Coronavirus

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Pandemic Response Leaders Concede Mistakes and Head for the Exits



by Dr. Peter McCullough | Aug 29, 2022 | Health, Politics,

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In the end, false narratives always crumble because they are false, and people ultimately come to that conclusion. Within the past few weeks, the CDC changes its summary of guiding statements regarding the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with further reductions in the number of people and scenarios where there need to be testing, quarantine, and inconveniences from normal work or school life.1

The most important issue the CDC has resolved is that from a public health perspective, there is no distinguishment between a vaccinated and an unvaccinated citizen. This statement alone, if followed, should end all school, employment, military, and travel vaccine mandates since there is no clinical difference between the two conditions.

This week, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) division director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, announced his retirement as of December 2022. In the formal NIH announcement, oddly, there is no mention of his largest professional activity, the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak or COVID-19 crisis.2 Complete silence on the past three years and what, if any, involvement he had with SARS in the years prior to 2020.

We have a great show for you this week with some key major media interviews with Dr. McCullough with Roman Balmakov of Facts Matter by Epoch Times, and on FOX News IngrahamAngle with Laura Ingraham and Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.3 Our music segment is from Dennis of Carothers Parkway, a patriotic song you will love — “God Save America.”4

So let’s get real, let’s get loud; on America Out Loud Talk Radio, this is The McCullough Report!

The McCullough Report: Sat/Sun 2 PM ET Encore 7 PM – Internationally recognized Dr. Peter A. McCullough, known for his iconic views on the state of medical truth in America and around the globe, pierces through the thin veil of mainstream media stories that skirt the significant issues and provide no tractable basis for durable insight. Listen on iHeart Radio, our world-class media player, or our free apps on Apple, Android, or Alexa. Each episode goes to major podcast networks early in the week and can be heard on-demand anywhere in the world.

References:

1 https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2...-guidance.html
2 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news...ony-s-fauci-md
3 www.petermcculloughmd.com
4 https://carothersparkway.com/

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Dachsie comment:

I really liked her presentationn, so crystal clear and easy to understand.

She places just about everything on the chopping block --

viruses

current laboratory procedures

peer reviewed articles - crooked medical journals.

the human "natural immune system"

antibodies

antigens my addition, she did not mention antigens but I deduced antigens to be a scam too

antigen diagnosis of COVID 19 home test kits and lab done antigen tests all a scam.

By the way, our government has apparently decided it has fulfilled its money laundering scheme with China for antigen kits, so it is not going to bother with mailing out free kits to people anymore.

Are we thoroughly jaded yet?

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Steve Kirsch's newsletter



Young doctors in Canada are dying at a rate 23X normal after the second booster

We now have all the CMA Canadian doctor death data in a spreadsheet. It shows that doctors 50 and younger are being killed after the second booster a rate that is 23X normal.

55 min ago August 30, 2022

Executive summary



The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) data for 2020 shows doctors in Canada aged 50 and under die at a rate of about 6 per year.

After the latest booster, 6 Canadian doctors, 50 and under, died within a 15 day period.

Something is very wrong here, but nobody wants to talk about it or look into it. They’d rather look the other way.
Introduction

Thanks to the brilliant work of Marc Godard and Brent Kievit-Kylar, we now have the CMA death data that I wrote about earlier in Google spreadsheet format where it can be easily analyzed for the first time. Note that the CMA removed entries prior to 2020 because they said it was too resource intensive to maintain this data. That’s hard to believe, but that’s what they said.

The results are stunning if we look at young doctor deaths: it makes the impact of the vaccines much easier to see because there is more signal and less noise since doctors under 50 rarely die.

We find a 23X increase in the rate of all-cause mortality post-vaccine for Canadian doctors aged 50 and under (compared to the young doctor death rates in 2020).

How can they explain that one?

Well, they can’t.

Those Canadian doctors died after the 2nd booster decades earlier than they should have.

