Britain is under siege from all angles. Inside its borders, there’s serious unrest over how the government is handling the Covid-19 fallout and over its plans to break international law. Outside, there’s a battle with the EU over Brexit and lots of disappointed allies.

Barbados is the latest to land a blow.

The Caribbean paradise, which has a population of just 287,000 and is 21 miles (34 kilometers) long and, at its most, 14 miles wide, has announced it’s going to remove Queen Elizabeth as its head of state. Its plan is to formally split on the 55th anniversary of independence from Britain, in November 2021.

There’s a certain irony that they're still intertwined with the Queen, given independence was gained so many years ago.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/500884-applaud-barbados-colonial-british-queen/

Australia to be next?...

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The Democrat-dominated US House of Representatives has voted for a resolution against terms such as “Chinese virus.” Nothing was said about blaming Russia for everything, or giving additional coronavirus relief to Americans.

Criticizing President Donald Trump for using terms such as “Chinese virus” to refer to the Covid-19-causing pathogen, Democrats insisted his rhetoric has increased “discrimination” against Asian-Americans. Their resolution, sponsored by Rep. Grace Meng (D-New York) all the way back in March, passed on Thursday in a 243-164 vote.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/500974-house-democrats-resolution-asians-covid/

Anti-Russia sentiments still allowed

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Meanwhile on Twitter:

It’s a modern-day Scarlet Letter. A symbol of shame. Except, unlike in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel from 1850, the sin isn’t adultery. It’s being linked to Russia. Or China. You know, the bad guys. 

Since August, Twitter has been Russia-shaming, (or China-shaming), any media organizations that are ‘state affiliated’. This means that RT and Sputnik, as well as a slew of other Russian and Chinese media accounts, now carry a designated ‘state-affiliated media’ label at the top of their feeds. 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/500940-twitter-ruptures-label-russia/

Ruptures is a monthly magazine financed by subscriptions.

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“Lukashenko is not the legitimate president of Ukraine,” Borell [Josep Borrell, the European Union’s Minister for Foreign Affairs] proclaimed, while addressing the European Parliament on Monday. ‘For us,’ he added. Well, not only for them, since Lukashenko never claimed to be the leader of that particular country.

“Sorry, Belarus,” Borell apologized, with a wide smile, when he realized his mistake.

Read more

https://www.rt.com/news/500764-lukashenko-ukraine-eu-confuses/

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Harris, who is running for vice president as Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, accompanied Newsom on Tuesday to Auberry, in Fresno County. They posed for cameras in front of a home devastated by the Creek Fire and tweeted about firefighters and climate change.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/500971-newsom-harris-california-family/

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Coronavirus transmission in bars and restaurants in Nashville, Tennessee was so low the mayor’s office opted to hide it from the public, recently-leaked emails show. The statistics throw ongoing shutdowns elsewhere into question.

The Nashville Mayor’s office swept bar and restaurant transmission numbers under the rug because they were too low, emails obtained by local media suggest. The conversation between the mayor’s office and the local health department appears to show the figures were deliberately kept from the public to justify the shutdowns that put many Nashville residents out of work.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/500958-nashville-covid-statistics-bars-bogus/

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The hashtag #TrumpIsAPedo was the top political trend in the US on Tuesday, pushed by the Democrat political action committee Meidas Touch. The PAC was established in March to stop Trump’s re-election, and has since been embraced by the online #Resistance and amplified by the platform.

Actual evidence unsealed this summer in the ongoing proceedings against Epstein’s confederate Ghislaine Maxwell appears to exonerate Trump of any wrongdoing – he famously banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago resort – and instead implicates former President Bill Clinton.

That has not stopped Meidas Touch from claiming they “find the QRepublican obsession with children truly sick” and surfing the hashtag’s popularity to solicit donations – through the Democrats’ official fundraising platform ActBlue, of course. 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/500790-twitter-trump-pedo-biden/

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A “trained Marxist” founder of Black Lives Matter has teamed up on a new venture with a pro-Chinese Communist Party organization.

Alicia Garza is now behind the advocacy group Black Futures Lab, which is backed by the Chinese Progressive Association, according to the website.

The group says it “gathers information about the ways that policy affects black communities” to educate and challenge lawmakers.

On a page soliciting donations, the group is described as a “fiscally sponsored project of the Chinese Progressive Association.”

The Black Futures Lab didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the partnership.

Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors once described herself and Garza as “trained Marxists.”

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2020/09/17/blm-co-founder-teams-up-with-pro-chinese-c...

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“Former Vice President Joe Biden asked intelligence officials to uncover the hidden information on President Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor [Michael Flynn] three weeks before the inauguration,” Grenell said in a speech to the 2020 Republican National Convention.

The accusation against Biden is an apparent reference to the recent revelation by Flynn’s legal team of a note apparently written by disgraced anti-Trump former FBI agent Peter Strzok.

The Jan. 4, 2017, note seems to implicate Biden in selecting the never-used Logan Act of 1799 as a rationale for keeping active an investigation into Flynn that the FBI was prepared to close. The Logan Act bans ordinary citizens from diplomatic efforts and is widely considered unconstitutional.

“VP: ‘Logan Act’,” the note written by Strzok says.

read more:

https://nypost.com/2020/08/26/rnc-2020-ex-spy-chief-richard-grenell-says...

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54193764

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54193770

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Last month, Seth Brown, the executive editor of the Biblical Recorder, a Southern Baptist newspaper in Cary, N.C., delivered a stark warning to Christians. He had become increasingly concerned about the posts some of his fellow Southern Baptists were sharing on Facebook. “If you start clicking through, it doesn’t take long to find out some of this is coming from accounts that are QAnon,” Mr. Brown told me, referring to the viral conspiracy theory that claims a cabal of left-wing, satanic pedophiles is secretly plotting a coup against President Trump.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/opinion/evangelicals-qanon.html

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If your head isn't spinning, you haven't been paying attention... Meanwhile, the rest of the news is trash, garbage, rubbish or lies...

The man, identified as Timothy Atkins, reportedly lives with bipolar disorder and had been waiting for more than a day for mental health help inside the nearby Northern Hospital in Epping, just north of Melbourne, before he gave up and walked out. 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/500750-aussie-cops-beat-man-coma/

Read above...

New rules passing in the Australian state of Victoria could see “conspiracy theorists” and those “suspected by health authorities of being likely to spread the virus” detained in quarantine centres, according to The Age

The rules are amendments being added to the Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Bill, which was first passed back in April. 

The proposed detention would last “for the period reasonably necessary to eliminate or reduce a serious risk to public health”. 

To translate that from bureaucrat into English: it means as for long as they want, or can get away with.

Legislation with this kind of vague verbiage is always a red flag, but then Victoria is currently over-flowing with warning signs of this kind.

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2020/09/17/new-rules-may-allow-australian-police-to-detain-conspiracy-theorists/

See also:

https://www.rt.com/news/501063-victoria-debates-precrime-police-covid/

Read from top.

