Tidbit from Serbia: Healthcare was shit here ("universal"> yeah, right), even before COVID, now it is abysmal. There are no patient rights, except on paper. There were cases of septic death of young people in hospitals after routine operations, misdiagnosis resulting in deaths, and continuous & general dontgiveashit behavior towards patients. 99% of the time no doctor was held responsible, either criminally or professionally.
Recently, the health minister announced that 4 doctors who were promoting Ivermectin would face the so called 'professional honor' court to be held accountable for 'misinformation' and misleading the public, lowering vaccination rates.
I cannot paint a vivid enough picture how astonishing this is, with overwhelming corruption we live in in literally every area of state bureaucracy, that talking about Ivermecting is where they draw the line.
Mathew it is obvious you have worked your ass offf and from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for your incredible efforts, you are truly a hero.
I come from North Macedonia (the latest name change, this is how the country is officially called in international communication). We have Ivermectin, it is relatively cheap, and you need a prescription to get it. You can also get it without a prescription from open-minded doctors and pharmacists, but it is not like it is freely available at drugstores. I personally know people how have gone through the disease like a breeze with Ivermectin and antibiotics, and people who have been double-vaccinated and died or suffered. At the moment, we have restrictions for the unvaccinated in non-essential businesses, and a mandate has been mentioned recently. There are doctors that treat the disease symptomatically with great caution and have great success. We have serious restrictions that wreak havoc on the economics but I am so glad I don't live in Australia or Canada. Or New Zealand, Ireland, Austria... Oh wait, the circle is tightening.
The flccc.net folks recommend a povidone-iodine nasal snort 3 times a day. I wonder if the iodine in talble salt is what's doing the job for you? Very interesting. BTW is you want to do up a proper saline solution here's the recipe:
I don't think the FLCCC's solution is recommended for general prophylaxis (it stings regardless) but I keep it on hand to use it here and there after potential major exposure or if I feel something coming on. Easy to have on hand as a nasal spray and gargle for sure. Highly recommended for sure.
Correct. The 1% povidone-iodine is used as prophylaxis as a gargle. In the early treatment stage it is used as a gargle and nasal spray/drops. I've tried it for both gargle and nasal and the 1% is tolerable to me.
Basic saline rinse as prophylaxis is a good idea. I do the rinse once a week.
that's alarmist talk Richard, not productive and there's no need for it. Get covid and you've got 99% protection already with your immune system unprovoked by any vaccines. It is not at all 'salt water in the nose or death by covid'.
Sad to see you resorting to such alarmism. I thought you were out to help people.
tsp = teaspon but 1/2 tbsp would be 1 1/2 tsp so your "heaping" teaspoon would be equivalent to 1/2 tbsp. I find a stronger saline dries out my nasal passages too much. I started rinsing years ago because I live in a very dry area.
I am a Bulgarian. It is correct that we have started well with HCQ but back then there were very few covid cases. The major cause of death is that healthcare here is awful. Bulgarians were among the first in cardiovascular diseases before the pandemic. People don't like seeing a doctor and they start treatment when it's too late. People don't trust the government because it has lied to them for the past decades. Also, there has been a political crisis and no permanent government for a year or so - which is one of the major causes for the low vaccination rate (politicians are careful not to be disliked by people until the next elections). It looks as if measures, lockdowns and certificates are enforced in order to please the EU which is more and more aggressive in meddling in countries' internal affairs and laws... The mass psychosis hasn't affected us as much as other western countries, thank God.
Thank you for relating your experience. While I suspected that medical care of the elderly, infirm, and hospitalized patients might relate to the massive mortality climbs, I was not coming across substantial discussion of specifics.
Some doctors are prescribing Ivermectin btw, but not many. And Bryan Ardis says that Remdesivir is killing people in hospitals but it's too expensive and I know that they are administering it rarely here.
I wake up this morning to an inbox telling me that Germany is locking down their unvaccinated and the UK is recommending boosters every 3 months. Bret Weinstein said in a recent DarkHorse podcast that we are trapped in "someone else's psychosis". That could not be a more accurate way of putting it. Every nation in the world has access to the same data that we read and share through our 'underground' communications and yet, they push forward with policies that are in exact opposition to the data. This week, here in the USA, I've noticed President Biden and Dr. Fauci openly admitting that the vaccines do not work by their comments and actions (ie. requiring international travelers to be tested, regardless of vaccinations status and recommending masking even after you've had a booster). On the one hand, I feel an optimism that maybe they are finally looking at the same data and they are 'getting it' But, that voice in the back of my mind tells me that this is all part of the game. Maybe support for Moderna's omicron specific jab is being established. I want off of this ride.
People think the mRNA vaccines are safe because the elites think they’re safe. Israel is using it on their people for crying out loud. But I know how many stupid people get into Ivy League so I wouldn’t put it past them to be stupid enough to drink cyanide if the FDA approved it. This is a case of toxic groupthink of the same sort that caused the Challenger disaster.
I would somewhat disagree (being from Bulgaria) with the vaccine correlation suggested here. We never really had a huge vaccine uptake and Bulgaria is still the least vaccinated country in Europe. We also have one of the strongest anti-vax communities here, unfortunately most of which rely on absurd conspiracies which makes them a mocking point in the public discourse.