I wanted to talk to the CMA about this, but my request to interview the President of the CMA was ignored. They just don’t want to talk about it. I’m sure they hope nobody sees this article.

So if you are reading this now, you know what to do:

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-co...m_source=email

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☕️ Coffee & Courage ☙ Tuesday, August 30, 2022 ☙ MOUSE DATA ��

Biased FBI agent gets the boot; study show bad news for jabbed guys; UK pivots on pregnancy jabs; SADS strikes; 11th Cir. trims contractor mandate; good news for Marines; mouse data; and much more...

Jeff Childers
Aug 30
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Experts from newsletter:

�� TctMD ran a story last week headlined, “Myocarditis Risk Low Overall After COVID-19 Vax, but Higher in Some Groups.” It’s a lot of blah-blah word salad about a new study, but it — finally — admits that myocarditis risk is MUCH higher in one teeny-tiny cohort: all men under 40.

The paper tentatively suggested that SOME PEOPLE might want to consider the pro’s and con’s. One expert quoted for the story, who chairs the American Medical Association’s pediatric committee, said this:

[These results] allow for a frank and transparent discussion on the pros and cons of vaccination. Does a completely healthy teenage male, without high-risk family members or close contacts, require a full set of vaccines at the interval prescribed? Or should he be selective of the vaccine available/accessible to him? For healthcare officials, further assessment of the risk-to-benefit balance regarding age and sex with comorbidities should be done using data from this and other nationwide-based studies.

It’s a nice sentiment, but good luck finding someplace to have a frank and transparent discussion on the pro’s and con’s of vaccination. Let me know how that works out for you.

Notwithstanding that advice, another one of the paper’s cherry-picked experts, whose comment was blown up in a callout in the middle of the article, opined, “The overwhelming recommendation is strongly in favor of COVID vaccination, even when myocarditis is the endpoint.”

I guess they have to say that. After all, what’s a little myocarditis among oh-so-virtuous people who care about grandma and who care about virtue signaling?

�� Jason Jenkins, 47, Miami Dolphins’ senior vice president of communications and community affairs, died suddenly and unexpectedly on Saturday, according to a team announcement.

Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel told reporters that Jason was previously completely healthy. “This was a healthy, healthy guy that just brought it every day. … Just full of life,” McDaniel said. “That’s the hardest part. There’s just no words to describe. He has a great family. His wife’s awesome, and his children. It’s tough. It’s a tough one to swallow. He will be missed. He will not be forgotten, I can tell you that much.”

I hope that Jason won’t be forgotten, but I have my doubts. Of course, Jason’s cause of death was not disclosed. I mean, who’d be interested in knowing why a completely healthy man in the prime of his life would keel over suddenly and unexpectedly? Don’t be ghoulish.


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Semper Fi

Marines don't have to take the jab anymore starting right now ff they submit a religious exemption ASSERTION.

Dachsie Note: You don't have to APPLY for a religions exemption, you just only need to ASSERT the paper form and you don't have to take the jab simply by that act. You don't have to wait for approval of an application. You only have to assert and you have the exemption.

________

�� Last week, Florida federal Judge Steven Merryday enjoined the entire Marine Corps from enforcing the Military Mandate against any soldier asserting a religious objection to the jabs. Props to the heroic lawyers who litigated the case.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/d...c-aa6fdd9ecd0c


08/30/22
Heart Inflammation Risk for Young Men Higher After Vaccination Than After COVID + More

The Defender’s COVID NewsWatch provides a roundup of the latest headlines related to the SARS CoV-2 virus, including its origins and COVID vaccines.
By
The Defender Staff

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Heart Inflammation Risk for Young Men Higher After Vaccination Than After COVID: Study

The Epoch Times reported:

The risk of heart inflammation is higher for men as old as 39 after Moderna COVID-19 vaccination than after COVID-19 infection, according to a new study.

Researchers in England analyzed hospital admissions with myocarditis, a form of health inflammation, among the vaccinated between Dec. 1, 2020, and Dec. 15, 2021.