We Do Not Live in a True Democracy

A Response Alan Hamilton’s “From Blue Shirts to Brown”

by Tryfon Farmakakis

Alan Hamilton’s “From Blue Shirts to Brown” is a great article which gets a lot of things right but has one major weakness and ironically it is similar to what the author is accusing the group of doctors which authored the letter to the Premier: misconception of reality.

This weakness, unfortunately, is a common misconception in democratically sensitive commentators in our modern world which really needs to be addressed in its fundamentals.

Calling the right to protest “democratic” implies, as the whole article does – take the Thucydides reference for example – that the Australian regime is democratic but corrupt. 

I hate being the bearer of bad news but no representative/electoral system is democratic in any way; and the ancient Athenian democracy, to take the most well-documented example of a real democracy, was light years different from today’s “democracies”. 

These are republican systems modelled after the Roman one, which was anything but democratic. Actually, the Roman regime was intentionally non-democratic, but oligarchic/plutocratic and by definition corrupt, exactly like today’s western regimes are. 

It is worth noting that historically pretty much all the western regimes owe their existence to the US system, which was established by the Founding Fathers after debates which unequivocally rejected the democratic system of governance for the republican one, no surprise there by a group of super-wealthy privileged members of the elite. The major parties of the current two-party US political power landscape historically owe their names to this debate. 

Don’t get me wrong here. The current systems are obviously a great progress from the previous authoritative and arbitrary super-hierarchical ones, but they are certainly not democracies and this should be clear.

Now you may wonder how come that almost everyone believes that our current regimes are democratic. This misconception is another clear victory of the elite’s propaganda machine through the centuries and if you look a little bit to the history of the relevant debates, these distinctions were very clear among the commentators of the times, mostly until about 100 years ago.

At some point people must realize that elections are not democratic, lot is. Elections, as everyone knows, are bought by money. In a democracy there are no professional politicians, professional judges or professional lawmakers. A true democratic citizen would despise even the notion of this. 

In a real democracy citizens do all these directly or elected-by-lot bodies do it. Also there is always the possibility to recall any public official at any time. Terms in public offices are strictly limited in time and frequency. Democracy[1] is the regime where all explicit powers, legislative, executive and judicial are exercised directly by the citizenry, or by allotted bodies, which is the only democratic and just compromise when practicalities make direct participation of everyone not feasible. 

No citizen of any ancient democracy would be fool enough to think that representation by an elected-by-elections person who decides and legislates for them with carte blanche for four years is democratic in any way.

Most importantly now, in a democracy there are no “rights” as we mean them, because these were established to protect the “citizen” (subject is the correct word) from the arbitrariness of the separate government/state. In a true democracy the citizens are the government/state. 

Ask yourself. Were there protests in ancient Athens? No, because they had no meaning. Where there in ancient Rome? A lot, because they had. 

Similarly, were there parties with institutionally recognized power, legislative protection etc in ancient Athens? No, because they had no meaning, same reasons. What are parties? Do they represent actual essential ideological differences or are they just groups of interests?

I think nowadays the answer is pretty clear. And that is because the only ideological debate which has actual meaning and essence is always democracy vs other non-democratic stuff. The current fetishization around economics which dominates the left vs right modern debates, practically since Marx, is just a secondary issue which naturally follows the essential.

For example can you imagine any real democracy which would allow such an unequal distribution of wealth? How would that be possible when the 90% of the decisive bodies would be the poor?[2]

To conclude, there is a huge difference between a democracy and our modern oligarchies and there is no way to change them but radically, bottom-up. But first people really need to see things clearly about what is and what is not so that they are clear about what they want. 

Continuing to call modern western regimes “democracies” just propagates the confusion and hinders true reform. 

Lets call them for what they are, liberal oligarchies and the liberal part is being stripped away pretty rapidly now that the masters don’t feel much resistance. It is up to us, but we first we must have things clear in our minds.

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2020/09/18/we-do-not-live-in-a-true-democracy/

Read from top. Sure. We've been working on it...

“Do you remember a winter without a cold?”

Thoughts about the corona crisis and how to move on thereafter

In the context of the current overwhelming worldwide COVID-19 panic wave, this text has as goal to provide, on a differentiated scientific basis, a different view of the corona crisis than the one still dominantly presented in the mainstream media and used by many governments and their experts to maintain protection measures imposed on whole populations.

Scientific data as well as propositions based on them will be presented, bringing together what many scientists, medical doctors, economists and lawyers have already claimed in the past months. The panic wave and the subsequent scaremongering have not allowed until today that these voices be heard sufficiently. The present specific contribution will concern the potentially deleterious and even fatal role of emotions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Joel Kettner, professor of Community Health Science at Manitoba University and Medical Director of the International Centre for Infectious Diseases declared in March 2020:

I have never seen anything like this… I am not talking about the pandemic, because I have seen 30 of them, one every year… But I have never seen this reaction, and I am trying to understand why…” 

Dr. David Jones declared recently, concerning the corona crisis, in the New England Journal of Medicine: 

History suggests that we are actually at much greater risk of exaggerated fears and misplaced priorities”.

Common cold viruses invade the planet every year causing multiple, dominantly benign yearly “pandemics” (using like Dr. Kettner the term pandemic to define a worldwide viral distribution, without consideration of its dangerousness). They produce indeed, in a high majority (up to 99.5%) of their infections, either zero or mild symptoms like a sore throat, runny/stuffy nose, cough, sneeze or headache.

They represent the most common human infectious disease, adults having typically two to three infections per year, and children even more. Over 200 virus types are implicated, the main ones being rhino-, corona-, adeno- and enteroviruses as well as influenza, parainfluenza, human respiratory syncytial and metapneumoviruses. They can become dangerous mainly for frail, sick and old individuals, and their lethality can go as high as 8% in nursing homes (Ioannidis).

Like the influenza virus, they mutate regularly to counteract the protection gained by the human population thanks to its immunization. Common cold and influenza viruses produce respiratory tract infections (RTI), which are fatal for 2.6 million human beings per year worldwide (Roussel).

Some common cold (and flu) viral epi- or pandemics are stronger than others. They last at least two months, rising, plateauing and receding spontaneously. The COVID-19 pandemic episode has as its source the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the last corona mutation. On many points, it obeys the typical characteristics of common cold infections.

For example in Italy, 95% of the fatalities happened for patients suffering from one up to three or more pre-existing morbidities, and the mean age of the deceased patients was 82. Such a mean fatality age is very close to the average life expectancy of developed, e.g. European countries (83.6 years for Switzerland). 

Many studies have recently indicated that at least 80% of COVID-19infections are indeed asymptomatic leading to a final corrected infection fatality rate (IFR) between 0.1 and 0.2%. This is comparable to a flu pandemic.

Recently, the evidence has arisen that the immunological response of the human organism follows at least 4 mechanisms, three using antibodies and a fourth a lymphocyte type, the T cell. Boyman and collaborators make an estimation that the published percentages of positive antibody presence in various populations can be multiplied by 5 (e.g. a 15% result amounts then to a 60% population immunization). 

This goes well with the evidence presented above of a large number of infections with no or few symptoms, and represents a percentage able to provide a so-called herd immunity.