By June we only had 10 percent of people vaccinated (with one dose) and in March it was 10 percent. At this moment we are at around 25-6 percent vaccination rate which increased significantly thanks to the Green Certificate in October.
Bulgaria is actually being used as an example on why poorly vaccinated countries have such a huge death toll due to covid. Obviously they are missing a key point which is that our medical system just can't deal with even a heavy flu season.
Bulgaria would be an interesting study case though - we have very low level of vaccination, there are also thousands of fake vaccine certificates here and nobody is following the official government measures for the virus. The Green Certificate at least in the moment is not being checked by anyone really, and I'm freely moving with a certificate of a friend of mine. You can also get a certificate (temporary one) if you have some antibodies.
Life hasn't really changed here except for the raised fear levels and the obvious high death toll we have.
I'm not sure what it means to disagree with a correlation, or which one was suggested, but to the extent that Bulgaria is less vaccinated than the rest of Europe, that's primarily true in the younger demographics, whereas the largest effects are seen among the older demographics. Aside from that Bulgaria is the *outlier* in that regard as it is one of the very few nations in the world that bucks the global trends where vaccination rates are correlated positively with case and death rates.
Not every story needs to fit perfectly into any narrative, which is why I simply show what I see in these stories.
Personally, I would rather have seen some clear sign of ivermectin efficacy, but there isn't one. That doesn't mean it didn't work. For all I know, 10,000 Bulgarians used it and none of them got sick, but that story isn't apparent in any data.
But I'm happy to have your perspective, and additional facts for anyone to judge.
"Life hasn't really changed here except for the raised fear levels and the obvious high death toll we have."
Interesting to hear. I hope that helps the economy avoid quite so much disaster, which may save more lives in the long run.
I wrote about it above. Main point is that you don't know the vaccination rate. Especially in bulgaria i don't know how good there census is and how many are both registered in Bulgaria and abroad. What you have to consider that a lot of people work abroad. According to german officially data 388.700 people from Bulgaria live in germany, but there are many more who work here saisonal in farming, tourist and care for older people (especially at home) and slaughter houses. You have also to consider that germany (i don't know how other countries handle) don't consider people with other vaccinations as Pfizer, Modern, JJ and AZ as vaccination. So you have to be tested if you work or use public transportation system.
Every nationality has a unique set of physiques/blood types/diets/age distributions etc plus govt accounting for deaths may vary in method. This can affect the numbers reported.
Looks like I ran out of space - We've been hit hard by Covid. Ivermectin is being widely used but nobody is keeping track. You can get it from the pharmacy without prescription if it is in stock(which it is mostly not). I do take it as prophylaxis although I am still somewhat skeptical of how effective it would eventually end up being.
All in all Bulgaria should be studied as it would offer interesting insight on how the Covid pandemic unfolds in a European country with no real measures imposed.
"Bulgaria should be studied as it would offer interesting insight on how the Covid pandemic unfolds in a European country with no real measures imposed."
I disagree there. Bulgaria fits global data trends where nations using HCQ during the early months of the pandemic saw lower death rates, and vaccinating a quarter of a population is an enormous intervention. No reason to throw out any of those data attributes. Let the data be the data.
Agree, I guess I was referring to having no real lockdowns and restrictions in terms of moving around (except for very brief periods early in the pandemic).
There is a huge intervention I agree - we are being heavily pushed to all get vaccinated right now especially from EU. Bulgaria will probably have the largest control group in EU though and it seems they REALLY don't want to allow it.
But Bulgaria being Bulgaria we also have a potentially strange distribution of the vaccines. There are likely more young people vaccinated than those above 70-80 crazy as it sounds. I found such data in a local newspaper but can't really verify it, although observing the social dynamics I would think it is true. We really need to get the demographics on this one.
Just want to mention that I really enjoy your work, I mostly trying to offer some inside on some additional factors that might come into play here.
Thank you for anything you can add. If you find the demographic distribution, I'd appreciate it. I hadn't noticed such a distribution anywhere, but that certainly doesn't mean I didn't miss one and saw them all.
There is no data available for Germany how many people who are not registered in germany (as residents) and get the vaccination. The Germany vaccination "Verordnung" states explicitly that also people which are not residents but work in Germany or stay (sea men) can get the vaccination.
Unknown is how many people work here for saisonal work especially farming, tourist industry, slaughter houses and there are also a lot of truck drivers. The german state does not accept vaccination passport with not the in germany allowed vaccination (Pfizer, modern, JJ and AZ).
so it is possible that your census is not correct or that people are registered in germany and bulgaria.
The other thing about numbers is to know how many tests are done and which kind of them and how do you count mortality.
HCQ+zinc and then ivermectin stopped the spread, but eventually the virus will be so aggressive that it breaks through anyway, and then all hell broke lose. The earlier a country got covid, the better.
The vaccine companies sent extra bad jabs to Bulgaria to punish them for using cheap drugs.
Bulgaria didn’t address the main problem: Low vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is needed to build up immunity.
Or.. They used the same vaccines the rest of Europe and the vaccines did to them what they're doing everywhere else: anything you'd have suffered from covid, the mRNA and DNA/AAV shots may also do.
