Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
\nNew CDC guidelines on masks<\/a>.\u00a0 We’re told it’s necessary because we must follow the SCIENCE.\u00a0 Let’s review how we got here:<\/p>\n
In March of 2020, when the Covid panic really took hold, there weren’t enough test kits specific for Covid.\u00a0 States were told to count all deaths from respiratory illnes<\/a>s (pneumonia, influenza, emphysema) as Covid deaths even without a test.\u00a0 And Congress passed the CARES act, which gave hospital administrators a financial incentive to over-count Covid cases to receive the 20% higher reimbursement rate<\/a>.\u00a0 The number of deaths attributed to Covid shot up, giving rise to fears of a Surge which would overwhelm hospitals and morgues.\u00a0 It never arrived.\u00a0 The refrigerated warehouse sits empty.<\/p>\n
House arrest, mask mandate and social distancing were imposed by Governor Walz with vague references to “science” but no scientific studies were cited to support the measures.\u00a0 The Peacetime Emergency remains in effect.\u00a0 Governor Walz retains the authority to ‘adjust the dials’ governing every aspect of life, at whim. <\/p>\n
In July, the FTC approved RT-PCR test kits<\/a>.\u00a0 Reported case numbers skyrocketed as more people tested positive but hospital admissions for confirmed cases of Covid did not<\/a>.\u00a0 Instead, the graph of Covid resembled the graph of seasonal influenza – peaks in winter, gone in summer.\u00a0 The national charts of Covid cases versus mask mandates show mask mandates made no difference to Covid cases.
<\/a><\/p>\nBy the election, President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed had delivered results but mask mandates, social distancing and lock-downs remained in place as case numbers rose (following the same graph as seasonal influenza).\u00a0 Thanksgiving was cancelled<\/a>. Christmas was moved outdoors<\/a>.\u00a0 No studies were provided to support the orders. In December, the FDA issued emergency approval of Covid vaccines<\/a>.\u00a0 It also withdrew its request for emergency approval of the RT-PCR test which some critics had said resulted inover-counting of cases<\/a> to artificially inflate the numbers to justify extreme measures. <\/p>\n
On April 14, 2021<\/a>, Governor Walz extended his restrictions again but on April 29 he ended many of them<\/a>.\u00a0 No new scientific studies were cited to support the change.\u00a0 Covid case numbers continued to fall, following the pattern of seasonal influenza.<\/p>\n
On May 1, 2021, the CDC stopped counting ‘breakthrough’ cases of Covid among vaccinated persons<\/a> The obvious result is Covid cases are only counted among un-vaccinated persons, which gives rise to claims that the vaccine is working <\/a>when the truth is we have no numbers to support that claim because we stopped collecting those numbers.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The change is significant because it makes a year-to-year comparison impossible.\u00a0 In 2020, millions of Covid cases were reported but was that because there were millions of infected persons or millions of false positives?\u00a0 In 2021, far fewer Covid cases will be reported but is that because the vaccine works or because we no longer count Covid cases in vaccinated persons, making them the statistical equivalent of false negatives?\u00a0 And where are the scientific studies which justify mask mandates, social distancing and distance learning?\u00a0 Where is the SCIENCE?<\/p>\n
It’s difficult to make public policy recommendations when the severity of the threat is unknown because the numbers are unreliable but as far as I can tell, the new CDC mask mandates make no sense and are not supported by any scientific justification.\u00a0 The verifiable evidence supports the conclusion that Covid is a bad flu and should be treated like one – quarantine the sick, liberate the healthy.\u00a0 The best Covid site on the web is Healthy Skeptic.\u00a0 This post from last April is a good summary<\/a>. <\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
If only there were a group – in or out of government – devoted to providing Americans (and their policymakers) reliable, unvarnished, unpoliticized information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I dream. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: New CDC guidelines on masks.\u00a0 We’re told it’s necessary because we must follow the SCIENCE.\u00a0 Let’s review how we got here: In March of 2020, when the Covid panic really took hold, there weren’t enough test kits specific for Covid.\u00a0 States were told to count all deaths from respiratory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[416,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid19","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79064,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79063\/revisions\/79064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}