More evidence is also firmly accumulating that cross immunizations between different corona strains is frequent, so that human beings already infected earlier by another corona strain will be protected against the risk to get a severe form and might even remain asymptomatic (see here, here, here and here).

This can explain the high amount of benign or even asymptomatic forms in children, who share their virus loads frequently and efficiently thanks to their close play and interaction behaviors.

That a sufficient and efficient amount of herd immunity could develop itself in the current human population fits well with the presence of completed daily death toll curves (number of deaths per day) of the COVID-19 epidemic episode in a large number of countries. Daily death toll curves have indeed started their regression since the beginning of April in many countries worldwide. 

These curves manifest the typical dynamics of biological non-equilibrium self-organizing systems, developed in this case between the human population and a virus[1]: the human population reacts by immunization against the virus, which for its next invasion develops a mutation allowing it to colonize again human organisms. 

To go on having new human hosts, it makes sense for the virus to be lethal for only a small proportion of them and to mutate to counteract human herd immunization. As mentioned in the Introduction, common cold viruses are continuously present among us, with seasonal fluctuations, and the positive tests collected today may well represent the amount of seasonal viral presence (see below). 

Viral mutations and propagations as well as human population immunization are parts of our planetary biological reality for as long as we know. The currently obtained immunity allows to ascertain that the SARS-CoV-2 corona mutation is now well known by the human population, thus eliminating the risk of a severe “second wave”, profiled repeatedly these days.

The fearful expectation of such a severe “second wave” rests on the history of the Spanish flu: there is no basis for an adequate comparison between then and today: at that time, there were no antibiotics, and the flu, worse than common cold viruses, kills mucosal cells, opening the pulmonary tissues to the aggression of bacterias, with estimations of up to 97% of deaths in 1918 caused by bacterial superinfections[2]. 

To further question this “second wave” fear, there is evidence for the presence of another viral epidemic between the two world wars, causing a brain infection and providing an additional explanation for the presence of more than one peak.

The count of PCR positive tests, regularly presented in the media and used currently by politicians to reinstall measures, is not an appropriate marker for such a purpose. It should be used only for patient-based diagnostic contexts.

As described above, common cold viruses are present every year in the human population, with winter maxima. As they have until recently not received much attention from virologists and epidemiologists, we have no idea how they exactly distribute themselves and fluctuate along the whole year. 

We have thus no so-called baseline, or norm data on the usual situation to compare with the positive tests recorded now: there is no way to claim normality or abnormality for the current data. The scientific basis is thus lacking to introduce a mask obligation in different in- and outdoors activities, particularly at a moment when many countries present a completed daily death toll curve.

The number of positive tests, which depends directly on the number of tests being performed, should never be used, but only the percentage of positive tests. At the moment, for example, the percentage of positive testing in Switzerland is 3.1%.

This small percentage will comprise, in addition to active infections, a number of PCR test false positives (wrongly positive test results), positive tests through reaction to residual non-infectious viral fragments, and additional ones due to cross-reaction with other corona strains.

As Prof. Gupta mentioned recently, only death rate (as given by daily death numbers and by population excess mortality), is indeed relevant to monitor a pandemic situation. Using positive tests to do this represents a scientifically unsound approach. An approach which maintains an on-going activation of threat and fear in the population.

Like other viruses including the influenza virus, the infection by coronaviruses can activate, in a small percentage of infected individuals, an inflammatory and immunological (auto-immune) overresponse, named “cytokine storm”. This one may lead to transient up to life-threatening tissue damage in the lungs, and it is the mechanism at the source of different auto-immune disorders.

In animal experiments, stress has been shown to activate cell death in the limbic (behavioral/emotional) brain (see here, here and here). 

In humans, there is firm evidence that stress correlates with theappearance of many diseases[3][4][5], including auto-immune ones.

A stressed emotional human (paralimbic) brain can become overactive, disturb body tissues and cause cell death through its many output pathways. 

These may activate excitotoxic, oxidative, auto-immune, inflammatory, endocrine and vegetative mechanisms. Thus, human negative emotions like fear, sadness and anger are in position to jeopardize human health, up to a fatal level. This has been described in the field of anthropology through the description of the potentially fatal evolution after the chamanic practice of the kurdaitcha men called “pointing the bone”. It consists in the pointing onto a victim of a ritual bone which activates a lethal “spear of thought” inducing death, without great suffering, over days to weeks.

This ritual may have served kurdaitcha men along the millennia when a member of their community would become dangerous. The power of an idea and its related emotion, i.e. fear and the conviction of the necessity to die, is exemplified here in a most impressive way.

One may also cite, among many other stress-based diseases, the Takotsubo stress cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome.

An integration of the psycho-emotional factor, so important in human medicine in general, becomes immensely relevant in the context of the corona crisis: dramatic up to fatal evolutions (see below) have to be considered as caused by social isolation and confinement measures leading to reduction/suppression of democratic freedom and basic human rights and activities. Three factors are proposed here to directly co-influence the amount of critical cases and deaths:

1. the baseline level of anxiety in a given human population
2. the suppression of freedom by limitation of democratic human rights
3. the suppression of basic human interactions through isolation and confinement.

The disruption of social bonds is a severe issue for all primate societies, and in non-human primates, isolation in itself can lead to death.

The analysis of the mortality of a population with the goal to check if there is a so-called excess mortality, allows to document if a given epidemic is particularly dangerous and thus causes an unusual rate of deaths. In some countries or regions, excess mortality peaks have been indeed recorded, which have completely receded since mid May.

We have to integrate that a percentage of the secondary excess mortality related to the COVID-19 will be due 1) to stress, mainly fear and panic, associated with the pandemic threat, but also 2) to the consequences of the applied general lockdown and isolation measures. 

Just to mention a few: psychosocial and economic destabilization with increases of violence, anxio-depressive states and suicides, decompensation of health frailty due to social isolation, destabilization of psychiatric and demented individuals, reduction of medical care to the whole population (mainly in the domains of cancer care and cardiovascular disorders), and reduced quality of care in homes and hospitals. 

After having overloaded hospitals and medical practices, people shied away from them and became reluctant to visit them, staying home and risking dangerous evolutions and death away from proper therapeutic interventions.

In addition, governments blocked elective treatments and interventions in hospitals, with a risk of increased morbidity and mortality. Recent studies indicate a higher mortality of the intubation technique, which was initially promulgated widely by Chinese doctors, as compared with the much less drastic delivery of oxygen by mask or nose tube. The general lockdown prevented also an optimization of the protection of nursing homes, where, as expected, most fatalities happened.

The excess mortality as a consequence of general lockdown measurescan be expected, already today, to be in the range of the 100 thousands(e.g. among many others, 10,000 additional non-COVID deaths from dementia in UK).

Two last comments must be done concerning the COVID-19 lethality/excess mortality: 

1. different questionable up to fully inadequate certification methods (e.g. COVID-19 death certificates based on suspicion, without tests nor autopsies) have been implemented in many countries, leading to inappropriately high lethality values,
2. an Italian analysis has shown that 88% of all deaths attributed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus happened in fact in the presence of, but not due to it, hence the expressions to die from or to die with the virus.

