north of the border.

1/18/22

Who doesn’t remember Ray Parker Jr.’s 1984 song, “Ghostbusters” from a movie by the same name? I do not recall ever seeing the movie although  I often find the song cascading through my brain. Even though the melody was catchy and you could dance to it, the lyrics of the song were somewhat nonsensical:

“If there’s something strange

In your neighborhood

Who you gonna call?

Ghostbusters!”

Or

“If you’re seeing things

Running through your head

Who can you call?

Ghostbusters!”

I queried as to why the refrain of this song (“Who you gonna call.”) came  into my mind today. Intuitively … it’s all about Covid these days. 

As there are multitudinous questions concerning Covid, “who are the American people gonna call” for Covid answers?

In essence a recent survey asked this same question.

“When it comes to information about COVID-19, which of the following sources would you say you trust?”

“Your doctor” was the clear winner, with more than 60 percent of people selecting it. That’s in line with a recent Gallup survey that found 64 percent of Americans trusted their doctor’s advice, which was a 6 percent dip from 2010. However, fewer than 20 percent selected President Joe Biden and the news media in the NewsNation survey.

Dr. Anthony Fauci received support from a little less than one-third of respondents in the NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll, which is far below a December 2021 Gallup poll that found 52 percent of people approved of the job he was doing.

So “who are you gonna call” to find info about Covid … not Fauci,  certainly not Joe Biden and the news media.

1/17/22

In accordance with my recent tradition, on Sunday, I devote the entire piece to an individual who is deserving of our praise. 

According to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office on 1/9/22 in a suburb of Denver four juvenile relatives, ages 4 to 11, were playing on a frozen pond when three of them fell in.

A neighbor, 23-year-old Dusti Talavera, watched the horror unfold from her window.

“Before I even realized it, I was out there in the middle of the pond pulling two kids out,” she said during a press conference. “And that’s when I fell in.” 

Talavera managed to pull out a 4-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy from the water but struggled to rescue the third child, a 6-year-old girl. The girl’s 16-year-old male cousin arrived and helped Talavera pull the girl out of the water. 

“I tried to hold her head up, I tried to hold my head up, the pond was really deep. A young man threw us a rope. He pulled us out,” Talavera said.  

Arapahoe County sheriff’s deputies and South Metro Fire Rescue (SMFR) officials were on the scene within minutes. The sheriff’s office said the 6-year-old girl was not breathing, not conscious, and had no pulse. They said she was “cold to the touch, and her clothes were soaked.” Sheriff’s deputies performed CPR on the girl until SMFR took over the situation. 

The girl was taken to a local children’s hospital. The girl has since been released from the hospital, reunited with her family, and is in good health. 

Talavera told deputies she “wasn’t concerned for her safety because they were babies and they needed help.” 

Spoken like a true hero … and Dusti Talavera is indeed a real hero.

1/16/22

One of my favorite sayings is from Ben Franklin, who said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Just this week the Supreme Court chose ‘liberty’ when it struck down Biden’s vaccine mandate. This choice between liberty and safety is the overwhelming categorical dispute in today’s Covid world, not only in the U.S. but in what I had thought were “free” countries. 

In Australia they have what amounts to Covid concentration camps, and now there is continuing hub-bub and vacillation concerning Novak Djokovic’s visa and his vaccination status in light of his recent documented Covid infection.

Similar things are happening in Canada … which I had always considered a free country. However, a few things that I recently read is doing a lot to destroy that apparent myth. A recent headline from the BBC:

“Canada: Unvaccinated father loses right to see his child”

From that article:

“A Canadian father who has not been vaccinated against Covid has temporarily lost the right to see his 12-year-old child.

A judge ruled his visits would not be in the child’s “best interest”.

It followed a request by the father to extend his visiting time during the holidays. The judgement is the first depriving a parent of access rights on immunisation grounds. The judge’s decision, made at the end of last monthin Quebec province, suspends the father’s visitation rights until February, unless he decides to get vaccinated.

The judge said it was not “in the child’s best interest to have contact with their father” due to the recent increase in Covid cases in French-speaking Quebec.”

Also from Canada … from True North:

“A young Kelowna family says it is being evicted from Ronald McDonald House (RMH) in Vancouver where their 4-year-old son is fighting leukemia because they don’t have COVID shots.

The notice, signed by Senior Director of Family Services Leslie Louie, adds that families already staying at RMH have until Jan. 31 to get their first COVID shot.

The father, Austin Ferguson in a seven-minute-long video posted to Facebook. In the video, he tells RMH staff that the COVID shots do not stop transmission and that his family’s eviction was an affront to the country’s national anthem.

In the Facebook video, Furgason tells RMH staff that his family has all their other immunizations but decided not to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Furgason reiterates that his family are not “anti-vaxxers” and that he is most concerned about the safety of the recently approved vaccine for children.”

Wow! Unless one lives in the made-up world of U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, just about everyone realizes the extremely small risk that Covid poses to children. I have to assume that that this small risk is no different in Canada. Apparently that Canadian judge and the Senior Director of Family Services, Leslie Louie, are not aware of the pertinent prudent saying of Ben Franklin as they stepped on the father’s visitation rights as well as the Furgason’s family’s rights in order to insure some non identifiable  concept (safety?).