They estimated that the second dose of Moderna’s vaccine, which is advised for a two-dose primary series, leads to 97 myocarditis cases per million above baseline in the first 28 days after vaccination for men younger than 40. That’s up from 16 additional cases per million of myocarditis after a positive COVID-19 test and before vaccination.

Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have long been associated with heart inflammation, but Moderna’s has been linked with much higher rates.
Scientists Question Moderna Invention Claim in COVID Vaccine Dispute

Science reported:

One of the three inventions claimed by Moderna in a legal battle that has erupted over the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against COVID-19 was actually patented years earlier by two university scientists.

In a complaint filed on 26 August in a U.S. district court in Massachusetts, Moderna accuses Pfizer and its partner BioNTech of “co-opting Moderna’s patented inventions” covering different aspects of the two COVID-19 vaccines, which have already earned the companies billions of dollars. Both vaccines rely on mRNA that codes for the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.

BioNTech issued a statement insisting its COVID-19 vaccine work was “original” and said it “will vigorously defend against all allegations of patent infringement.” In a statement to Science, Pfizer said it had “not yet fully reviewed the complaint but we are surprised by the litigation,” adding that the company is “confident in our intellectual property supporting the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.”

At the heart of Moderna’s patent infringement claim are the steps that opened the door for mRNA as a vaccine. Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó, both at the University of Pennsylvania (Karikó now also works for BioNTech), published the fundamental discovery in 2005: They showed that altering one of the fundamental building blocks of mRNA, the nucleotide uridine, made the molecule less toxic and also more capable of dodging immune destruction.
FDA Expected to Authorize Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech Omicron Boosters

Politico reported:

For those who’ve put off a COVID vaccine booster in hopes of getting a shot tailor-made for the Omicron subvariants that have ripped across the country, the wait may soon be over.

The FDA is expected to authorize a pair of booster shots targeting what appear to be the virus’ most contagious strains as soon as Wednesday, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO.

The move would set the stage for the Biden administration to begin offering the reformulated vaccine shortly after Labor Day, in a bid to bolster Americans’ protection against a potential COVID resurgence later this year.

The government plans to roll out a combined 175 million doses of the new boosters developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, with Moderna’s shot available to all adults and Pfizer’s offered to those 12 and older, according to a federal planning guide published earlier this month.
Healthcare — White House Fall Booster Push Faces Challenges

The Hill reported:

Taylor Swift announced her new album last night at the VMA’s and the internet is collectively “screaming, crying, throwing up” over the news.

The White House is gearing up to launch a COVID-19 booster campaign this fall to prevent another major surge, but convincing vaccine holdouts to get another dose will be far from easy.

The challenge: Administration officials say these new vaccines will be key to controlling a potential fall surge, but they will need to convince an increasingly checked-out public to get the shots.

Download for Free: Robert F. Kennedy's New Book — ‘A Letter to Liberals’

High Percentage of COVID Deaths Had 3rd Shot, More Excess Deaths After 4th Shot

The Epoch Times reported:

Currently, many countries around the world are promoting the second COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for the elderly, many of whom have already received their first booster shots. Under these circumstances, the transparency and openness of information about the safety of booster shots has become a very important issue.

Amid this discussion, recently, data on the numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths after vaccine booster injections in two Canadian provinces have been removed.

The author of a Letter to the Editor published in the Prince George Citizen, a long-standing Canadian newspaper, commented, “If you look at the statistics from the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) site, you will see that there is zero scientific evidence for keeping the vaccine passport in place.”

However, on July 28, 2022, the BCCDC website indicated that their “outcomes by vaccination status” data would be removed as of that date. At present, this data is no longer available on its website.
Increased Disease Potential of COVID Variant BA.5 Currently Circulating in the United States

Forbes reported:

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many iterations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have dominated over others. The B.1 variant of 2020 was overtaken by the Alpha variant in early 2021. Alpha was overcome by Delta later that Summer. Next, Delta was pushed aside for Omicron BA.1 in late 2021, followed by BA.2 shortly thereafter. Now, BA.5 dominates the global virus landscape.