I just got back from Bulgaria, where my family lives. There was an old locally produced over the counter drug for pulmonary infections that people (including my family) used with high success rates as prevention and early treatment of C19. My mother who has all the health conditions of a high risk person (high blood pressure, diabetes, heart condition, overweight, over 65) went through C19 last winter by treating herself at home with this drug and vitamin, and nutrition supplements (zinc and propolis). She had a difficult bout and was in bed for a month but did not get hospitalized. She always had a stack of Bromhixin (the commercial name of the drug) so, while I was there, we would go to refill her stack as she would take it every time she would suspect she might have been exposed generally (e.g. trips to the market). In October, just before the green pass was rolled out and the cases suddenly and dramatically spiked, the drug disappeared from the pharmacies. We asked a close family friend who works for one of the large pharma distributors to get us the drug from their supplies, and she was sure she could until she checked and found out they too had been out of it since the end of September. I am not saying this is the only reason for the spike in cases but it is one of the many observable strategies that go under the public radar.
It would be interesting to see the all-cause excess deaths chart in both 2020 and 2021 (single monthly x-axis, 1 curve for each year) to see how much of the Oct 2021 jump-up might be down to seasonality, and a 2nd y-axis for % vaccinated (if available) to see how suggestive it is for vaccine induced mortality. Sorry I'd do this myself if I knew how
I appreciate all the hard work you've been doing here (for real!) but you obviously did much more poorly at geography than you did at statistics.
1) There's no such country as "the Ukraine." Whether now or in the past, the name has always been "Ukraine."
2) Bulgaria does not border Ukraine AT ALL. To the north of Bulgaria is Romania.
3) Bulgaria is NORTH of both Turkey and Greece
4) West of Bulgaria is Serbia and (N) Macedonia. Hungary is far off to the northwest.
5) During the Communist era, Bulgaria was not "on the edge" of any bloc. It was surrounded to the north (Romania) and west (Yugoslavia) by other Communist nations.
6) The short intro you gave (Mongols, et al) about Bulgaria could equally be applied to half the countries in Europe.
I was writing Bulgaria's and Romania's entries simultaneous. I am dyslexic and can only read on a few square inches of screen, so this is the kind of mistake I sometimes make (writing Romania's northern border into Bulgaria's story), but I'd fill them all in on a map correctly. Being nearly blind to words, I have to know maps well. It's not the geography that is my struggle.
The point about the Mongols was not about the Mongols, but about the number of transitional empires.
I am blown away by your ability to leap past your dyslexia to keep us all informed. Even with a very dear friend who is from Bulgaria, and looking at maps and NOT being dyslexic, I am still a bit confused about where Bulgaria is. Don't tell Polly! PS: for moto tourists, she has an awesome motorcycle campground there. Gonna go look at a map again.
*TECHNICALLY*, Yugoslavia was "independent" from the blocs. Communist yes, but not in Eastern Bloc. So, again, technically, he was right about the edge :)
Have to ask..are you planning on responding to 'The Gift of Fire' article? It closing on comparing those with concerns about vaccines to QAnon conspiracy theory people is infuriating but the top half has a lot of pretty graphs that I still need to sort through more slowly. I do think a lot of what the article relies on is the fact that Covid is only 10% of mortality and vaccine deaths maybe only 25% the size of that. But need to look closer.
I read the article, and parts of it are well-written (as Steve put it, a lot of effort went into writing).
The problem in that article is its crystal clear pursuit of propaganda and syllogisms.
Broadly, the author
1) finds -- or conjures -- an inconsistency and exploits it to the max;
2) finds something that can be explained differently -- and states that this is the only plausible explanation.
More specifically, the author makes very broad assertions and inferences. For example, 150,000 deaths in the US => means it's roughly 5% excess deaths => means that since "everyone of those died in the first 3 months" there would be 20% excess deaths => and that means there would be 20% excess deaths in the first 3 months in AUSTRALIA (huh?) => but there aren't => Mathew is wrong.
I also loved the insistent "if vaccines are lethal, they'll be lethal everywhere."
Well, if COVID is lethal, it would be lethal everywhere, won't it?
The graphs with excess mortality, and covid deaths, and vaccination rollout, to me, don't actually prove Matt and Kirsch wrong. The fact covid deaths stop tracking in step with excess mortality once the rollout begins to me indicates something is happening. But I"m not sure I understand it. How could covid deaths go past the excess mortality? Why would the red line ever get past the black line for the US?
you mean if there's say 100,000 excess deaths then how could covid deaths be more than 100,000? Say 150,000?
Well if 'normal' deaths fell that year by 50,000 and all excess was covid then there's room for there to be 150,000 covid deaths against a 'mere' 100,000 excess.
The black line has to stay above covid deaths by definition doesn't? It can sink below zero but then so must covid death.
My guess is he multiplied by a factor to get it to show to demonstrate how closely it follows excess death. Regardless, as strong as an argument it may seem to note vaccines roll out, deaths went down, that gap that appears between the lines confuses me. And it happens in other countries too.
I'm having a Big Short moment where I'm staring at it and I'm wondering is this a confession? But clearly I dont' understand graphs enough
If you don't think there is any other treatment and that these deaths are less than what would have been without the vaccine then ethically it checks out. So I don't want to paint the other side as callous monsters due to downstream consequences of upstream assessments.
No, they aren't quite what the phrase "callous monster" would imply.
Even callous monsters have principles.
These people do not, as they are clueless and choose to believe the official narrative -- and constrain their own thought process accordingly.
They are, therefore... worse.