[It is probably safe to assume that Canadians have not read The Keneally Chronicles by yours truly, because in that book, retired SCOTUS Anthony Keneally quotes this same Ben Franklin saying many times.]

1/15/22

In September, 2020 when a local college was starting back, the local Karens were complaining that the college kids were out at night … gathering outside in their neighborhoods. Now granted these Karens could have had some reason for concern because mostly they were not young like the “gathering” college kids. However, back then I stated that the colleges reflexively were taking the wrong approach as they cancelled  in person classes in addition to isolating Covid positive students quarantining them to their rooms. To my way of thinking, since college students were, and still are, at very low risk from Covid, why not let these young college students spread Covid amongst themselves. Anyway that’s past history, and now that same local college is back again to online classes.

I am bringing this up now because something similar is happening with college basketball. Games are being cancelled because Covid (most likely Omicron) is slowly weaving it’s way through the rosters of certain teams. These teams are either having to cancel games because they do not have the minimum number of players necessary, or they are having to play games without  a variable number of starting players because they are on a quarantine status.

Similar to college students in general back in the fall of 2020, would it not make more sense to get everybody on the team infected with Omicron at the same time. This way, a few games would be cancelled, and then the entire team would be available, all at once, once their quarantine time had ended. In a practical sense, would it not be better to have all the individual members of a team on quarantine now, rather than risk that a star player would get Covid at tournament time?

1/14/22

Is anybody else, beside me, troubled by the actions of Joe Biden and his Georgia speech on 1/11/22? Even Stacy, “you know I won” Abrams refused to show up … blaming it on a “mistake” in her schedule. (If anyone actually believed that incredibly weak excuse, I’ve got a bridge to sell them!)

By all estimates the speech was an overt disaster. It was thoroughly criticized by the typically mild mannered Mitt Romney and the usually politically correct Mitch McConnell, who said, “How profoundly unpresidential. I have known, liked, and personally respected Joe Biden for many years. I did not recognize the man at that podium yesterday.”

It was almost as if Joe Biden wanted to offend and piss off as many as possible. If that was his goal … then I would have to say, he succeeded.

What troubles me is that this obviously offensive speech comes on the heels of a recent Quinnipiac poll,which demonstrated that “Americans give President Joe Biden a negative 33 – 53 percent job approval rating.”

Hypothetically, before the speech, imagine the speech-writer asking, “President Biden, since you are significantly underwater in the polls, what type of speech do you want me to write for you?”

Can anyone fathom President Biden responding … “write an anger filled speech that will piss-off most independents. Make sure that I belittle all who may disagree with me. Compare them to Bull Conner and George Wallace. For sure, that will be a good strategy, don’t you think?”

See here’s the problem … I cannot imagine a more inept disconnected response. Even Joe, or least his wife, should instantly realize that the tone and the message of this sort of speech are antithetical to what he needs. 

Ordinarily I am not a conspiracy guy, but why would Biden give a speech like this? 

Hmmm! I am troubled … and I hope that you are too!

1/13/22

Many years ago at one point I caught part of a Rush Limbaugh radio broadcast in which he was commenting that he got very very few colds after flying. At this point in his career Rush stated that he flew quite a bit, and then related his “secret.” Note that Rush was a lot of things, but he was not a physician and never pretended to be. His advice about cold prevention was totally anecdotal, and was well before Covid. Rush’s   preventative strategy was well before Covid. He relied upon Zinc and Vitamin C.

Today I happened upon an article from BMJ Open from Australia titled 

“Zinc for the prevention or treatment of acute viral respiratory tract infections in adults: a rapid systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials”

The conclusion in this article was :

In adult populations in which zinc deficiency is unlikely, our review found when zinc was used for prophylaxis, there was a lower risk of contracting a clinical illness consistent with a community-acquired viral RTI (Respiratory Tract Infection). When used for treatment, zinc was found to shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce day 3 symptomatic severity, but not overall daily symptom severity. While there was an increased risk of non-serious AEs (Adverse Effects) that may limit tolerability for some, the risk of serious AEs was low.

This meta analysis review of the literature was addressing viral URIs (Upper Respiratory Infections) in general, and it was noted that it was not specifically talking about Covid, but of course, Covid is also caused by a virus.

Furthermore just today I listened to a presentation by an experienced primary care physician from Israel. In his practice he stated that he had approximately 2000 patients, and although some had contracted Covid, and a few had gone to the ER, none had been hospitalized. He attributed his success at keeping his Covid patients out of the hospital to his recommended prophylactic regime of both Zinc and Vitamin D. To all of his patients he recommends 25mg/d of Zinc and 4000IU of Vitamin D (increased dose for his obese patients).

My take on prophylactic Zinc is similar to my take on Ivermectin … a potentially effective treatment with minuscule side effects, so why not? 

I am starting my zinc tomorrow.

1/12/22