A multicausal context leading to a fatal issue has to be integrated here, the virus being the drop of water that makes the vase overflow[6] for frail, sick and old individuals, due to premorbid conditions, viral combinations46 and bacterial superinfections[2].

General confinement/lockdown and isolation measures have led to the worldwide distribution by media of frightening images and situations, e.g. Chinese families being locked (with bolt and screw!) in their apartments, Wuhan dead streets swept with disinfectants, patients surrounded by alien-looking fully masked and dressed-up doctors and nurses, police control maintaining the full closure of north Italian villages, etc. 

Any human being taken to the intensive care unit and realizing that he/she is now no longer free to leave this whole nightmare, to get back home to his family, experienced without any doubt the worst possible emotional stress: being trapped helpless in a life-threatening situation. 

Fear not to survive, desperate loneliness and panic invade the emotional brain, defense mechanisms fall down and may open the way to a full-blown, potentially life-threatening viral infection. Confinement may increase in addition the vulnerability of the human organism to new pathogens, as it might have been the case with the war confinement at the end of the first world war during the development of the 1918 flu pandemic.

Evidence of the very partial relevance and efficiency of general confinement measures is provided by the absence of a higher death toll experienced by Sweden, which has an even lower death rate than countries like UK and Spain, where these measures were largely applied.

The application of general distancing and confinement measures leads unavoidably to a huge amount of questionable or even unmanageable decisions. The subject of the adoption of more or less strict measures creates unavoidably fractures inside social groups. 

Even worse, different measures, which make minimal or even no sense, have been imposed by states and pushed by fearful individuals and groups, encroaching on democratic freedom and basic human rights. It is clearly not desirable for the people to be limited, controlled or threatened by the government it has itself chosen.

An example of a questionable lockdown measure is the school closures. This measure is not evidence-based, i.e. there is no available scientific study demonstrating its efficiency, it has been introduced from country to country because another country had done it before. 

Leaving children to interact at school and playground (and leaving active adults to work and also interact) can be seen as the best way to advance herd immunity, which should develop as fast as possible to reduce the exposition time for old, frail and sick individuals. 

By chance and importantly, children and healthy active adults have an absolutely minimal risk of being endangered by SARS-CoV-2. There are thus sound reasons to doubt the usefulness of the introduction of this measure and even to consider it as counterproductive.

Locking people inside and closing public and natural spaces, particularly parks in cities, are meaningless measures: the contact with nature and fresh air and movements are as essential as going to work, they are of utmost importance for the health of all, optimizing body defenses against aggressions. People have been demanded to keep distance in the streets, but were not trusted to do the same in parks or on beaches, where there was more space to keep distance.

Locking people inside has been a meaningless and deleterious measure, and one may wonder how inhabitants of large cities could cope with it at all. One has heard of the experiences of older people locked in their rooms in nursing homes, receiving their food in front of their closed door in absence of the provider, and visits by families resembling a visit in jail…

The suppression/limitation of the access to the medical and spiritual domains was fully inappropriate, deleterious and inhumane. It did not respect the basic human rights for care of body, mind and soul. Not only COVID-19 patients but also all the other patients hospitalized for other reasons could not get their visits.

In general, but particularly in the middle of a crisis, the support by dear ones fulfills the social and spiritual needs which should never be touched or withdrawn, taking the risk to alienate human beings from their vital psychosocial and spiritual environment. 

Why couldn’t a close visiting family member apply the same safety precautions in the hospital as the medical staff? And religious services could have been performed with the same distance recommendations as for other civil sessions, which have been maintained because they were deemed indispensable.

General confinement measures, because of their psychosocial dangerousness, should be kept only in the context of exceptionally high epidemic lethality. Now that it is clear, to the contrary of what has been propagated by the WHO, that we are not facing a killer virus with a 3.4% fatality rate and thus 30 times more deadly than the flu, these imposed measures should be abandoned completely. 

Obviously, isolation of sick people and usual measures of precaution or isolation to reduce viral transmission around old, sick and frail individuals remain relevant as always.

Seen at the ethical level, the corona crisis highlights the fact that any considered limitation of the right for self-determination, freedom and basic human rights would have to be based on a sound, profound, open and balanced multidisciplinary analysis, with a clearly positive risk/benefit ratio. It would have to be presented to the people and voted upon.

With the corona crisis, we have cumulated, in the absence of such an analysis, severe collateral damage, with measures applied against a threat which did not justify them.

Tracking infected people can be questioned from both ethics and efficiency points of view. 

First, population control in itself represents an unacceptable breach into the private sphere of citizens, and every human group should defend itself against any attempt to limit its democratic freedom. 

Second, the rapidity with which European countries for example lost track of the chain from “patients 1” onward underlines a well-known extremely fast and efficient viral propagation, questioning the possibility to stop it by tracking virus and carriers in the human population.

This happened in northern Italy in a matter of a day or two and in spite of very fast and extensive confinement measures. Many additionalexamples have been mentioned where no explanations for viral transmission could be found. Like for confinement measures (see above), such tracing would have only to be considered in the case of high dangerousness, absent for COVID-19. 

Finally, the WHO does not recommend contact tracing in the management of flu epidemics.

In the intensive and extensive, worldwide field of the corona crisis, an open, deep, careful, multidimensional and thus unbiased study of the whole situation with presentation of pros and cons and risk/benefit balance analyses is fundamental.

This was not provided, and no open dialogues between different views of the situation have been provided. Scientific and medical experts, mainly microbiologists and epidemiologists, are the ones to provide relevant information to politicians. They will have to realize that they have held in their hands the power to modulate the state of mind of the whole human planet, activating a worldwide powerful chain reaction of fear and panic.

The media have and still relay a heavily dominant amount of panic-activating information maintaining fear in the whole human population. The corona facts are continuously distorted, numbers taken out of the usual epidemiological context to induce fear.

The threat has been maintained until today about the impending possibility of imposed reinstallations of protection, isolation and confinement measures and thoroughly relayed by mainstream media, consolidating a state of fearful expectation and of long-term threat and doom. The people should now be left in peace, and they should find again their self-determination.

There has been much too little discussion on the theme of ethics concerning the limitations of freedom, self-determination and basic human rights. Recently, for example in Germany and in our country, popular and political movements have begun to rise against the insidious risk for democracy of a state-imposed health dictature.

Some epidemiologists enjoying power positions as state advisers have repeatedly profiled catastrophic death prognoses, basing them on digital models and falling fortunately largely beyond biological reality. In our country, prognoses were indeed produced with death tolls between 22,000 and 600,000 with peak in June or July, whereas until today the swiss death toll stands between 1,700 and 1,800. 

Obviously, questionable and even wrong model postulates have been applied, but these experts do not seem to be ready to recognize their errors, with their devastating worldwide consequences.