There's a saying in Russian: "simplicity is worse than robbery."
I am rather disheartened that many -- including those on "this side" -- appear to believe that medical intervention is ethical so long as it produces fewer deaths.
In a general case, this is patently, unequivocally false.
This nonchalant attitude terrifies me.
I think I have a perfect example.
Imagine 100 people sentenced to death.
They are given a way out, though: play a game of Russian roulette with a 5-shot revolver, and you shall be spared. If you win.
Naturally, the risk of death is 100% if one does not play and only 20% if one does.
Now imagine that only 10 people in that cohort are sentenced to death and the other 90 are simply taken along for the ride.
You don't know who they are, but you know they all have a tattoo on their forehead that reads "DEATH."
You don't have such a tattoo, but you're still offered to play that game.
You know your chance of dying is ZERO if you don't play and 20% if you do.
Now imagine you aren't even offered to play that game.
The biggest issue is that this situation is incredibly complex and requires a large-scale dedicated effort to investigate.
I reckon, a team of at least 10 people working on it full time for 6+ months (and that's pushing it) -- likely, per a somewhat uniform (at least, culturally) area of the World (e.g., North America, Western Europe, etc.)
They would have to:
1) establish sources of raw data for COVID testing, hospitalizations, cases, deaths, and vaccinations as well as mortality from other causes -- for at least the past 3-5 years;
2) establish criteria for the trustworthiness of raw data;
3) get the specifics on vaccination schedules, vaccine types, compliance, any pertinent rollout specifics;
4) find edge cases and provide explanations for those;
5) work out a single multivariate paradigm that would explain the observed phenomena in all countries/counties/municipalities (in other words, have a capability to predict).
This is incredibly hard -- but this is the only approach that would yield a conclusive answer to everything (42).
However, Steve and Matt (and others) are taking a different approach, and look at what they believe to be edge cases based on an imperfect set of criteria.
They point out that certain (many) countries and municipalities are experiencing phenomena that do not fit the official narrative at all.
They do not propose a model or an alternative narrative, they only make rough inferences.
Their critics point out that some other countries do fit the narrative and that Matt's calculations are imperfect or not applicable and thus do not have predictive capabilities and thus must be wrong.
Naturally, the tricky part about this long-winded reasoning is the simple fact that they cannot seem to be able to find a flaw specifically in Steve's and Matt's calculations.
For that you need accurate date. As a german I oversee what the RKI does. All numbers which they provide are not correct.
Testing number: The RKI don't know the number of PCR tests which are conducted because not all lab has to provide these numbers. They also do not know how many are pooled test and they don't on which kind of population these tests are done. They don't report the numbers of PoC-Antigen tests. and we don't have numbers which people are tested (different rules of testing in different states at different times)
Hospitalization: Different numbers from different Ressourcen. Nobody knows the numbers.
ICU: A total mess. DIVI numbers are wrong and to high if you compare with InEK data (that is what the hospitals reported to the insurance companies)
deaths: You don't know the death numbers. It is unclear what the public health services sometimes does. We don't have here a rule that says only people with a positive test which maximum 28 days before a positive test. it is possible that the person was months before tested positive. in summer times there were 80% of deaths accounted with per tests more than 28 days before testes positive.
And I mean it should be clear that other countries are more corrupt then our country or in the same way. nobody knows how accurate these numbers. You have to consider also the lock-downs and what that means to the people.
To me the first order of business is to take as conservative estimate as we can to adverse events that still negates the value of the vaccine then go looking for those events in upticks in cardiac issues like was made clear with adolescent boys and myocarditas. I think some of this is done but always as part of other discussions.
That is let's do the low end estimate of harm and see where it would fit.
There are some logical mistakes on their part as well. They make a false assumption that every vaccinated death would correlate one-to-one with a hospitalization. Whoops, that's probably not true. Is one example.
Oh of course. Going through all of those issues would take perhaps a whole series of articles -- this is why I am trying to focus on the fundamentals and deduce who is mostly right and who is mostly not.
A wikification of pandemic national case studies to date:
https://www.campfire.wiki/doku.php?id=sars-cov-2_pandemic_national_case_studies
Tidbit from Serbia: Healthcare was shit here ("universal"> yeah, right), even before COVID, now it is abysmal. There are no patient rights, except on paper. There were cases of septic death of young people in hospitals after routine operations, misdiagnosis resulting in deaths, and continuous & general dontgiveashit behavior towards patients. 99% of the time no doctor was held responsible, either criminally or professionally.
Recently, the health minister announced that 4 doctors who were promoting Ivermectin would face the so called 'professional honor' court to be held accountable for 'misinformation' and misleading the public, lowering vaccination rates.
I cannot paint a vivid enough picture how astonishing this is, with overwhelming corruption we live in in literally every area of state bureaucracy, that talking about Ivermecting is where they draw the line.
Almost every spot on Earth is quickly heading in a direction of greater tyranny, just from different starting points.
Maybe it's a plot to make Africa is the freest continent.
Mathew it is obvious you have worked your ass offf and from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for your incredible efforts, you are truly a hero.
Maybe it’s a plot to keep African immigrants away.
My friend from Bulgaria describes their health care in much the same way.
Speaking of sepsis, doctors sure like to ration antibiotic usage. All for the common good I'm sure.
