Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
Back to Main

November 16, 2020
The Great Revenge – How Tony Fauci F*cked Donald Trump

In January 2017 the CIA claimed that Russia had kompromat on Trump. Trump shot back at the CIA. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer then warned the incoming president:

"You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you," Schumer, a New York Democrat, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this."

As the years after the warning passed by it proved to have been valid. The CIA 'whistle blowers' put a great effort into sabotaging Trump's presidency. But they were largely unsuccessful.

The CIA failed to sabotaged Trump's reelection. It was the health community, including parts of Trump's administration, which did that.

Trump had especially angered Dr. Fauci, the well known infectious-disease expert and member of the government's coronavirus taskforce. Fauci's advise had been ignored and efforts were made to hold him back from making public pronouncements.

On November 1, two days before the election, Fauci gave a widely distributed interview to the Washington Post:

President Trump’s repeated assertions the United States is “rounding the turn” on the novel coronavirus have increasingly alarmed the government's top health experts, who say the country is heading into a long and potentially deadly winter with an unprepared government unwilling to make tough choices.

“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious-disease expert, said in a wide-ranging interview late Friday. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”

Fauci's interview was not the first intervention he made. In October two leading vaccine companies were ready to announce the success of their vaccine trials. But with at least the knowledge of Fauci and the Federal Drug Administration both companies deviated from their clinical protocols to intentionally move their success announcement to a date after the election.

During the summer Trump had been hopeful that a vaccine against the Covid-19 disease could be announced before the election. It would have been proof that his strategy to (not) fight the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had at least one success. The announcement of a vaccine was part of President Trump's planned 'October surprises' to win the election.

Trump's summer hope that a vaccine success could be announced during October was not unreasonable. Two important vaccines candidate, one from Pfizer with BioNTech and one from Moderna, had been successfully tested in their first phases and were ready launch their large phase 3 trials.

In a phase 3 vaccine trial several ten thousand people are put into two groups. The people in one group receive the vaccine, the people in the other one a placebo. One then has to wait and see how many people will get the disease. At certain points a statistical team will look at those cases and check how many occurred in each group.  The differences of the number of people in each group who catch the disease is a scale for the vaccines efficacy. For a known group size one can estimate in advance after how many disease cases determinations should be made to show statistical significance.

Pfizer had published its clinical protocol for the phase 3 trial which foresaw four points of interim analyses (IA) during which it would become clear how well the vaccine was  working:

During Phase 2/3, 4 IAs are planned and will be performed by an unblinded statistical team after accrual of 32, 62, 92, and 120 cases. At each IA:

  • [Vaccine efficacy] for the first primary objective will be evaluated. Overwhelming efficacy will be declared if the first primary study objective is met. The criteria for success at an interim analysis are based on the posterior probability (ie,P[VE >30%|data]) at the current number of cases. Overwhelming efficacy will be declared if the posterior probability is higher than the success threshold. The success threshold for each interim analysis will be calibrated to protect overall type I error at 2.5%. Additional details about the success threshold or boundary calculation at each interim analysis will be provided in the SAP.

The time plan, on which Trump was certainly briefed, foresaw that the first interim analysis would likely occur in late September or early October.

However Pfizer did not publish any results when the first two interim analysis points were met. On November 9, after the election, Pfizer announced very positive results at the third interim analysis point:

Pfizer and partner BioNTech said Monday that their vaccine against Covid-19 was strongly effective, exceeding expectations with results that are likely to be met with cautious excitement — and relief — in the face of the global pandemic.

The vaccine is the first to be tested in the United States to generate late-stage data. The companies said an early analysis of the results showed that individuals who received two injections of the vaccine three weeks apart experienced more than 90% fewer cases of symptomatic Covid-19 than those who received a placebo.
…
The story of how the data have been analyzed seems to include no small amount of drama.
…
The first analysis was to occur after 32 volunteers — both those who received the vaccine and those on placebo — had contracted Covid-19. If fewer than six volunteers in the group who received the vaccine had developed Covid-19, the companies would make an announcement that the vaccine appeared to be effective. The study would continue until at least 164 cases of Covid-19 — individuals with at least one symptom and a positive test result — had been reported.

However, the announcement at the two first interim analysis points was never made.

[William Gruber, Pfizer’s senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development,] said that Pfizer and BioNTech had decided in late October that they wanted to drop the 32-case interim analysis. At that time, the companies decided to stop having their lab confirm cases of Covid-19 in the study, instead leaving samples in storage. The FDA was aware of this decision. Discussions between the agency and the companies concluded, and testing began this past Wednesday. When the samples were tested, there were 94 cases of Covid in the trial.

This means that the statistical strength of the result is likely far stronger than was initially expected. It also means that if Pfizer had held to the original plan, the data would likely have been available in October, as its CEO, Albert Bourla, had initially predicted.

In October Pfizer already knew from its first interim analysis that its vaccine was successful. But it intentionally held back on the announcement of its success. The FDA knew of this!

Today Moderna announced the success of its Covid-19 vaccine. This is a vaccine in which Dr. Fauci's organization is directly involved in. It seems that Moderna had, like Pfizer, held back its very positive results until after the election:

The drugmaker Moderna announced on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine was 94.5 percent effective, based on an early look at the results from its large, continuing study.

Researchers said the results were better than they had dared to imagine.
…
Moderna, based in Cambridge, Mass., developed its vaccine in collaboration with researchers from the Vaccine Research Center, part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the institute, said in an interview: …
…
Moderna had planned a first interim analysis of its trial data when the number of Covid-19 cases among participants reached 53. But the recent surge in cases drove the number to 95, and it is likely to speed completion of the study.

Moderna, like Pfizer, skipped the announcement of the results at the first interim analysis point in its clinical protocol.

The FDA and Dr. Fauci were involved in Pfizer's as well as the Moderna's decision to deviate from their clinical protocols. Any change in these protocols must get the FDA's approval. If the companies had not changed their plans the announcement of the good efficacy of both vaccines'  would have come before the election.

Trump's well planed vaccine 'October surprise' was sabotaged by two pharmaceutical companies with at least the approval of Dr. Fauci and the FDA.

This might well have cost him his reelection.

It was the health community that really had 'six ways from Sunday' to get back at Trump.

Posted by b on November 16, 2020 at 19:54 UTC | Permalink
Comments

The best revenge for Trump would be to join a gym, eat salad, take care of his wife and children and hone his communication skills. He has support. He remains a leader.

Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 11:23 utc | 101

This whole coronavirus thingy is becoming ridiculous. I don’t think it’s a complete fake ; yes, there is coronavirus named COVID-19, yes it is highly contagious, yes it’s a health hazard.
But to sum it up, we have here a new coronavirus which is slightly more dangerous than the flu, which kills practically only very old people with comorbidities, with 99,98% chances (ok, 99,95% if you like) of surviving it. given these odds, I’ll pass on the vaccine, thank you.
From the beginning, the whole treatment of this thing stank to high heaven. I’m sorry, but the only meaningful explanation I can give is this one : big pharma and its various shills (politicians or doctors) recognized the opportunity such a virus would mean ; they then set out to systematically downplay or kill any possibility of cheap and effective treatments, and cleverly directed the firehose of dollars which was poured onto the laboratories developing a vaccine.
Some facts :
– in France, we had two large-scale studies, Discovery and Hycovid, which were started (very reluctantly) and were pratically forced to include HCQ+AZ in their panel.
– In the weekend following publication of the fraudulent Lancet newspaper, our health minister ordered a full stop.
– Since then, months have gone by; NOT ONE JOURNALIST has either 1) investigated who were the accomplices of the Lancet fraud 2) questioned why all national and international authorities reacted in lockstep 3) and most importantly WHY THE DECISIONS TO STOP THE STUDIES WERE NOT REVERSED following the Lancet’s retractation.
-In October, we learn that the EU Commission gave a cool 1 billion to buy remdesivir. ONE WEEK before the WHO study concluding on the ineffectiviness of remdesivir came out.
I’m sorry, but this is becoming a little too much. One coincidence OK, but here we are talking about a string of improbable events, with NO ONE analyzing with a cool head what happened or reversing decisions that were taken based on obvious frauds.
Three weeks ago, our president solemnly declared that our OR would be saturated in mid-November with 9000 people under respiratory assistance, no matter what we do. Well here were are, and the tally is 4.800. Not a good situation, but still only half ; and with nobody pointing out that every winter, our OR are saturated anyway due to the flu and the influenza.
I think we should all grow up and do a more level-headed analysis of the pros and cons. The most ridiculous thing perhaps is to see all those politicos sanctimoniously declare the sanctity of life ; in a world where you can abort babies at your convenience, practices eugenics, and where euthanasy is aggressively pushed into the mainstream, this is perhaps the most hypocritical bullshit I have ever heard.

Posted by: Micron | Nov 17 2020 11:47 utc | 102

@ Posted by: Ric G | Nov 17 2020 5:15 utc | 88
The capitalist system always alternates between concentration and centralization cycles. Today’s crisis is not even near one of the greatest centralization cycles of capitalism’s history.
I’m beginning to think that the post-war generation has a very distorted view of the world. They use the post-war miracle – this one yes, a sui generis period in capitalism’s history (because of the huge alien distortion factor of the existence of the USSR) – as the rule, when actually it was the exception to the rule.

Posted by: vk | Nov 17 2020 12:07 utc | 103

Fauci was promoting AZT as a safe cure for AIDS in the 90’s. AZT was killing people. I lost many dear friends from AZT.
Fauci is a fraud.

Posted by: DG | Nov 17 2020 12:15 utc | 104

@Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Nov 17 2020 8:58 utc | 105
That off-guardian piece is well[craftily?]-written but I can’t agree with its defeatist/despairing take-home message that Trump is basically the same as all recent presidents since JFK; willing/controlled tools of the deep state power structure.
So I’m hearing that author say in essence, ‘you might as well just face facts and don’t worry about it cause it won’t make ANY difference anyway. In summary: give up, move-on, just fuggetaboutit’.
I think Trump is different in that he is a Johimbo figure who has been clever enough to advance/win by playing off all the power groups against each other.
That is why *everybody* detests him: the deep state, both political parties, BIG industries, and other countries (allies as well as competitors).
I said it before and still think it true: This election is not over until Trump wins, concedes…or gets JFK’d.

Posted by: gm | Nov 17 2020 12:29 utc | 105

@ everyone,
Keep in mind that science has been commoditized and should be referred to as “science” until further notice.
All you have to understand about the COVID 19(84) virus is that, “he who pays the piper, calls the tune”.
Anyone with a science degree that even questions the data collection methods is instantly attacked publicly ridiculed and stands to be unemployed in short order.
COVID is the new war of terror now that the powers that be can no longer with a straight face sell that pack of lies.
Shutting down capitalism for mom and pop will force business online where the elite have more control and can spy on us more easily and effectively.
Stay safe and sane, don’t let others choose your friends or enemies for you.

Posted by: dave | Nov 17 2020 13:44 utc | 106

I disagree with almost everything in this article. But that’s good. I like to get varied, different, analysed points of view from a person whose opinion I respect. It helps one to think. Thank you b.

Posted by: Guy Thornton | Nov 17 2020 13:44 utc | 107

_K_C_ @Nov17 7:59 #100
It’s always surprising when smart people can’t/won’t see through the bullshit.
It’s also surprising that we don’t talk more at moa about the possibility of war. Asshats that want to orient the country for war naturally seek to install a popular hero and man of peace. Trump has been positioned to be that man (despite the falseness of his populism and peacefulness).
That doesn’t mean that war is inevitable. The willingness and ability to make war can also be used to wrest concessions that avoid war. But war preparations can take on a life of their own as those who would profit from war push for it.
The best time to stop a war is before it starts.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 17 2020 13:55 utc | 108

Trump matched Russia’s performance there is development and then there is availability …

From FOX news “Both vaccines [still] require approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before they can be distributed for widespread use. If the FDA allows emergency use of Moderna’s or Pfizer’s candidate, there will be limited, rationed supplies before the end of the year.
Both vaccines require people to get two shots, several weeks apart. U.S. officials said they hope to have about 20 million Moderna doses and another 20 million doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech to use in late December.”

1. Rounding the corner meant that the number of deaths would decrease, not increase. What Faucci said was accurate and he said this while Dr. Atlas and Laura Ingraham were bellowing, ‘open everything up, masks are a hoax, herd immunity for all, we are doing better than the rest of the world, Trump gave you football’.
2. I agree that voters should always be given all relevant info. I will never endorse withholding it. Just not convinced that the timeline supports this assertion but it definitely cut it close.
3. The real test would have been in the distribution of the vaccine.
4. from the ‘Trump is evil’ archive, our sanctions are delaying Cuba’s natively developed vaccine … https://www.mintpressnews.com/cuba-brink-covid-vaccine-us-sanctions-slowing-it-down/273095/

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Nov 17 2020 14:01 utc | 109

It gets a little tiresome to hear all the excuses made for Trump.
We hear so much propaganda about how the establishment hates him and wants his downfall, yet what has he done that threatens them? He’s done everything that they might want him to.
In this regard, Circe @Nov17 3:12 #78 has a point: Oh for God’s sake! Quit this Trump is the eternal victim hogwash!
<> <> <> <> <>
Trump needed to delay anti-pandemic action until it was a CRISIS! that could be used to cover his bailouts of Wall Street and Boeing. Then PRIORITY ONE was restoring the economy. Early deaths of old people save the government money (money which is being used to for a military build-up!). And deaths of black and brown people are of little concern to the white establishment.
Too many people let MSM do their thinking. Those who do are little more than zombies.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 17 2020 14:12 utc | 110

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/fact-check-no-evidence-supports-trump-s-claim-covid-19-vaccine-result-was-suppressed