A worrying episode has developed in different countries concerning the treatment of COVID-19 by the drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), well-known for years in the treatment of malaria. It is very interesting and probably directly relevant that this molecule has been recognized since years as efficient also against autoimmune diseases (see above). Early on, Chinese, French (twice), German and American (again, twice) colleagues have treated COVID patients with HCQ, and published their positive results.

Evidence that the treatment with HCQ can reduce the hospital fatality rate is indeed growing steadily, posing a central question on the resistance or even interdiction to use this medication option in some countries. 

For example, a European government and its experts, insisting on the necessity to wait for solid evidence-based studies but not considering the urgency of the situation, forbade the prescription of HCQ by doctors. This was supported by a study in the Lancet, claiming not only an absence of benefit with the HCQ intake but in addition increased cardiac complications and an increased mortality. Soon, the evidence was brought up that this publication was fraudulent, and it had to be retracted. 

Two most worrying observations are to be made here: 

1) the publication ethics by medical and scientific groups claiming the highest level of scientific quality is questioned, and 

2) governments, by forbidding the prescription of HCQ, have blocked the ethically fundamental and untouchable patient-doctor relationship.

Politics and medical experts have presented themselves here under the worst possible light. It must also be highlighted that the current availability of an inexpensive medication against SARS-CoV-2 shows the whole vaccination issue in a different light, leaving time to perform proper research toward a safe and efficient vaccination for frail, sick and old individuals, just as for the flu. Indeed, the lethality of COVID-19 does not imply any requirement for a large-range vaccination.

It is not folly to wonder about a possible SARS-CoV-2 outbreak out of a laboratory, as laboratory manipulations or containment errors have been considered possible for the swine flu59 or even affirmed for the bird flu and the first SARS corona mutation60. 

It is the role of scientific experts and politicians to uncover and suppress any research on viruses which may give rise to potentially dangerous new strains, and the WHO should enforce such control worldwide. In addition, reflections on worldwide animal care and maintenance are most relevant.

Fear and panic about COVID-19, kindled by inaccurate scientific communications spread over the whole planet like a bushfire, causing the chaos we observe every day on the news. The corona crisis has brought to light that the human planet has currently a high anxiety level and must be treated gently, just like a human patient in a sensitive phase of her life!

On the basis of the data mentioned above, it may be claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic should have been dealt from the beginning as a usual flu pandemic, with protection focused on the frail, sick and old, who would have demanded and received appropriate protection measures for themselves, but without counterproductive obligations and limitation of their activities and freedom. 

Weakened and old people may anytime demand voluntary isolation measures toward their familial, social and nursing environment. Nursing homes should have masks and hand disinfection at disposition for staff and families, if protection is wished by residents. Staff members should not work in more than one home. Residents should be induced to go out and walk (e.g. in city parks kept open!). 

Imposed freedom restriction and isolation is inhumane, counterproductive up to lethal for old and weakened residents. In Germany, a petition was issued by German citizens between 64 and 78 years old to Mrs. Merkel, demanding self-determination and choice in end-of-life issues, and claiming their preference for a worthy death in the midst of their beloved ones rather than an isolated and heartless state-imposed passing.

The proposition here is not to extend reproaches about the measures taken abruptly and under enormous pressure by governments during the first two or three months of the pandemic development. With the data available today and in fact conclusive at least since May, it has to be however realized that general confinement, isolation, distancing and tracing measures should be stopped in all the countries where the daily death toll peak has been passed.

General lockdown measures against COVID-19 have already contributed to excess mortality experienced in different countries and discussed above. Maintaining them would be useless and deleterious. Children and working adults have to interact so that the human population gets as early as possible a sufficient herd immunity, thus protecting the old and frail.

The progressive exit out of the lockdown is an emotional trap: rejoicing that things get more normal again is constantly opposed by the anxious expectation that the unlocking would go too fast, in spite of the reassuring scientific evidence mentioned above.

Media should relay informations from all possible environments and tendencies. They have however provided the world population with an avalanche of homogeneously biased informations maintaining the dominant panic-activating message about a purportedly high dangerousness of COVID-19.

They hopefully will soon get the message not to exert pressures on politicians in the future, and to be deeply aware that they can contribute to the worldwide activation of powerful anxiogenic mechanisms, if they do not provide balanced informations from controlled sources. 

A “new normality” for our future can only make sense if it is centered on a deeper understanding of the integrative dynamics between us and viruses. 

As viruses need us to exist, and as life processes always seem to make sense, we may consider that the nightmare of the global planetary killer virus will stay the subject of interest for film producers and amateurs of strong emotions. There is indeed no way for us to conceive life without viruses. They are everywhere, around 50% of our own genome is of viral origin, and they may well be “more friends than foes”[7].

Our main foe is fear activated by a biased and heartless science, by propagandist media, and by fearful politicians. Older pandemics, which are at the source of deep atavic plague memories, were in most cases due to bacterias and related closely to precarious human life conditions. 

The only catastrophic viral pandemic was the 1918 H1N1 flu, which killed millions, but developed in the chaotic and unhealthy aftermath of the first world war. Panic is no appropriate, even no feasible way to integrate our life with viruses. 

It would bring a future filled with fear for the next pandemic and destabilization of the worldwide human psychological and economic environment. A deep and definitive change of attitude has now to be kindled in proper scientific and sociopolitical contexts, to avoid such a bleak and undesirable future.

1. Corona viruses are one of the viral agents of the common cold, which, just like the flu, invade the whole planet every year. They cause largely widespread, mostly benign, yearly pandemics of respiratory tract infections.

2. COVID-19, the infection caused by SARS-CoV-2, the current corona mutation, is not more lethal than the flu, with a 0.1-0.2% infection fatality rate.

3. An immense majority (95%) of fatal evolutions happen in old and frail individuals with premorbidities, with an average age of death at or above 80 years old.

4. Antibody studies, cross immunization with other corona strains and the completion of the death toll curve in many countries are strong evidence that the human population is developing herd immunity against SARS-CoV-2. In this context, a severe “second wave” for SARS-CoV-2 is improbable. We may rather expect a new cold episode from it just like every year, but of regular or even weak intensity thanks to the gained herd immunity.

5. PCR testing of SARS-CoV-2 presence does not give any reliable prognostic evidence of its infectious power and lethality. The monitoring of the pandemic state and evolution is given only by the daily evolution of fatalities. In Switzerland as in many other countries, there is no longer any excess mortality attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Positive test rate is low (around 3%), and tests have as always a technical false positive rate and react to inactive viral fragments or to other corona strains.

6. Only in a small percentage of COVID-19 patients, the SARS-CoV-2 virus may, like the flu virus, activate an immunological and inflammatory overresponse, causing at worst fatal pulmonary organ failure.

Stress and emotions like fear, anger and sadness may 1) stimulate this overresponse, 2) cause cell death in the emotional brain and 3) trigger therein deleterious overactivities, with resulting cell damages in body tissues.

General isolation, distancing and lockdown measures, by limiting social contacts, freedom and basic human rights, add to the death toll through an upsurge of psychosocial and economic destabilization, worsening of psychiatric and demented individuals and reduction of medical care to the whole population. We have thus a combined causality for an excess mortality of COVID-19, a significant part of it being not due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself but to the worldwide COVID-19 panic wave and the imposed introduction of drastic and inhumane measures.