I come from North Macedonia (the latest name change, this is how the country is officially called in international communication). We have Ivermectin, it is relatively cheap, and you need a prescription to get it. You can also get it without a prescription from open-minded doctors and pharmacists, but it is not like it is freely available at drugstores. I personally know people how have gone through the disease like a breeze with Ivermectin and antibiotics, and people who have been double-vaccinated and died or suffered. At the moment, we have restrictions for the unvaccinated in non-essential businesses, and a mandate has been mentioned recently. There are doctors that treat the disease symptomatically with great caution and have great success. We have serious restrictions that wreak havoc on the economics but I am so glad I don't live in Australia or Canada. Or New Zealand, Ireland, Austria... Oh wait, the circle is tightening.
The flccc.net folks recommend a povidone-iodine nasal snort 3 times a day. I wonder if the iodine in talble salt is what's doing the job for you? Very interesting. BTW is you want to do up a proper saline solution here's the recipe:
1/2 tsp salt + 1 cup distilled water
I don't think the FLCCC's solution is recommended for general prophylaxis (it stings regardless) but I keep it on hand to use it here and there after potential major exposure or if I feel something coming on. Easy to have on hand as a nasal spray and gargle for sure. Highly recommended for sure.
Correct. The 1% povidone-iodine is used as prophylaxis as a gargle. In the early treatment stage it is used as a gargle and nasal spray/drops. I've tried it for both gargle and nasal and the 1% is tolerable to me.
Basic saline rinse as prophylaxis is a good idea. I do the rinse once a week.
that's alarmist talk Richard, not productive and there's no need for it. Get covid and you've got 99% protection already with your immune system unprovoked by any vaccines. It is not at all 'salt water in the nose or death by covid'.
Sad to see you resorting to such alarmism. I thought you were out to help people.
tsp = teaspon but 1/2 tbsp would be 1 1/2 tsp so your "heaping" teaspoon would be equivalent to 1/2 tbsp. I find a stronger saline dries out my nasal passages too much. I started rinsing years ago because I live in a very dry area.
Thanks, I have been using saline solutions, too.
I am a Bulgarian. It is correct that we have started well with HCQ but back then there were very few covid cases. The major cause of death is that healthcare here is awful. Bulgarians were among the first in cardiovascular diseases before the pandemic. People don't like seeing a doctor and they start treatment when it's too late. People don't trust the government because it has lied to them for the past decades. Also, there has been a political crisis and no permanent government for a year or so - which is one of the major causes for the low vaccination rate (politicians are careful not to be disliked by people until the next elections). It looks as if measures, lockdowns and certificates are enforced in order to please the EU which is more and more aggressive in meddling in countries' internal affairs and laws... The mass psychosis hasn't affected us as much as other western countries, thank God.
Thank you for relating your experience. While I suspected that medical care of the elderly, infirm, and hospitalized patients might relate to the massive mortality climbs, I was not coming across substantial discussion of specifics.
Some doctors are prescribing Ivermectin btw, but not many. And Bryan Ardis says that Remdesivir is killing people in hospitals but it's too expensive and I know that they are administering it rarely here.
https://www.trustnodes.com/2020/03/30/france-banned-chloroquine-days-before-first-western-scientific-report-on-pandemic
Criminal
“Plaquénil, the trade name for chloroquine, was sold over the counter in pharmacies until January 15, 2020.
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-earlier-lab-leak-hypothesis
I wake up this morning to an inbox telling me that Germany is locking down their unvaccinated and the UK is recommending boosters every 3 months. Bret Weinstein said in a recent DarkHorse podcast that we are trapped in "someone else's psychosis". That could not be a more accurate way of putting it. Every nation in the world has access to the same data that we read and share through our 'underground' communications and yet, they push forward with policies that are in exact opposition to the data. This week, here in the USA, I've noticed President Biden and Dr. Fauci openly admitting that the vaccines do not work by their comments and actions (ie. requiring international travelers to be tested, regardless of vaccinations status and recommending masking even after you've had a booster). On the one hand, I feel an optimism that maybe they are finally looking at the same data and they are 'getting it' But, that voice in the back of my mind tells me that this is all part of the game. Maybe support for Moderna's omicron specific jab is being established. I want off of this ride.
People think the mRNA vaccines are safe because the elites think they’re safe. Israel is using it on their people for crying out loud. But I know how many stupid people get into Ivy League so I wouldn’t put it past them to be stupid enough to drink cyanide if the FDA approved it. This is a case of toxic groupthink of the same sort that caused the Challenger disaster.
I don't think they are 'getting it': https://100percentfedup.com/dr-evil-and-barack-obama-visit-elementary-school-to-push-covid-jabs-on-kids-in-age-group-responsible-for-0-00012-of-all-covid-deaths
We live in a opposite world: what's right is wrong, what's wrong is right!
They will brainwash the children to get the jab without parental consent and push the children to hound their parents to get the jab.
I would somewhat disagree (being from Bulgaria) with the vaccine correlation suggested here. We never really had a huge vaccine uptake and Bulgaria is still the least vaccinated country in Europe. We also have one of the strongest anti-vax communities here, unfortunately most of which rely on absurd conspiracies which makes them a mocking point in the public discourse.
By June we only had 10 percent of people vaccinated (with one dose) and in March it was 10 percent. At this moment we are at around 25-6 percent vaccination rate which increased significantly thanks to the Green Certificate in October.