Posted by: Louis N Proyect | Nov 17 2020 14:14 utc | 111

He has support. He remains a leader.
Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 11:23 utc | 109

Trump, a leader? Trump is at most a cult leader who repeated 10,000 lies during his tenure until his followers no longer recognize their head from their ass and elicits the worst in their nature to later dog-whistle their paranoia into action at his pleasure and command.
Trump plays golf while thousands of people are lining up at food banks and thousands of Americans are dying per week reaching half a million already. He has zero sense of morality, decency or compassion.
Two thirds or more of his time is spent tweeting and watching t.v. Yet, he brags about accomplishments and results others created, worked and sacrificed to achieve, because everything is about him, he takes all the credit; he invented the wheel and is the best thing to ever happen to mankind. There is not an iota of humility in him to the point that he erases the selflessness of others, especially of the tireless workers on the frontlines, who died trying to save lives during this time. Instead he tweets multiple videos of his pomposity set to triumphant symphonic music. He thinks he’s the sun eclipsing the moon; he’s that in love with his image.
He had Americans gassed and beaten like the thug he really is, so he could parade his inflated self-righteousness in front of a church holding an upside-down borrowed bible as a prop.
Last week he was in full rambo tantrum. He was in vindictive loser mode firing on all cylinders multiple tweet missiles on election conspiracies with takeover; election coup in mind, and then tried to activate on the fly a reckless plan to strike Iran in the next few weeks so he could kill the reinstatement of the JCPOA forever, saddle his opponent with a disastrous war going in and ruin the other guy’s Presidency.
He’s a deranged, bitter and mendacious megalomaniac, and a disgrace to the office of the Presidency.
He belongs in an asylum or prison for attempted subversion of democracy and wilfully breaching his oath of Office and the Constitution putting his own interests before service to the American people, their lives and their security.
Leader?…Pffft!

Posted by: Circe | Nov 17 2020 14:27 utc | 112

The category of US elections dirty tricks may be expanding.
One can debate about sabotaging vaccine announcements or the recovery plans. The second much more dirty because it’s more than propaganda war, it really hurts a lot of people.
But maybe because he’s Trump and not a good looser. Maybe because his plan was for post elections’ mess all along. Maybe because he believes it’s fair revenge.
Trump seems to be ready to deliver the likely Biden administration a welcoming gift in the form of a defining mess it will never get rid of. And that may just be one piece of it…
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/us/politics/trump-iran-nuclear.html

Posted by: Saracen’s head | Nov 17 2020 14:29 utc | 113

@Posted by: Avid Lurker | Nov 17 2020 13:53 utc | 117
Meh…Fauci is a political creature who has talked on both sides of his mouth on many $ubject$, and goes with the (money)flow as long as he can get away with it without reducing his credibility too much.
I wonder if Fauci is *still* singing the praises of Gilead’s remdesivir, that $3K per treatment apparent snake oil, according to critics:
Dr. Eric Topol, vice president for research at Scripps Research sez:
https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1319395937018470400?lang=en
and this,
and this:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/remdesivir-and-interferon-fall-flat-who-s-megastudy-covid-19-treatments
Nevertheless the $3K per shot remdesivir just got *full* FDA approval, no doubt thanks in large part to High Priest Fauci’s blessings and hosannas.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/22/fda-approves-remdesivir-coronavirus-431336

Posted by: gm | Nov 17 2020 14:44 utc | 114

@ snake @ 92 who questions the role of astrocytes
It is my understanding that astrocytes are the controlling agents of the salient network that further controls the anti-corelated task positive/resting networks
Those networks control the 246 (and counting) regions of the brain….see the great work China is doing at the link below and go to the Atlas page but don’t get lost….grin
http://atlas.brainnetome.org by: psychohistorian | Nov 17 2020 7:12 utc | 98
thanks for the link.. No question astrocyte play a function in neurobiology. The point is that there are 30 to 40 trillion different cells in the body and each one has a specialized, important different and necessary function from all of the others. The grand design of higher animals is based in the distributed sets of cellular networks that support the life of the higher animal. T cells in one human body and each has a story of the type your are trying to make for one cell type=astrocyte. These stories can be said for and made about the function of each one of those different cells, each cell is a life into its self. Each has a brain sorta because it can respond to the environment and express different behaviors depending on the circumstance and context it senses.
When I was explaining how the Corona virus infects a normal human epithelial cell on this list in February a so called expert poop poohed my explanation about the virus surface S protein interplay with the ACE 2 Receptor extruding from epithelial cells lining the airway from nostril to lung, and lining many visceral organs as well <= as the route corona virus takes to infect the humanity. My explanation did not fit this physicians understanding, but her discount exposed her lack understanding how cell function is the essence of human life. Cells live separate lives but they live inside a community of cells and are the essence of human life. Cells are born, grow up, mature, live and die or are killed, throughout the mammalian life. Population people complain about 8 billion people living on the earth, but each human body has 30 trillion different living cells.. Years ago the bottom of my emails said " Molecular biology and cell science not medicine will find the cause and invent the cure for cancer. Truer words have not seen the light of day. Back to my point, each cell has a memory.. even cells in the toes. so memory processing is the essence of life, and memories are stored results of sensory experiences. knowledge is retrieval experience.

Posted by: snake | Nov 17 2020 14:52 utc | 115

RE: gm | Nov 17 2020 12:29 utc | 113
Err… Meant to say ‘Jojimbo’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojimbo

Posted by: gm | Nov 17 2020 15:04 utc | 116

Most likely a game changer:
Portugiese court rule against PCR-test
Sorry, guys, this is a link to one of the best real-left Corona blogs, but in German language. In Portugal a court decided that a PCR-test cannot be accepted as a proof of a viral infection. Now think about its consequences!

Posted by: Hausmeister | Nov 17 2020 15:06 utc | 117

b–
your claims are as unrealistic as DJT’s. Vaccines take years of testing.
Ultimately these preliminary results are based on very small tests.
Furthermore as Lex, #1, rightly points out half the country, really DJT’s base, doesn’t believe in the virus. That’s NOT doesn’t believe in vaccines, or believes that some vaccines can harm and are of dubious effectiveness, that’s thinks the coronavirus doesn’t exist.
DJT is widely and wildly unpopular. The Obama and Trump US economies were never good for the 95 percent. It is unlikely that an October announcement of a positive vaccine trial would have helped Trump much.
What did help Trump come reasonably close to winning the Electoral College was Biden promising more of the same Obama era corporatism.