7. We are not facing the feared planetary killer virus, in spite of the inappropriate initial message of the WHO and different experts. The presented data speak for an urgent stop of all general lockdown, distancing and isolation measures. The world should revert back to the appropriate, routinely applied approach to respiratory viruses: to keep optimal protection measures for the old, frail and sick, as we have all learned to do year after year against the flu.

8. Common cold (and flu) viruses are ubiquitous in space (on the whole planet) and time (year after year). They are thus unavoidable, but cause fortunately mostly benign infections. We just need to protect specifically the populations at risk when a viral wave gets stronger than usual. 

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We, Belgian doctors and health professionals, wish to express our serious concern about the evolution of the situation in the recent months surrounding the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We call on politicians to be independently and critically informed in the decision-making process and in the compulsory implementation of corona-measures. We ask for an open debate, where all experts are represented without any form of censorship. After the initial panic surrounding covid-19, the objective facts now show a completely different picture – there is no medical justification for any emergency policy anymore.

The current crisis management has become totally disproportionate and causes more damage than it does any good.

We call for an end to all measures and ask for an immediate restoration of our normal democratic governance and legal structures and of all our civil liberties.

‘A cure must not be worse than the problem’ is a thesis that is more relevant than ever in the current situation. We note, however, that the collateral damage now being caused to the population will have a greater impact in the short and long term on all sections of the population than the number of people now being safeguarded from corona.
In our opinion, the current corona measures and the strict penalties for non-compliance with them are contrary to the values formulated by the Belgian Supreme Health Council, which, until recently, as the health authority, has always ensured quality medicine in our country: “Science – Expertise – Quality – Impartiality – Independence – Transparency”. 1

We believe that the policy has introduced mandatory measures that are not sufficiently scientifically based, unilaterally directed, and that there is not enough space in the media for an open debate in which different views and opinions are heard. In addition, each municipality and province now has the authorisation to add its own measures, whether well-founded or not.

Moreover, the strict repressive policy on corona strongly contrasts with the government’s minimal policy when it comes to disease prevention, strengthening our own immune system through a healthy lifestyle, optimal care with attention for the individual and investment in care personnel.2

The concept of health

In 1948, the WHO defined health as follows: ‘Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or other physical impairment’.3

Health, therefore, is a broad concept that goes beyond the physical and also relates to the emotional and social well-being of the individual. Belgium also has a duty, from the point of view of subscribing to fundamental human rights, to include these human rights in its decision-making when it comes to measures taken in the context of public health. 4
The current global measures taken to combat SARS-CoV-2 violate to a large extent this view of health and human rights. Measures include compulsory wearing of a mask (also in open air and during sporting activities, and in some municipalities even when there are no other people in the vicinity), physical distancing, social isolation, compulsory quarantine for some groups and hygiene measures.

The predicted pandemic with millions of deaths

At the beginning of the pandemic, the measures were understandable and widely supported, even if there were differences in implementation in the countries around us. The WHO originally predicted a pandemic that would claim 3.4% victims, in other words millions of deaths, and a highly contagious virus for which no treatment or vaccine was available.  This would put unprecedented pressure on the intensive care units (ICUs) of our hospitals.

This led to a global alarm situation, never seen in the history of mankind: “flatten the curve” was represented by a lockdown that shut down the entire society and economy and quarantined healthy people. Social distancing became the new normal in anticipation of a rescue vaccine.

The facts about covid-19

Gradually, the alarm bell was sounded from many sources: the objective facts showed a completely different reality. 5 6

The course of covid-19 followed the course of a normal wave of infection similar to a flu season. As every year, we see a mix of flu viruses following the curve: first the rhinoviruses, then the influenza A and B viruses, followed by the coronaviruses. There is nothing different from what we normally see.

The use of the non-specific PCR test, which produces many false positives, showed an exponential picture.  This test was rushed through with an emergency procedure and was never seriously self-tested. The creator expressly warned that this test was intended for research and not for diagnostics.7
The PCR test works with cycles of amplification of genetic material – a piece of genome is amplified each time. Any contamination (e.g. other viruses, debris from old virus genomes) can possibly result in false positives.8

The test does not measure how many viruses are present in the sample. A real viral infection means a massive presence of viruses, the so-called virus load. If someone tests positive, this does not mean that that person is actually clinically infected, is ill or is going to become ill. Koch’s postulate was not fulfilled (“The pure agent found in a patient with complaints can provoke the same complaints in a healthy person”).

Since a positive PCR test does not automatically indicate active infection or infectivity, this does not justify the social measures taken, which are based solely on these tests. 9 10

Lockdown.

If we compare the waves of infection in countries with strict lockdown policies to countries that did not impose lockdowns (Sweden, Iceland …), we see similar curves.  So there is no link between the imposed lockdown and the course of the infection. Lockdown has not led to a lower mortality rate.

If we look at the date of application of the imposed lockdowns we see that the lockdowns were set after the peak was already over and the number of cases decreasing. The drop was therefore not the result of the taken measures. 11
As every year, it seems that climatic conditions (weather, temperature and humidity) and growing immunity are more likely to reduce the wave of infection.

Our immune system

For thousands of years, the human body has been exposed daily to moisture and droplets containing infectious microorganisms (viruses, bacteria and fungi).

The penetration of these microorganisms is prevented by an advanced defence mechanism – the immune system. A strong immune system relies on normal daily exposure to these microbial influences. Overly hygienic measures have a detrimental effect on our immunity. 12 13 Only people with a weak or faulty immune system should be protected by extensive hygiene or social distancing.

Influenza will re-emerge in the autumn (in combination with covid-19) and a possible decrease in natural resilience may lead to further casualties.

Our immune system consists of two parts: a congenital, non-specific immune system and an adaptive immune system.

The non-specific immune system forms a first barrier: skin, saliva, gastric juice, intestinal mucus, vibratory hair cells, commensal flora, … and prevents the attachment of micro-organisms to tissue.

If they do attach, macrophages can cause the microorganisms to be encapsulated and destroyed.

The adaptive immune system consists of mucosal immunity (IgA antibodies, mainly produced by cells in the intestines and lung epithelium), cellular immunity (T-cell activation), which can be generated in contact with foreign substances or microorganisms, and humoral immunity (IgM and IgG antibodies produced by the B cells).

Recent research shows that both systems are highly entangled.

It appears that most people already have a congenital or general immunity to e.g. influenza and other viruses. This is confirmed by the findings on the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which was quarantined because of a few passengers who died of Covid-19. Most of the passengers were elderly and were in an ideal situation of transmission on the ship. However, 75% did not appear to be infected. So even in this high-risk group, the majority are resistant to the virus.

A study in the journal Cell shows that most people neutralise the coronavirus by mucosal (IgA) and cellular immunity (T-cells), while experiencing few or no symptoms 14.