Bulgaria is actually being used as an example on why poorly vaccinated countries have such a huge death toll due to covid. Obviously they are missing a key point which is that our medical system just can't deal with even a heavy flu season.
Bulgaria would be an interesting study case though - we have very low level of vaccination, there are also thousands of fake vaccine certificates here and nobody is following the official government measures for the virus. The Green Certificate at least in the moment is not being checked by anyone really, and I'm freely moving with a certificate of a friend of mine. You can also get a certificate (temporary one) if you have some antibodies.
Life hasn't really changed here except for the raised fear levels and the obvious high death toll we have.
In all honestly we have been hit hard by Covid, o
I'm not sure what it means to disagree with a correlation, or which one was suggested, but to the extent that Bulgaria is less vaccinated than the rest of Europe, that's primarily true in the younger demographics, whereas the largest effects are seen among the older demographics. Aside from that Bulgaria is the *outlier* in that regard as it is one of the very few nations in the world that bucks the global trends where vaccination rates are correlated positively with case and death rates.
Not every story needs to fit perfectly into any narrative, which is why I simply show what I see in these stories.
Personally, I would rather have seen some clear sign of ivermectin efficacy, but there isn't one. That doesn't mean it didn't work. For all I know, 10,000 Bulgarians used it and none of them got sick, but that story isn't apparent in any data.
But I'm happy to have your perspective, and additional facts for anyone to judge.
"Life hasn't really changed here except for the raised fear levels and the obvious high death toll we have."
Interesting to hear. I hope that helps the economy avoid quite so much disaster, which may save more lives in the long run.
I wrote about it above. Main point is that you don't know the vaccination rate. Especially in bulgaria i don't know how good there census is and how many are both registered in Bulgaria and abroad. What you have to consider that a lot of people work abroad. According to german officially data 388.700 people from Bulgaria live in germany, but there are many more who work here saisonal in farming, tourist and care for older people (especially at home) and slaughter houses. You have also to consider that germany (i don't know how other countries handle) don't consider people with other vaccinations as Pfizer, Modern, JJ and AZ as vaccination. So you have to be tested if you work or use public transportation system.
The other thing is that bulgaria is much poorer.
Every nationality has a unique set of physiques/blood types/diets/age distributions etc plus govt accounting for deaths may vary in method. This can affect the numbers reported.
Looks like I ran out of space - We've been hit hard by Covid. Ivermectin is being widely used but nobody is keeping track. You can get it from the pharmacy without prescription if it is in stock(which it is mostly not). I do take it as prophylaxis although I am still somewhat skeptical of how effective it would eventually end up being.
All in all Bulgaria should be studied as it would offer interesting insight on how the Covid pandemic unfolds in a European country with no real measures imposed.
"Bulgaria should be studied as it would offer interesting insight on how the Covid pandemic unfolds in a European country with no real measures imposed."
I disagree there. Bulgaria fits global data trends where nations using HCQ during the early months of the pandemic saw lower death rates, and vaccinating a quarter of a population is an enormous intervention. No reason to throw out any of those data attributes. Let the data be the data.
Agree, I guess I was referring to having no real lockdowns and restrictions in terms of moving around (except for very brief periods early in the pandemic).
There is a huge intervention I agree - we are being heavily pushed to all get vaccinated right now especially from EU. Bulgaria will probably have the largest control group in EU though and it seems they REALLY don't want to allow it.
But Bulgaria being Bulgaria we also have a potentially strange distribution of the vaccines. There are likely more young people vaccinated than those above 70-80 crazy as it sounds. I found such data in a local newspaper but can't really verify it, although observing the social dynamics I would think it is true. We really need to get the demographics on this one.
Just want to mention that I really enjoy your work, I mostly trying to offer some inside on some additional factors that might come into play here.
Thank you for anything you can add. If you find the demographic distribution, I'd appreciate it. I hadn't noticed such a distribution anywhere, but that certainly doesn't mean I didn't miss one and saw them all.
I think the main problem ist that nobody know how many people are really vaccinated. I wrote about this in Germany: https://florianb.substack.com/p/das-rki-und-die-impfquote
There is no data available for Germany how many people who are not registered in germany (as residents) and get the vaccination. The Germany vaccination "Verordnung" states explicitly that also people which are not residents but work in Germany or stay (sea men) can get the vaccination.
According to german date 388.700 people from Bulgaria live in Germany https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoelkerung/Migration-Integration/Tabellen/auslaendische-bevoelkerung-geschlecht.html
Unknown is how many people work here for saisonal work especially farming, tourist industry, slaughter houses and there are also a lot of truck drivers. The german state does not accept vaccination passport with not the in germany allowed vaccination (Pfizer, modern, JJ and AZ).
so it is possible that your census is not correct or that people are registered in germany and bulgaria.
The other thing about numbers is to know how many tests are done and which kind of them and how do you count mortality.
I see three potential causes:
HCQ+zinc and then ivermectin stopped the spread, but eventually the virus will be so aggressive that it breaks through anyway, and then all hell broke lose. The earlier a country got covid, the better.
The vaccine companies sent extra bad jabs to Bulgaria to punish them for using cheap drugs.
Bulgaria didn’t address the main problem: Low vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is needed to build up immunity.