Posted by: Jay | Nov 17 2020 15:07 utc | 118

I’ve been pondering the implications of these two paragraphs from b’s SITREP since I read them this morning…
…
During the summer Trump had been hopeful that a vaccine against the Covid-19 disease could be announced before the election. It would have been proof that his strategy to (not) fight the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had at least one success. The announcement of a vaccine was part of President Trump’s planned ‘October surprises’ to win the election.
Trump’s summer hope that a vaccine success could be announced during October was not unreasonable. Two important vaccine candidates, one from Pfizer with BioNTech and one from Moderna, had been successful tested in their first phases and were ready launch their large phase 3 trials.
…
1. Par 1 begs the question: Was Trump receiving ‘insider’ feedback from Big Pharma and/or sources close to Big Pharma?
Given the timelines and the finite Election Day deadline, there’s no doubt in my mind that the answer is YES. Trump is not the sort of person who would gamble his re-election hopes on wishful thinking. Plus he’s the POTUS and can demand truthful information from any US individual or entity.
2. Imo Par 2 could only be true if he had been receiving ‘insider’ feedback right up until shortly before Election Day.
3. The Christian Colonial Capitalist West has demonstrated a very blinkered view toward potential Covid vaccines. ABC.net.au is the goto source for up to date info on Oz’s progress in dealing with Covid. Last week they mentioned that the WHO is tracking more than 200 labs, worldwide, which are actively pursuing the quest for a Covid vaccine. But the disgustingly partisan Western MSM, including ABC.net.au which is firmly under the thumb of various Oz & International lobby/donor groups, is SILENT on progress being made by non-CCC/Western vaccine research labs. It is inconceivable to me that ONLY the for-Profit CCC West is capable of producing a ‘promising’ vaccine.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 17 2020 15:18 utc | 119

i think the main reason the institutions of the state want trump out is that he is a loose cannon. it’s not that the policies he espouses are anathema to them; it’s his personality and impuliveness, which make him difficult to control or predict.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Nov 17 2020 15:24 utc | 120

aquadraht (31):
Your comment is a vastly more accurate summary of the vaccine trial/s “success” than one reads in the mainstream press, and, as you know, underlines Bernard’s undo enthusiasm for a preliminary test’s positive results.
As I’m sure you realize, 3 percent (picked because that infection/case rate is considered on the edge of being high) of 15000 is 450. So therefore the Pfizer trial at least was NOT conducted under circumstances that represent anything close to a normal infection rate for the coronavirus.

Posted by: Jay | Nov 17 2020 15:25 utc | 121

in other news, i see that the much vaunted swedish model isn’t doing so well;
https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/526280-sweden-imposes-stricter-restrictions-banning-public-events-with

Posted by: pretzelattack | Nov 17 2020 15:26 utc | 122

As a retired hospital nurse with exhausted friends and family caring for people convinced covid is a hoax I can only wish Dr. Fauci did what is suggested.

Posted by: Maureen O | Nov 17 2020 15:27 utc | 123

I think this development has more to do with the spin, or the argument as to why Biden won or Trump lost than what actually caused it. Something to hang a partisan hat on. The US has, my guess, the least trustworthy election system of any generally recognized ‘democracy’ in the world. Both sides likely cheated to capture the electoral college votes, and Biden’s team apparently either actually won or had more masters of the universe on their side. No one in power has ever tried to make our elections more trustworthy. They argue around the margins for changes in reporting or counting, never to abolish the idea that machines running proprietary software should count votes, or that voters should see their votes counted openly and locally. There’s no sense in trying to make heads or tails of this election because the result was never in jeopardy.

Posted by: John Perry | Nov 17 2020 15:30 utc | 124

Every slight might be interpreted as the “last straw”.
Trump needs to recognize that he was defeated by Soros and the owners.
He will need to up his game – “Build the Wall” wont do it.
If our government were not owned, they might be discussing the issue of election integrity.
But, in fact, it is a feature.

Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 15:35 utc | 125

Trump has generated so much paranoia with his conspiracy tweeting, so much mistrust of science and apathy trying to suppress the truth and reality of Covid, I wouldn’t be surprised if after tens of billions were spent on Operation Warp Speed, it fails, crashes and burns because millions are cynical, apprehensive and suspicious and refuse to be injected i.e. immunized. Then, only one person will be responsible for that failure…TRUMP.
After sowing so much mistrust of science and institutions.: You can lead the horse to water; but you can’t make him drink. If even one person gets sick or dies from the vaccine; it’ll become a stampede away from immunization.
Last Sunday, on 60 Minutes, the Commander in charge of this military operation stated that his greatest fear is people refusing to be vaccinated.
Wouldn’t it be jaw-dropping irony if after Trump, sowed so much mistrust of science and institutions, the reason his Operation Warp Speed fails is himself? What a potential mess he would be handing over to his successor, Biden, who would have to deal with the fallout of Trump’s staggering irresponsible and imprudent leadership!
This would become a cautionary tale for the ages.

Posted by: Circe | Nov 17 2020 15:44 utc | 126

Next on the agenda –
Block the Prick.

Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 15:47 utc | 127

Also worrying is the prospect of a future of:
– Forced vacinations.
– Weaponized, man-made viruses.
– Weaponized, man-made viruses, genetically targeted.
– Weaponized, man-made viruses, paired with vacine – for some.
But they wouldn’t really do that.

Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 15:52 utc | 128

In case it went unnoticed:

As a retired hospital nurse with exhausted friends and family caring for people convinced covid is a hoax I can only wish Dr. Fauci did what is suggested.
Posted by: Maureen O | Nov 17 2020 15:27 utc | 125

Indeed!
Thank you for your under-appreciated service, and thank your friends and family.

Posted by: Circe | Nov 17 2020 15:58 utc | 129

Excellent article in that it seems to openly discuss the issues rationally:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/17/the-korean-wars-forgotten-lessons-on-the-evil-of-intervention/
Prepare for more of same.
It seems that a population cannot learn, has no memory.
We keep starting over.

Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 16:10 utc | 130

It’s highly unlikely that enough votes would have been flipped by a vaccine announcement.
Posted by: Lex | Nov 16 2020 20:12 utc | 1
To check that I take 250K deaths and multiply by a factor of 20 (the unhappy customer toxicity rule of thumb). That’s 5M unhappy potential voters that may be highly motivated.
B’s speculation is interesting. First, it in no way rules out CIA involvement but certainly exposes the proverbial deep state (bureaucracy) in a crypto-fascist conspiracy.
But I agree numerous other considerations would usually take precedence. One possible explanation is that Bill Gates has created so much controversy that a true (ie large) anti-vax movement has emerged. They might of been keeping their heads down.
b’s English is off today. He’s either in a hurry, tired, ill or has been replaced by a lab grown clone. Damn. I was sounding rather level headed up to that point.

Posted by: David G Horsman | Nov 17 2020 16:11 utc | 131

So it is not about a ‘virus’, but we knew that.
It is all about revenge and totalitarian policy, and we knew that too.

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 17 2020 16:20 utc | 132

@Rob | Nov 16 2020 23:11 utc | 39

To all the people who believe that the Covid-19 pandemic is a capitalist or deep state hoax, I suggest you take a long walk until you fall off the edge of the flat earth.

Maybe you can advice me on when my house arrest is lifted so it is possible to take a long walk? This totalitarian nightmare is just getting worse and worse, and it is NOT due to any ‘virus’.

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 17 2020 16:26 utc | 133

@dave | Nov 17 2020 13:44 utc | 107
Thank you, you speak the truth. That is a rare phenomenon these days.