Researchers found up to 60% SARS-Cov-2 reactivity with CD4+T cells in a non-infected population, suggesting cross-reactivity with other cold (corona) viruses.15

Most people therefore already have a congenital or cross-immunity because they were already in contact with variants of the same virus.

The antibody formation (IgM and IgG) by B-cells only occupies a relatively small part of our immune system. This may explain why, with an antibody percentage of 5-10%, there may be a group immunity anyway. The efficacy of vaccines is assessed precisely on the basis of whether or not we have these antibodies. This is a misrepresentation.

Most people who test positive (PCR) have no complaints. Their immune system is strong enough. Strengthening natural immunity is a much more logical approach. Prevention is an important, insufficiently highlighted pillar: healthy, full-fledged nutrition, exercise in fresh air, without a mask, stress reduction and nourishing emotional and social contacts.

Consequences of social isolation on physical and mental health

Social isolation and economic damage led to an increase in depression, anxiety, suicides, intra-family violence and child abuse.16

Studies have shown that the more social and emotional commitments people have, the more resistant they are to viruses. It is much more likely that isolation and quarantine have fatal consequences. 17

The isolation measures have also led to physical inactivity in many older people due to their being forced to stay indoors. However, sufficient exercise has a positive effect on cognitive functioning, reducing depressive complaints and anxiety and improving physical health, energy levels, well-being and, in general, quality of life.18

Fear, persistent stress and loneliness induced by social distancing have a proven negative influence on psychological and general health. 19

A highly contagious virus with millions of deaths without any treatment?

Mortality turned out to be many times lower than expected and close to that of a normal seasonal flu (0.2%). 20
The number of registered corona deaths therefore still seems to be overestimated.
There is a difference between death by corona and death with corona. Humans are often carriers of multiple viruses and potentially pathogenic bacteria at the same time. Taking into account the fact that most people who developed serious symptoms suffered from additional pathology, one cannot simply conclude that the corona-infection was the cause of death. This was mostly not taken into account in the statistics.

The most vulnerable groups can be clearly identified. The vast majority of deceased patients were 80 years of age or older. The majority (70%) of the deceased, younger than 70 years, had an underlying disorder, such as cardiovascular suffering, diabetes mellitus, chronic lung disease or obesity. The vast majority of infected persons (>98%) did not or hardly became ill or recovered spontaneously.

Meanwhile, there is an affordable, safe and efficient therapy available for those who do show severe symptoms of disease in the form of HCQ (hydroxychloroquine), zinc and azithromycin. Rapidly applied this therapy leads to recovery and often prevents hospitalisation. Hardly anyone has to die now.

This effective therapy has been confirmed by the clinical experience of colleagues in the field with impressive results. This contrasts sharply with the theoretical criticism (insufficient substantiation by double-blind studies) which in some countries (e.g. the Netherlands) has even led to a ban on this therapy. A meta-analysis in The Lancet, which could not demonstrate an effect of HCQ, was withdrawn. The primary data sources used proved to be unreliable and 2 out of 3 authors were in conflict of interest. However, most of the guidelines based on this study remained unchanged … 48 49
We have serious questions about this state of affairs.
In the US, a group of doctors in the field, who see patients on a daily basis, united in “America’s Frontline Doctors” and gave a press conference which has been watched millions of times.21 51
French Prof Didier Raoult of the Institut d’Infectiologie de Marseille (IHU) also presented this promising combination therapy as early as April. Dutch GP Rob Elens, who cured many patients in his practice with HCQ and zinc, called on colleagues in a petition for freedom of therapy.22
The definitive evidence comes from the epidemiological follow-up in Switzerland: mortality rates compared with and without this therapy.23

From the distressing media images of ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) where people were suffocating and given artificial respiration in agony, we now know that this was caused by an exaggerated immune response with intravascular coagulation in the pulmonary blood vessels. The administration of blood thinners and dexamethasone and the avoidance of artificial ventilation, which was found to cause additional damage to lung tissue, means that this dreaded complication, too, is virtually not fatal anymore. 47

It is therefore not a killer virus, but a well-treatable condition.

Propagation 

Spreading occurs by drip infection (only for patients who cough or sneeze) and aerosols in closed, unventilated rooms. Contamination is therefore not possible in the open air. Contact tracing and epidemiological studies show that healthy people (or positively tested asymptomatic carriers) are virtually unable to transmit the virus. Healthy people therefore do not put each other at risk. 24 25
Transfer via objects (e.g. money, shopping or shopping trolleys) has not been scientifically proven.26 27 28

All this seriously calls into question the whole policy of social distancing and compulsory mouth masks for healthy people – there is no scientific basis for this.

Masks

Oral masks belong in contexts where contacts with proven at-risk groups or people with upper respiratory complaints take place, and in a medical context/hospital-retirement home setting. They reduce the risk of droplet infection by sneezing or coughing. Oral masks in healthy individuals are ineffective against the spread of viral infections. 29 30 31

Wearing a mask is not without side effects. 32 33 Oxygen deficiency (headache, nausea, fatigue, loss of concentration) occurs fairly quickly, an effect similar to altitude sickness. Every day we now see patients complaining of headaches, sinus problems, respiratory problems and hyperventilation due to wearing masks. In addition, the accumulated CO2 leads to a toxic acidification of the organism which affects our immunity. Some experts even warn of an increased transmission of the virus in case of inappropriate use of the mask.34

Our Labour Code (Codex 6) refers to a CO2 content (ventilation in workplaces) of 900 ppm, maximum 1200 ppm in special circumstances. After wearing a mask for one minute, this toxic limit is considerably exceeded to values that are three to four times higher than these maximum values. Anyone who wears a mask is therefore in an extreme poorly ventilated room. 35

Inappropriate use of masks without a comprehensive medical cardio-pulmonary test file is therefore not recommended by recognised safety specialists for workers. 
Hospitals have a sterile environment in their operating rooms where staff wear masks and there is precise regulation of humidity / temperature with appropriately monitored oxygen flow to compensate for this, thus meeting strict safety standards. 36

A second corona wave?

A second wave is now being discussed in Belgium, with a further tightening of the measures as a result. However, closer examination of Sciensano’s figures37 shows that, although there has been an increase in the number of infections since mid-July, there was no increase in hospital admissions or deaths at that time. It is therefore not a second wave of corona, but a so-called “case chemistry” due to an increased number of tests. 50
The number of hospital admissions or deaths showed a shortlasting minimal increase in recent weeks, but in interpreting it, we must take into account the recent heatwave. In addition, the vast majority of the victims are still in the population group >75 years.
This indicates that the proportion of the measures taken in relation to the working population and young people is disproportionate to the intended objectives. 
The vast majority of the positively tested “infected” persons are in the age group of the active population, which does not develop any or merely limited symptoms, due to a well-functioning immune system. 
So nothing has changed – the peak is over.

Strengthening a prevention policy 

The corona measures form a striking contrast to the minimal policy pursued by the government until now, when it comes to well-founded measures with proven health benefits such as the sugar tax, the ban on (e-)cigarettes and making healthy food, exercise and social support networks financially attractive and widely accessible. It is a missed opportunity for a better prevention policy that could have brought about a change in mentality in all sections of the population with clear results in terms of public health. At present, only 3% of the health care budget goes to prevention. 2

The Hippocratic Oath

As a doctor, we took the Hippocratic Oath:
“I will above all care for my patients, promote their health and alleviate their suffering”.