Or.. They used the same vaccines the rest of Europe and the vaccines did to them what they're doing everywhere else: anything you'd have suffered from covid, the mRNA and DNA/AAV shots may also do.
I just got back from Bulgaria, where my family lives. There was an old locally produced over the counter drug for pulmonary infections that people (including my family) used with high success rates as prevention and early treatment of C19. My mother who has all the health conditions of a high risk person (high blood pressure, diabetes, heart condition, overweight, over 65) went through C19 last winter by treating herself at home with this drug and vitamin, and nutrition supplements (zinc and propolis). She had a difficult bout and was in bed for a month but did not get hospitalized. She always had a stack of Bromhixin (the commercial name of the drug) so, while I was there, we would go to refill her stack as she would take it every time she would suspect she might have been exposed generally (e.g. trips to the market). In October, just before the green pass was rolled out and the cases suddenly and dramatically spiked, the drug disappeared from the pharmacies. We asked a close family friend who works for one of the large pharma distributors to get us the drug from their supplies, and she was sure she could until she checked and found out they too had been out of it since the end of September. I am not saying this is the only reason for the spike in cases but it is one of the many observable strategies that go under the public radar.
It would be interesting to see the all-cause excess deaths chart in both 2020 and 2021 (single monthly x-axis, 1 curve for each year) to see how much of the Oct 2021 jump-up might be down to seasonality, and a 2nd y-axis for % vaccinated (if available) to see how suggestive it is for vaccine induced mortality. Sorry I'd do this myself if I knew how
I might be able to do it if I had a few days but I've already let my work hours drop too much because of this crazy friggin world we're in.
I appreciate all the hard work you've been doing here (for real!) but you obviously did much more poorly at geography than you did at statistics.
1) There's no such country as "the Ukraine." Whether now or in the past, the name has always been "Ukraine."
2) Bulgaria does not border Ukraine AT ALL. To the north of Bulgaria is Romania.
3) Bulgaria is NORTH of both Turkey and Greece
4) West of Bulgaria is Serbia and (N) Macedonia. Hungary is far off to the northwest.
5) During the Communist era, Bulgaria was not "on the edge" of any bloc. It was surrounded to the north (Romania) and west (Yugoslavia) by other Communist nations.
6) The short intro you gave (Mongols, et al) about Bulgaria could equally be applied to half the countries in Europe.
Keep up the good work!
I was writing Bulgaria's and Romania's entries simultaneous. I am dyslexic and can only read on a few square inches of screen, so this is the kind of mistake I sometimes make (writing Romania's northern border into Bulgaria's story), but I'd fill them all in on a map correctly. Being nearly blind to words, I have to know maps well. It's not the geography that is my struggle.
The point about the Mongols was not about the Mongols, but about the number of transitional empires.
I am blown away by your ability to leap past your dyslexia to keep us all informed. Even with a very dear friend who is from Bulgaria, and looking at maps and NOT being dyslexic, I am still a bit confused about where Bulgaria is. Don't tell Polly! PS: for moto tourists, she has an awesome motorcycle campground there. Gonna go look at a map again.
*TECHNICALLY*, Yugoslavia was "independent" from the blocs. Communist yes, but not in Eastern Bloc. So, again, technically, he was right about the edge :)
TECHNICALLY every single Communist country, including the Soviet Union, bordered a non-Communist nation, so they're all "on the edge."
technically, you are right :D
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bulgaria-health-flu-idUSKBN20S250
Hmmm. Interesting.
Charts like this only look good if they're revenue models. As el gato said with Australia, what could have changed so suddenly?
you almost started WWIII with that major neighboring countries mixup :-)
Have to ask..are you planning on responding to 'The Gift of Fire' article? It closing on comparing those with concerns about vaccines to QAnon conspiracy theory people is infuriating but the top half has a lot of pretty graphs that I still need to sort through more slowly. I do think a lot of what the article relies on is the fact that Covid is only 10% of mortality and vaccine deaths maybe only 25% the size of that. But need to look closer.
I second this.
I read the article, and parts of it are well-written (as Steve put it, a lot of effort went into writing).
The problem in that article is its crystal clear pursuit of propaganda and syllogisms.
Broadly, the author
1) finds -- or conjures -- an inconsistency and exploits it to the max;
2) finds something that can be explained differently -- and states that this is the only plausible explanation.
More specifically, the author makes very broad assertions and inferences. For example, 150,000 deaths in the US => means it's roughly 5% excess deaths => means that since "everyone of those died in the first 3 months" there would be 20% excess deaths => and that means there would be 20% excess deaths in the first 3 months in AUSTRALIA (huh?) => but there aren't => Mathew is wrong.
I also loved the insistent "if vaccines are lethal, they'll be lethal everywhere."
Well, if COVID is lethal, it would be lethal everywhere, won't it?
The graphs with excess mortality, and covid deaths, and vaccination rollout, to me, don't actually prove Matt and Kirsch wrong. The fact covid deaths stop tracking in step with excess mortality once the rollout begins to me indicates something is happening. But I"m not sure I understand it. How could covid deaths go past the excess mortality? Why would the red line ever get past the black line for the US?
you mean if there's say 100,000 excess deaths then how could covid deaths be more than 100,000? Say 150,000?
Well if 'normal' deaths fell that year by 50,000 and all excess was covid then there's room for there to be 150,000 covid deaths against a 'mere' 100,000 excess.