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 17 2020 16:35 utc | 134

@100
“the deep state democrat organized protest demonstration/riots during July 2020 were unhealthy due to risk of spreading covid:”
Let me help you out a bit here.
“the deep state democrat AND REPUBLICAN organized protest demonstration/riots during July 2020 were unhealthy due to risk of spreading covid:”
Fixed for free, no thanks necessary.
If you’re still a partisan at this point there is no help for you anywhere in this or any other universe.
Stay safe and sane, don’t let the fake billionaire owned parties pick your enemies for you.

Posted by: dave | Nov 17 2020 16:49 utc | 135

@ pretzelattack | Nov 17 2020 15:26 utc | 124
I will let this citation (cut/paste) from the article speak for itself:

Sweden reached a peak of 5,764 new daily infections last week, with 177,355 total cases as of Monday and 6,1164 deaths.

That and the great thing about completely crap data is that one can use it to justify any desired point of view or as my Dad use to say – You first decide your opinion, then select the facts which support it.

Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 16:50 utc | 136

Also in other (more rational) news:
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/elon-questions-cult
The slip is showing.

Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 16:54 utc | 137

Thank you karlof1 for your post at 48:
“…Amid a spike in hospitalizations that has pushed healthcare workers to the brink, elected officials have begun to impose new restrictions in an attempt to slow down disease transmission…” [Common Dreams]
The recognition that the current administration of the US is a conglomeration of misanthropes is perhaps late in coming for many, including myself, but the assessment cannot be avoided.
My state joins yours, karlof1 in requiring the severest lockdown of this pandemic as the critical issue is the stress on our healthcare system. My eldest daughter is at the heart of the storm here as a healthcare worker, and she advises that her hospital is more than 30% over capacity. This means that instead of a worker monitoring three critical patients in the ICU, a situation that is not optimum given these patients require round the clock attention, they are now forced to have in their care nine who are in this condition of serious illness.
Life is the ultimate freedom. As we approach Thanksgiving, which has always beem my favorite American holiday, the one which won me over to citizenship above all others, let us use this unique occasion we find ourselves in to re-establish the bonds that have over the years brought us into this wonderful feast of family and friendship, tolerance and appreciation, togetherness and joy.
I don’t really know what the opposite of misanthropy is, wordwise. I suspect the opposite is love.
I know it’s early, but happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 17 2020 16:57 utc | 138

@ 140 juliania… i agree with you… antonyms for misanthropy – confidence, faith, certainty, trust and etc… cheers..

Posted by: james | Nov 17 2020 17:07 utc | 139

@125
“As a retired hospital nurse with exhausted friends and family caring for people convinced covid is a hoax I can only wish Dr. Fauci did what is suggested.”
COVID the virus doesn’t have to be a hoax for the reaction by the elite to be a hoax.
Locking down healthy people and screwing them out of their lively hood should be questioned.
Statistics are meaningless unless method and sample size are clearly stated and should be up for debate in the public arena.
If Fauci wants to make as many homeless people as possible he’s doing a great job. If the stats where real then our misleaders would be working on financial aid and stopping foreclosures nation wide.
If you want to help people you don’t lie to them on a daily basis like our misleaders have for the last 80 years at least.
Trump is an ass hat but he didn’t destroy the public trust, that predates him by quite some time.
We also have the issue of the drivers behind this global socioeconomic reset to consider.
“WHO, Pharma, Gates & Government: Who’s Calling the Shots?”
https://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/January-2019/WHO,-Pharma,-Gates.aspx
Or you can watch the lightly veiled propaganda over at the WEF site and see that the elite are not letting this go to waste.
https://www.weforum.org/
Stay safe and sane, don’t let others choose your friends or enemies for you.

Posted by: dave | Nov 17 2020 17:21 utc | 140

I see now the game is to claim that DJT was completely against any coordinated response to covid and that he was even a covid denier.
History is being completely rewritten at a frightening pace.
From what I remember back in March, Trump yielded to Fauci for advisory notices and local authorities to impose their own restrictions. A federal mandate would have been both challenged by several states and would have made him into an autocrat in the eyes of his supporters, which would have been a great betrayal.
Many Europeans in here do not realize that the power of our federal gov’t is limited for a very basic reason going back to our country’s founding. It is an uphill climb to pass any kind of federal mandate, and it is often proved unneeded as states often have even more stringent mandates and advisories than what the federal gov’t puts out.
The idea most understood by us American is that the fed is a mere baseline while the states impose even stricter rules and regulations. State law says that it must be no less than what the federal gov’t requires though the states are free to impose restrictions to the heart’s content above and beyond what the fed imposes.
Put simply, the fed is a mere advisory board for the states and so any claim that Trump is directly responsible for 200,000 deaths is tds-ludicrousness, though it must be said that, “if you repeat something frequent enough…”
As I recall, New York, a blue state constantly challenging Trump, and with great covid restrictions, still managed to crank out the body bags last spring.
The point is, of course, that Trump matters little, and perhaps lockdowns matter even less.
Say it with me people: Covid and Trump don’t mix.
Fauci did not enact revenge. He was always playing for the other team. Impartial my ass.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Nov 17 2020 17:25 utc | 141

“It would have been proof that his strategy to (not) fight the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had at least one success”
Hmm. How do you ‘fight’ a pandemic, on the federal level? I have the impression that whatever he could do he did: racist-ly banning the flights, producing ventilators, masks. Trying to cool down the panic.
What would a different strategy look like?

Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Nov 17 2020 17:28 utc | 142

@Posted by: aquadraht | Nov 16 2020 22:27 utc | 29
@Posted by: Jay | Nov 17 2020 15:25 utc | 123
I am inclined to agree that the info released to date on both the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA based Corona virus vaccine candidates has been quite limited, and one-sided.
and so far sounds mostly like the usual enthusiastic pharma “forward-looking statements” and rosy marketing dept advertising spin, which are aimed primarily to drive up the stock price, and increase public awareness of the particular brands’ drug product.
For the record, there have been *no* approved mRNA vaccines in humans yet so far as I know (in spite of Moderna having been working on them since 2010; the company has had nothing to show up until now, in spite of sucking down $1.5-$2B in federal and Warp Speed monies on top of probably $100s of millions of private VC funds).
And, both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s candidates were developed/promoted w/o any of the normal preliminary animal validation work being provided (FDA normally wants safety data collected in >two species before granting investigator an IND permit to stick something new into humans).