There are two driving forces behind the success of a SARS-CoV-2 variant over another. The first is a variant’s ability to infect those previously infected or vaccinated and the second are the virus’s intrinsic pathogenic properties. Here we focus on the latter, specifically in reference to the latest Omicron variants.

A recent study by Tamura et al. focuses on the latter, specifically on how Omicron subvariants, including BA.5, compare pathogenetically to earlier virus variants.

Understanding the pathogenic dynamics of emerging variants may inform drug and vaccine development, treatment regimens for those with moderate to severe disease, and surveillance for variants yet to come.
With Enough Monkeypox Vaccine Finally in Hand, U.S. Seeks to Make More Shots at Home

ABC News reported:

After securing enough doses in the national stockpile to vaccinate the most at-risk Americans against monkeypox, the federal government says it has begun training its sights on the next steps of the outbreak.

“We’re watching this very, very closely and will be prepared to move out against any outbreak that might happen in additional populations,” Assistant Secretary for Response and Preparedness Dawn O’Connell told ABC News.

“If we begin to see an outbreak in a college campus, we will make vaccines available on that college campus — absolutely,” said O’Connell, who leads monkeypox response within the Department of Health and Human Services.
Monkeypox Outbreak Can Be Eliminated in Europe, WHO Says

Reuters reported:

It is possible to eliminate the monkeypox outbreak in Europe, World Health Organization officials said on Tuesday, highlighting evidence that case counts are slowing in a handful of countries.

There are encouraging signs of a sustained week-on-week decline in the onset of cases in many European countries, including France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Britain, as well as a slowdown in some parts of the United States, despite scarce vaccine supplies.
Small Study Supports TPOXX as Monkeypox Treatment

U.S. News & World Report reported:

The drug tecovirimat appears to be safe and effective for treating the symptoms and skin lesions of monkeypox, a small study suggests.

Tecovirimat (TPOXX) is an antiviral drug for the treatment of smallpox. It works by limiting the spread of the virus in the body. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has allowed doctors to prescribe tecovirimat on a “compassionate use basis” to treat adults and children with orthopoxvirus infections, including monkeypox.

“We have very limited clinical data on the use of tecovirimat for monkeypox infection. There is much to learn about the natural progression of the disease and how tecovirimat and other antivirals may affect it,” researcher Dr. Angel Desai said in a news release from the University of California, Davis. She is an infectious disease specialist at the university.

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Who is "they"

Mapping the institutions and actors involved in the global iatrogenocide

Toby Rogers

2 hr ago, August 31, 2022

One of the weirdest things about the past two years is that it is obvious that there has been a massive power shift in the world, away from national governments towards some supranational collective that is somehow able to force governments throughout the world to all follow the same disastrous policies simultaneously (overriding Constitutions, laws, scientific best practices, and common sense). But it is not entirely clear who “they” are.

So, following up on my last article, I want to take a stab at defining who “they” are — as in, who are the people:
• developing and releasing bioweapons into the population;
• suppressing safe and effective treatments;
• destroying the global economy via lockdowns;
• pushing dangerous shots with negative efficacy that maim, kill, and cause infertility at an astonishing rate; and
• implementing global totalitarianism including the suspension of Constitutional rights and the introduction of central bank digital currencies, 24/7/365 digital surveillance, and vaccine/carbon/ESG passports.

Said simply who are the people pushing the global economy and society towards a permanent pandemic?

I look forward to reading your replies in the comments because I imagine there will be sharp disagreement about the components of the various layers in this schema.