I don't think I'm understanding the graph. I wish I could embed an image here to point it out specifically but I'll just put it on top of a substack entry here...https://dennisfield.substack.com/p/dunbars-vaccine?justPublished=true
The black line has to stay above covid deaths by definition doesn't? It can sink below zero but then so must covid death.
My guess is he multiplied by a factor to get it to show to demonstrate how closely it follows excess death. Regardless, as strong as an argument it may seem to note vaccines roll out, deaths went down, that gap that appears between the lines confuses me. And it happens in other countries too.
I'm having a Big Short moment where I'm staring at it and I'm wondering is this a confession? But clearly I dont' understand graphs enough
Another most amazing thing about that "critique" is that the author concedes that the number of deaths may be equal to what's in VAERS.
And the author is perfectly A-OK with this.
If you don't think there is any other treatment and that these deaths are less than what would have been without the vaccine then ethically it checks out. So I don't want to paint the other side as callous monsters due to downstream consequences of upstream assessments.
I have to disagree.
No, they aren't quite what the phrase "callous monster" would imply.
Even callous monsters have principles.
These people do not, as they are clueless and choose to believe the official narrative -- and constrain their own thought process accordingly.
They are, therefore... worse.
There's a saying in Russian: "simplicity is worse than robbery."
I am rather disheartened that many -- including those on "this side" -- appear to believe that medical intervention is ethical so long as it produces fewer deaths.
In a general case, this is patently, unequivocally false.
This nonchalant attitude terrifies me.
I think I have a perfect example.
Imagine 100 people sentenced to death.
They are given a way out, though: play a game of Russian roulette with a 5-shot revolver, and you shall be spared. If you win.
Naturally, the risk of death is 100% if one does not play and only 20% if one does.
Now imagine that only 10 people in that cohort are sentenced to death and the other 90 are simply taken along for the ride.
You don't know who they are, but you know they all have a tattoo on their forehead that reads "DEATH."
You don't have such a tattoo, but you're still offered to play that game.
You know your chance of dying is ZERO if you don't play and 20% if you do.
Now imagine you aren't even offered to play that game.
You are forced to.
Absolutely.
The biggest issue is that this situation is incredibly complex and requires a large-scale dedicated effort to investigate.
I reckon, a team of at least 10 people working on it full time for 6+ months (and that's pushing it) -- likely, per a somewhat uniform (at least, culturally) area of the World (e.g., North America, Western Europe, etc.)
They would have to:
1) establish sources of raw data for COVID testing, hospitalizations, cases, deaths, and vaccinations as well as mortality from other causes -- for at least the past 3-5 years;
2) establish criteria for the trustworthiness of raw data;
3) get the specifics on vaccination schedules, vaccine types, compliance, any pertinent rollout specifics;
4) find edge cases and provide explanations for those;
5) work out a single multivariate paradigm that would explain the observed phenomena in all countries/counties/municipalities (in other words, have a capability to predict).
This is incredibly hard -- but this is the only approach that would yield a conclusive answer to everything (42).
However, Steve and Matt (and others) are taking a different approach, and look at what they believe to be edge cases based on an imperfect set of criteria.
They point out that certain (many) countries and municipalities are experiencing phenomena that do not fit the official narrative at all.
They do not propose a model or an alternative narrative, they only make rough inferences.
Their critics point out that some other countries do fit the narrative and that Matt's calculations are imperfect or not applicable and thus do not have predictive capabilities and thus must be wrong.
Naturally, the tricky part about this long-winded reasoning is the simple fact that they cannot seem to be able to find a flaw specifically in Steve's and Matt's calculations.
For that you need accurate date. As a german I oversee what the RKI does. All numbers which they provide are not correct.
Testing number: The RKI don't know the number of PCR tests which are conducted because not all lab has to provide these numbers. They also do not know how many are pooled test and they don't on which kind of population these tests are done. They don't report the numbers of PoC-Antigen tests. and we don't have numbers which people are tested (different rules of testing in different states at different times)
Hospitalization: Different numbers from different Ressourcen. Nobody knows the numbers.
ICU: A total mess. DIVI numbers are wrong and to high if you compare with InEK data (that is what the hospitals reported to the insurance companies)
deaths: You don't know the death numbers. It is unclear what the public health services sometimes does. We don't have here a rule that says only people with a positive test which maximum 28 days before a positive test. it is possible that the person was months before tested positive. in summer times there were 80% of deaths accounted with per tests more than 28 days before testes positive.
And I mean it should be clear that other countries are more corrupt then our country or in the same way. nobody knows how accurate these numbers. You have to consider also the lock-downs and what that means to the people.
and so on.
To me the first order of business is to take as conservative estimate as we can to adverse events that still negates the value of the vaccine then go looking for those events in upticks in cardiac issues like was made clear with adolescent boys and myocarditas. I think some of this is done but always as part of other discussions.
That is let's do the low end estimate of harm and see where it would fit.
There are some logical mistakes on their part as well. They make a false assumption that every vaccinated death would correlate one-to-one with a hospitalization. Whoops, that's probably not true. Is one example.
Oh of course. Going through all of those issues would take perhaps a whole series of articles -- this is why I am trying to focus on the fundamentals and deduce who is mostly right and who is mostly not.
Now do Taiwan. Their outstanding policy is less sensitive PCR testing (lower CT threshold).