Posted by: gm | Nov 17 2020 17:42 utc | 143

Grieved @ 73:
“…The secret was always testing…”
Comprehensive post, Grieved, and it certainly explains a lot. I remember watching a team in New York on a video discussion concerning the surprisingly effective and immediate response of China. The team was effusive in their admiration, and this was fairly early, in springtime.
I have a little different take on what was so surprising in the Chinese response that perhaps has been overlooked as we concentrated then on the effective practicalities of coping with and containing the virus. What surprised me then, in a non clinical way, was the support the Chinese government was giving to every member of its population in the critical area. It wasn’t just containment and testing, though those were major factors. It was SUPPORT. And I can imagine now that this support wasn’t just being given by the government but by all segments of Chinese society.
In this I’m reminded of the Hurricane Katrina situation here in the US. There was that kind of support even from far away areas, teams of medical assistance, home builders, other groups going where the need was felt. Even though the government as we saw at the time had not the resources it should have had in FEMA and terrible consequences were felt for citizens of New Orleans and the coastal areas.
Even in the short time since then, the US has lost that compassionate response. We ought to take to heart the difference that is now. We are not like China or the Asian countries. We have lost our compassionate response to disaster.
In China, even at the heart of the problem, every citizen was receiving support. The attention of the entire country was on them. Their containment wasn’t a prison; it was, I am guessing, at the same time for them the worst of times and the best of times.
It’s how we ought to consider now the lockdowns being required by state governors under stress. They are concerned for the citizens under their care; they hate doing this. And what should be happening in whatever states have less tragedy occurring is the implementation of outgoing assistance – just as China was able to do for Italy when their crisis was happening.
What a time this could be for worldwide compassionate outreach!

Posted by: juliania | Nov 17 2020 17:57 utc | 144

It appears the vast majority of State/Local governments in the USA are bankrupt. This was a sticking point in the recent ‘negotiations’ over a stimulus package. Only the Federal Government can manufacture funds for the ‘support’ needed by the populace to agree to lockdown. And the Federal Government is a basket case of dysfunction.

Posted by: gottlieb | Nov 17 2020 18:11 utc | 145

You’re way off on this, b.
A new vaccine, properly reviewed, won’t be available for months. Masks, as you often point out, are available now, along with an ensemble of other measures that would save thousands of lives. Trump is blocking their implementation. ANY responsible public health official would do ANYTHING to get him out of the way.
You’re becoming blind to the difference between conspiracy and public service-oriented action.

Posted by: dadooronron | Nov 17 2020 19:01 utc | 146

We had a little discussion upstream over culture and its effect on pandemic response, in looking at the responses of China and US to COVID-19.
Here’s a CDC article on the subject which includes: “Individualist Versus Collectivist: Cultural Identity”

Every society has a social contract that frames the ways we act and prioritize decisions and choices: as individuals, such as in the United States, as the collective as in China, or some mix of those forms as in Canada and France. One of the key lessons for a global response to a pandemic is that the cultural logic of different societies shapes and influences their prevention strategies. In the United States, individual vulnerability to risk is culturally privileged over community risk, when both should be addressed equally. Such coalescing of dual logics is embodied in the cultural messages from the yin and yang (coexistence and balancing of opposite forces) that may inform messaging in China. . .These cultural expressions are different, neither better nor worse than individualist cultural logic that typically informs messaging in the United States. In China, for example, quarantine was implemented in Wuhan as a collective action to varying degrees and scopes. At the individual level, everyone was mandated to stay at home, and a permit to leave home could be obtained only from a community committee made up of volunteers. At the city level, all city entries and exits were screened; all public transport was discontinued including public bus, subway, ferry, and taxi. This response reflected the collectivist social and cultural contract of Chinese society.

The Chinese people have been highly satisfied with their government’s response according to study results here.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 17 2020 19:03 utc | 147

gottlieb @147–
Negotiating the revenue aspect of the pandemic has made state and local governments either star or fail based on their governing merits. Most all governments here in my state of Oregon are doing okay, but that’s primarily because us citizens have behaved better than almost all other states at containing the virus until this most recent spike, so we were able to participate in more economic activity. As Putin said, it’s a matter of finding balance AND having a viable state that’s capable of discovering where that balance lies.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 17 2020 19:05 utc | 148

Trump and Mitch McConnell are doing their good cop-bad cop routine again, this time to kill the troop withdrawal, like they did to kill the Covid Relief bill. Trump pretends he’s the good cop wanting to do what people want and then let’s Mitch kill it later. That way Trump can still smell like a rose, instead of the swamp. Mitch put the kibosh on troop withdrawal without nary a mention or hint of criticism of Trump for pushing it. Wow! Such smooth operators those two. Rabbit will run with this one feeling totally vindicated!
@140 juliania
How sad that it took an unfortunate reality hitting close to home to keep you from hanging on to the Trump card you were pushing for the longest time. Trump held multiple super-spreaders around the country to satiate his need for crowd size and adulation. You can thank him that nurses are having to take on multiple more patients to care for in the ICU.
Here’s someone who needs a good dose of reality:
@139 jared
Funny, coming from a guy who now admits to having a mild case of Covid. Must have shaken too many hands at the launch. And why is Elon Musk seen wearing a mask?
When he gets bored with his cars and rockets, God I hope he doesn’t run for President! The last thing we need is another billionaire President with serious daddy and ego issues.

Posted by: Circe | Nov 17 2020 19:14 utc | 149

Don Bacon @149–
Thanks for finding and posting that snippet as it confirms what I wrote almost a year ago about societal reactions to basic threats like a pandemic, and that results could be predicted on the society’s fundamental basis–collectivist or individualist. Humans are social animals so collective action would be the norm. Atomizing social animals to the point where there’s no collective basis for them to act naturally IMO has proven to be 100% dysfunctional and is one of the primary reasons for the political failure of the USA–no countervailing social force was allowed to arise that could keep the forces of Big Business and Big Government at bay such that all we have are the two Biggies and a mass of small dysfunctional social groupings that are incapable of–and prevented from–combining, with many millions identifying with the one they see being attacked as they are–Trump.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 17 2020 19:22 utc | 150

Circe @Nov17 19:14 #151

Rabbit will run with this one feeling totally vindicated!

: )
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 17 2020 19:30 utc | 151

Just like Pelosi-Trump on the stimulus: Pelosi was the made to be the bad guy/gal holding up $$$ to individuals (only weeks before the election).
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 17 2020 19:33 utc | 152

Hausmeister@119

Portugiese court rule against PCR-test

That is a perfect jewel. Vielen dank Housmeister for this heads up, it concerns my recent situation directly. I am reading up the meat of it and I’ll update if appropriate.
Only today, 6 days after court decision, did it broke the news (in portuguese):
Diagnósticos de covid-19 não podem ser feitos por decreto, diz Relação de Lisboa


Covid-19 diagnoses cannot be made by decree, says Lisbon court [tn: appeals court]
A test is not enough, it takes a doctor to declare the disease, judges argue. Azores health authorities disallowed again. Mandatory quarantines outside the state of emergency are again considered illegal.
(Yandex translation)

Tribunal da Relação. Autoridades de saúde sem poder para decretarem confinamentos


Relationship court [tn: appeals court]. Health authorities without power to decree confinement
The Regional Health Authority is not one of the constitutionally valid entities to decree the deprivation of physical liberty, says the judgment, which also criticizes the fact that the people concerned have not even been seen by a doctor
(Yandex translation)

Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 17 2020 19:36 utc | 153

Jackrabbit @ 58
Thanks for that response. Opened up somewhat useful searches. As far as I can tell the rabies vaccine is still in trials. With emphasis on as far as I can tell. Search results are logjammed with pharma industry propaganda. If the rabies vaccine did get approved and I am just too dim to find that, it would still be the case that we have no experience with large scale use of mRNA. And no experience with long term use. First use of something entirely novel being mandatory for entire populations is completely nuts. Even using such a drug on the large fraction of the population that would be happy guinea pigs is completely nuts.
So again, I doubt this is happening at all. Just a game of perception management.
A friend of mine invented a new drug, a spermicide, forty years ago. Had it been approved it would have been the contraceptive of choice for most of the planet. Every pharma company was interested. Many governments were interested. India kept hope alive for approval for quite a few years. There were multiple large scale trials. The sticking point every time was that if approved it would be used by billions, the possibility of making a large mistake affecting most women of child bearing age was just too great. This was for a chemical that was one atom different than Tylenol and not known to be recognized as anything but Tylenol or inert by any part of the human body. Dosage was micrograms. So now we have something really novel and really different that is barely understood and not more than a few hundred scientists even know what is being discussed. And that would be injected into billions before we know what we are doing. Nope, don’t see this as anything but propaganda.

Posted by: oldhippie | Nov 17 2020 19:54 utc | 154

@Posted by: jared | Nov 17 2020 16:54 utc | 139
Those four (4) repeat covid tests, (2(+), 2(-)), Musk was given were *rapid antigen* (RA), (not PCR) tests (search Michael Mina. Mina is big advocate of RA tests for Covid).
[Given the strong anti-mask tone of the rest of that ZH piece, you might also search “monica gandhi masks” while you are at it. she is a big advocate in favor of face masks for reducing viral innoculum load you get hit with, and thereby ‘priming’ your immune system as sort of a natural ‘vaccination’ process [taking into your body just a tiny bit of the virus ‘poison’ your immune sys can handle, thereby giving it time for body’s immune defenses to ramp up to be better prepared to handle future, perhaps larger exposures to nCov virus.]
RA works on same principle as home pregnancy test. Much cheaper, faster, and less complicated than PCR, but also lass sensitive. According to Mina, if you get an ambiguous RA result like Musk said he did, it is highly likely you are not infectious for covid any more.

Posted by: gm | Nov 17 2020 20:58 utc | 155

fauci’s advice changed more often than his underwear. Aside from that, his predictions were spectacularly wrong. Why should anyone trust a word he says?

Posted by: c matt | Nov 17 2020 21:28 utc | 156

global virus fraud

Posted by: snake | Nov 17 2020 21:38 utc | 157

Clement Attlee’s social-democratic government was sabotaged by his own peers and he narrowly lost his reelection in 1950 (by 17 seats). I’m sure every Western Democracy has a plethora of similar events practically every election cycle.

That was 23/02/1950. I wonder was that part of the preparation for the Korean War?

Posted by: foolisholdman | Nov 17 2020 22:06 utc | 158

Sorry! That last comment was intended as related to :
vk | Nov 16 2020 21:43 utc | 22

Posted by: foolisholdman | Nov 17 2020 22:11 utc | 159

gm (145):
And Moderna doesn’t have a record of producing vaccines, though it does have a record of riding stock valuation waves. It’s about slight possibilities driving executive compensation, not about effective drugs to sell at inflated prices.
Right, mRNA isn’t something vaccines have used before–at least approved vaccines.
The Pfizer study would have been more useful if the vaccine test had been run in say the metropolitan NYC area, or in the metropolitan Milan area in Italy. Pick 30,000 people, administer the proposed vaccine to 15,000 and the placebo to the other 15,000 and if the infection rate after 90 days is 5 out of the 15,000 who received the drug, then that’s a stunning result. But it doesn’t look like Pfizer tried that method.

Posted by: Jay | Nov 17 2020 22:44 utc | 160

The following is the detection protocol by the same authors of the article Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR mentioned by B in the article Professor Chossudovsky Is Wrong – Here Is How PCR Tests Work:
Diagnostic detection of 2019-nCoV by real-time RT-PCR (Berlin, Jan 17th, 2020)

(p1)
-Protocol and preliminary evaluation as of Jan 17, 2020-
Victor Corman, Tobias Bleicker, Sebastian Brünink, Christian Drosten
Charité Virology, Berlin, Germany
(p12-13)
1. First line screening assay [E assay]
2. Confirmatory assay [RdRp assay if previous positive]
3. Discrimatory assay [RdRp assay if previous positive]
*Thermo Fischer/Invitrogen: SuperScriptIII OneStep RT-PCR System with Platinum® Taq DNA Polymerase
Cycler: [for all assays]
55°C 10’
94°C 3’
94°C 15’’ |
58°C 30’’ |45x [!!!!!!]

my emphasis
If we look up Thermo Fischer information we will read:

Real-Time PCR: Understanding Ct

Figure 1, above, shows several parameters of the real-time reaction amplification plot. The exponential phase in Figure 1B corresponds to the linear phase in Figure 1C. The threshold must be set in the linear phase of the amplification plot in Figure 1C. The Ct value increases with a decreasing amount of template. However, artifacts from the reaction mix or instrument that change the fluorescence measurements associated with the Ct calculation will result in template-independent changes to the Ct value. Therefore, the Ct values from PCR reactions run under different conditions or with different reagents cannot be compared directly.

Ct thresholds helper image
Now I invite you fellow barflies to look carefully to Figure 1C by Thermo Fischer, compare with the images in page 5 of the cited protocol above for both SARS and 2019-nCoV and ask yourself why are the Ct values only considered high above 35 (in Europe) all the while absent from lab reports or even when explicitly asked for?
Repeat yourself the question now knowing that the proportion of “active” virus culture samples by the number of amplifications is decreased ~50% by Ct 25 and by Ct 35 only ~3% can be considered “active virus” (ie. infectious).
Source: Correlation Between 3790 Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction–Positives Samples and Positive Cell Cultures (Including 1941 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Isolates) which is the study linked to by the Portuguese Court ruling again found via Hausmeister link @119 (which BTW has been posted in this forum several times before).

Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 17 2020 22:57 utc | 161

Trump wasn’t able to pull off a propaganda con? Boo hoo. By the time these vaccines as Are widespread the third wave will have done it’s damage. Moon should be happy Trump wasn’t able to spin this into a victory.