“I will inform my patients correctly.”

“Even under pressure, I will not use my medical knowledge for practices that are against humanity.”
The current measures force us to act against this oath.
Other health professionals have a similar code.

The ‘primum non nocere’, which every doctor and health professional assumes, is also undermined by the current measures and by the prospect of the possible introduction of a generalised vaccine, which is not subject to extensive prior testing.

Vaccine

Survey studies on influenza vaccinations show that in 10 years we have only succeeded three times in developing a vaccine with an efficiency rate of more than 50%. Vaccinating our elderly appears to be inefficient. Over 75 years of age, the efficacy is almost non-existent.38
Due to the continuous natural mutation of viruses, as we also see every year in the case of the influenza virus, a vaccine is at most a temporary solution, which requires new vaccines each time afterwards. An untested vaccine, which is implemented by emergency procedure and for which the manufacturers have already obtained legal immunity from possible harm, raises serious questions. 39 40 We do not wish to use our patients as guinea pigs.
On a global scale, 700 000 cases of damage or death are expected as a result of the vaccine.41
If 95% of people experience Covid-19 virtually symptom-free, the risk of exposure to an untested vaccine is irresponsible.

The role of the media and the official communication plan

Over the past few months, newspaper, radio and TV makers seemed to stand almost uncritically behind the panel of experts and the government, there, where it is precisely the press that should be critical and prevent one-sided governmental communication. This has led to a public communication in our news media, that was more like propaganda than objective reporting.

In our opinion, it is the task of journalism to bring news as objectively and neutrally as possible, aimed at finding the truth and critically controlling power, with dissenting experts also being given a forum in which to express themselves.

This view is supported by the journalistic codes of ethics.42

The official story that a lockdown was necessary, that this was the only possible solution, and that everyone stood behind this lockdown, made it difficult for people with a different view, as well as experts, to express a different opinion.

Alternative opinions were ignored or ridiculed. We have not seen open debates in the media, where different views could be expressed.

We were also surprised by the many videos and articles by many scientific experts and authorities, which were and are still being removed from social media. We feel that this does not fit in with a free, democratic constitutional state, all the more so as it leads to tunnel vision. This policy also has a paralysing effect and feeds fear and concern in society. In this context, we reject the intention of censorship of dissidents in the European Union! 43

The way in which Covid-19 has been portrayed by politicians and the media has not done the situation any good either. War terms were popular and warlike language was not lacking. There has often been mention of a ‘war’ with an ‘invisible enemy’ who has to be ‘defeated’. The use in the media of phrases such as ‘care heroes in the front line’ and ‘corona victims’ has further fuelled fear, as has the idea that we are globally dealing with a ‘killer virus’.

The relentless bombardment with figures, that were unleashed on the population day after day, hour after hour, without interpreting those figures, without comparing them to flu deaths in other years, without comparing them to deaths from other causes, has induced a real psychosis of fear in the population. This is not information, this is manipulation.

We deplore the role of the WHO in this, which has called for the infodemic (i.e. all divergent opinions from the official discourse, including by experts with different views) to be silenced by an unprecedented media censorship.43 44

We urgently call on the media to take their responsibilities here!

We demand an open debate in which all experts are heard.

Emergency law versus Human Rights

The general principle of good governance calls for the proportionality of government decisions to be weighed up in the light of the Higher Legal Standards: any interference by government must comply with the fundamental rights as protected in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Interference by public authorities is only permitted in crisis situations. In other words, discretionary decisions must be proportionate to an absolute necessity.

The measures currently taken concern interference in the exercise of, among other things, the right to respect of private and family life, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association, the right to education, etc., and must therefore comply with fundamental rights as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
For example, in accordance with Article 8(2) of the ECHR, interference with the right to private and family life is permissible only if the measures are necessary in the interests of national security, public safety, the economic well-being of the country, the protection of public order and the prevention of criminal offences, the protection of health or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others, the regulatory text on which the interference is based must be sufficiently clear, foreseeable and proportionate to the objectives pursued.45

The predicted pandemic of millions of deaths seemed to respond to these crisis conditions, leading to the establishment of an emergency government. Now that the objective facts show something completely different, the condition of inability to act otherwise (no time to evaluate thoroughly if there is an emergency) is no longer in place. Covid-19 is not a killervirus, but a well treatable condition with a mortality rate comparable to the seasonal flu. In other words, there is no longer an insurmountable obstacle to public health.

There is no state of emergency.

Immense damage caused by the current policies

An open discussion on corona measures means that, in addition to the years of life gained by corona patients, we must also take into account other factors affecting the health of the entire population. These include damage in the psychosocial domain (increase in depression, anxiety, suicides, intra-family violence and child abuse)16 and economic damage.

If we take this collateral damage into account, the current policy is out of all proportion, the proverbial use of a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

We find it shocking that the government is invoking health as a reason for the emergency law.

As doctors and health professionals, in the face of a virus which, in terms of its harmfulness, mortality and transmissibility, approaches the seasonal influenza, we can only reject these extremely disproportionate measures.

• We therefore demand an immediate end to all measures.
• We are questioning the legitimacy of the current advisory experts, who meet behind closed doors.
• Following on from ACU 2020 46 https://acu2020.org/nederlandse-versie/ we call for an in-depth examination of the role of the WHO and the possible influence of conflicts of interest in this organisation. It was also at the heart of the fight against the “infodemic”, i.e. the systematic censorship of all dissenting opinions in the media. This is unacceptable for a democratic state governed by the rule of law.43

Distribution of this letter

We would like to make a public appeal to our professional associations and fellow carers to give their opinion on the current measures.

We draw attention to and call for an open discussion in which carers can and dare to speak out.

With this open letter, we send out the signal that progress on the same footing does more harm than good, and call on politicians to inform themselves independently and critically about the available evidence – including that from experts with different views, as long as it is based on sound science – when rolling out a policy, with the aim of promoting optimum health.

With concern, hope and in a personal capacity.

Signed by 585 medical doctors

Signed by 1664 medically trained health professionals

Signed by 11873 citizens

Read more:

https://docs4opendebate.be/en/open-letter/

See the full list of signatories:

https://docs4opendebate.be/en/signatories/

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Speaking during a podcast interview with Kara Swisher, 49-year-old Musk stated that neither he nor his children are at risk for Covid-19 and therefore would be unlikely to need the vaccine. 

“This is a no-win situation. It has diminished my faith in humanity, this whole thing… The irrationality of people in general,” Musk said. 

He also decried lockdowns across the globe and in the US in particular, having previously referred to them as “unethical” and “de facto house arrest.”

Musk said widespread lockdowns were a mistake and only at-risk people should quarantine “until the storm passes.”

Read more

https://www.rt.com/news/502013-elon-musk-wont-get-coronavirus-vaccine/

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 see also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/38843