Posted by: The Hang Nail | Nov 18 2020 3:57 utc | 162

Vasco da Gama | Nov 17 2020 22:57 utc | 163
Sorry at 23.10. I had missed this

article of b and did not comment it therefore. Yes, b has been fooled. The trick is this:
„In total 297 clinical samples with 23 different human virus types in them were tested. The newly developed assays developed to find only SARS-CoV-2 reacted with none of those.
bigger – a pictuer
The PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 has a high specificity. It can not detect other types of viruses.”
No reason to question that the test developers (= and salesmen, not to forget this!) have done this test. But it is absolutely unsufficient as a foundation for the claim that this test, even when done only against this E-Gen, is specific only for CoV-2. That ist the trick!
For such a claim there must be representative studies of the distribution of various Corona-type virusses in the population and one would need to check against these. So the developers/sellers could bluff b, the public in Germany but not the court in Portugal.
@all: now you see why it is so important that the details of the particular testing (against which Gen the PCR test is been run, what numbers of cycles have been applied) are never told. This is the condition sine qua non of keeping the monopole over the narrative and manipulate the public opinion with nonsense figures about „positive PCR-tests“. In Germany this lie, e.g. 16 187 infections, is told any day since long. The infections are „infections“, that means only PCR-test results that cannot be regarded as a diagnostic proof.
Summary:
they have repeated the swine flue hoax, better prepared, including a rough authoritative destruction of any independent public reasing (at least in Germany). If you have any influential job it is not possible to question the official wrong narrative unless in private frames, off the record. Otherwise you are socially dead. The second time since 1932 that the Germans lost their brain (ca. 60-80%). A pity that b too was victimized.

Posted by: Hausmeister | Nov 18 2020 10:35 utc | 163

(Nature) NEWS 11 NOVEMBER 2020
Russia announces positive COVID-vaccine results from controversial trial
Developers of the Sputnik V vaccine announce phase III results, two days after Pfizer and BioNTech released the first compelling evidence that a vaccine can protect against coronavirus infection.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 18 2020 15:15 utc | 164

According to an article on RT.COM, the new style vaccine will require a logistics infrastructure that does not yet exist, and this will delay the rollout. If Pfizer et al had announced the successful result of their third stage test, a start could have been 0n putting that logistics infrastructure in place and lives would have been saved. Perhaps the DoJ should start an investgation of Pfizer et al.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Nov 18 2020 15:46 utc | 165

IMO, it was our medical system, driven by big pharma and shills like Dr. Faucet, that did not give people in the US adequate reliable information about therapeutics to combat this infectious virus, which is, as has been stated, is dangerous to old sick people and not so dangerous to young healthy people, which is par for the course for any virus.
IMO the regime taken by US healthcare is for a person to get sick, either get sicker or not, but, if sicker, go to the hospital to meet the ventilator. From what I have read about treatment in other countries, if a person gets sick that person is immediately placed on a medication, which may or may to be the unmentionable one which acts in conjunction with zinc and azythromicin.
Any person who does a little research can find out about these medications.
IMO, Dr. Faucet, who was reportedly a roommate of Bill Gates in college and who sits on the board of Bill Gates’ foundation, is interested in a vaccine, not a cheap readily available medication. Also, he has not seen a patient for 30 years at least (he is 80 years old). Bill Gates does not have a medical degree but he does have lots and lots of money and a big talent for making more, also a vision of the world in which this happens on a regular basis.
So there you have it. We are screwed – medically, financially, emotionally – our lives currently suck and unless we get our act together it will not get better, IMO.

Posted by: lizzie dw | Nov 18 2020 16:36 utc | 166

b:
Besides being totally presumptuous and disingenuous why do you conveniently and deliberately OMIT last-minute moves Trump is taking and considering to tie Biden’s hands and create fires Biden will be forced to put out?!: Namely,
1. Trump is considering officially designating the Houthi rebels a Terrorist Organization before leaving office and imposing on them the consequences this serious move implies.
2. He’s pushing for 23 Million in arms sales to UAE to continue its destruction in Yemen!
3. He’s putting together “a flood” of sanctions against Iran.
4. He’s STILL considering strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities or if unable to do so, then intends strikes on Iranian military assets outside Iran in Syria and Iraq.
5. He’s seriously considering trade restrictions and even sanctions on…China!
6. He’s sending Pompeo on an official diplomatic visit to illegal West Bank settlement.
Normally, the outgoing administration should not make drastic foreign policy moves before leaving and should, respecting precedent and protocol, consult any last minute foreign policy considerations with the new administration.
Trump is a Ziofascist thug and I can’t wait til he’s Citizen Trump facing legal jeopardy!

Posted by: Circe | Nov 18 2020 18:52 utc | 167

Fauci’s actions are exactly what you see from the “Deep State” – or more accurately, the Federal Bureaucracy.
These unelected, long serving group of individuals is a major reason why the US is so screwed up: they are far more interested in their own agendas than anything objectively needed or items desired by the actual elected officials.
Note I’m not saying Fauci is doing this per se: I leave that to others to decide.
The fact that this power exists in the hands of so many, is the problem.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 18 2020 19:00 utc | 168

Hausmeister@119
Basically what the court is saying is that an administrative authority is not qualified to diagnose a disease, that only a licensed MD can do so. Therefore a PCR or other test is not in itself a diagnostic, it is only a tool that in conjunction with other tools and the observation of the patient allows a licensed MD to produce a diagnostic.
And only in the presence of such a diagnostic can the administrative authorities, (in this case the regional health authority of the Azores, that appealed a decision from a lower court that granted Habeas Corpus to claimants who were forced into confinement) impose quarantine or other confinement measures.
But what is truly important in this ruling is that even so liberty privation can only be legally enforced by judicial order, since infectious diseases are not recognised in the Constitution as ground for administrative detention, and even if it was it would still require judicial supervision, as is the case with psychiatric diseases that are there contemplated.

Posted by: estouxim | Nov 19 2020 1:17 utc | 169

Toutou… That is a very apt summary estouxim@171! Now, the avenue is open for the emergency state quarantine to be put in question under the same judgement that PCR tests have been declared “insufficient”, since the quarantine itself is supported on the cumulative 240 so called “cases” per 100k pop in the last 14 days (seen: 14-day COVID-19 case notification rate per 100 000, weeks 45-46).
This is the exact vindication of my position stated in this forum a couple weeks ago (excuse the plug).

COVID-19: Council adopts a recommendation to coordinate measures affecting free movement (13-10-2020)
(…)
You will notice how the measures to be taken by individual countries are absolutely (as in 100%) dependent on the worst metric possible according to the demonstrated performance of rtPCR tests.
(…)
rtPCR testing, under the current state of knowledge, is the equivalent of measuring a patient’s temperature with a thermometer but no doctor knows the average body temperature, and its natural healthy interval, nor would the thermometer provide a number on a scale, merely reporting that a patient has something other than “0”. This would constitute a USELESS thermometer.
(…)
rtPCR testing is absolutely absurd for the purposes it is being used (ie. country wide government response policy), instead of being limited to clinical diagnostic tool of the individual suspect of some respiratory disease to be used by a qualified practitioner, and, at best, a screening tool to get a handle on local outbreaks (schools, workplaces, residences, etc).

Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 19 2020 19:18 utc | 170

‘The Great Revenge – How Tony Fauci F*cked Donald Trump’ Doesn’t really surprise me. Wasn’t it the great sage Archie Bunker who said that Italians specialize in two things: spaghetti and revenge?

Posted by: JimG. | Nov 23 2020 8:26 utc | 171

Back to Main