The top of the pyramid

The hardest part to figure out is who is at the top? We know some of the players at the top of the pyramid:

• Pfizer, Moderna, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Merck, J&J, and AstraZeneca — and their 4.4 million employees worldwide and $1 trillion a year in revenue;

• The World Economic Forum and its 1,000 member companies each with $5+ billion a year in revenue that have been meeting for 50 years to synchronize the interests of elites;

• The 2,000 members of the Davos group who meet annually in Switzerland to coordinate global governance and business;

• The World Health Organization that is clearly working for the cartel;

• The 205 members of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the 539 billionaires in China; and

• The western billionaires — Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Soros, Bloomberg, Steyer — who want to remake the world in their own twisted image.

But who am I leaving out? The bankers? The central banks? Old money?

The Mercenaries

The upper crust then bring in the mercenaries to actually do the work to create the new dystopian reality:

• The consulting firms — McKinsey, Deloitte, Bain, BCG, and PwC — design the global vaccine campaigns;

• The PR firms — Edelman, Ogilvy (that works with the CDC), Hill + Knowlton (that came up with the tobacco playbook that is now used by all toxic industries), Burson Cohn Wolfe (that formerly worked with the Clintons) — create the fictitious reality that forces the peasants to obey and makes the elites richer;

• And for the really heavy lifting they bring in the private intelligence companies — Black Cube, SCL Group, NSO Group, etc. who can do anything from entrapping a politician, rigging an election, or overthrowing a government using the latest military grade tools and human assets.

Our reality is manufactured by these mercenaries.

Asset management firms

The largest shareholders in pharmaceutical companies are the asset management companies — BlackRock ($10 trillion in assets), Vanguard ($7.2 trillion), State Street ($4.14 trillion), etc. These companies are throwing their weight around these days by voting the shares of the assets that they hold on behalf of investors. That gives them the ability to hire and fire the C-suite executives who run these companies.

The paradox though of the asset management companies is that they are investing OUR pension and retirement funds. If you hold any equities in a retirement, mutual, or pension fund chances are that you own shares in the pharmaceutical companies that are trying to enslave and kill us — but BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and the rest are voting YOUR shares at the annual meeting. It’s a crazy system.

CIA, NSA, Department of Defense

This is the part that I cannot figure out. According to Jeffrey Sachs, who is as pro-establishment as they come, SARS-CoV-2 began as a bioweapon developed in the United States. We know that BARDA and DARPA are deep into the development of bioweapons and they fund monsters like Ralph Baric at UNC and Peter Daszak at EcoHealth Alliance (who Fauci used as a pass through to get money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for gain-of-function research when it was officially banned in the United States).

But here’s the thing — CIA, NSA, and DoD have the electronic records that show what was going on at these labs and they have the intercepted phone calls when things go wrong at these labs (because they have a record of all phone calls, emails, and wire transfers in this country). They also have the data that show that these shots do not work and cause harms at unprecedented levels. But instead of doing anything about it — instead of protecting national security — the CIA is using its venture capital company to make the mRNA used in Covid booster shots that are going to kill lots of Americans.

So how are we to understand the official government military and intelligence agencies in light of these facts? In a former era ostensibly they were motivated to defeat the Soviet Union. And now they’re just what — independent autonomous grifters completely unmoored from the countries they claim to represent? Are the CIA, NSA, and DoD just warlords in the global economy trying to secure as much wealth for themselves as possible?

It sure looks that way.

Mainstream media and social media

This is too obvious to even bother to elaborate on. CNN, MSNBC, the Atlantic, New Yorker, Washington Post, Guardian, etc. — all work for the cartel because the cartel pays their bills.

And the social media giants — Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Google/YouTube — all censor critical thinkers on behalf of the cartel. No reasonable person disputes this.

The useful idiots in white coats

The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists all work for the cartel.

There are 191,000 professors in American medical schools and, with a few exceptions, they are owned body, mind, and soul by the cartel.

There are about 1 million doctors in the U.S. but only a few hundred have done the right thing and spoken out against the genocide over the past two years.

Allopathic medicine in the U.S. is now a tool of Pharma Fascism.

We have entered the era of iatrogenocide

My point in mapping out the guilty parties above is to underscore the fact that we live in a society dedicated to iatrogenocide — the mass killing of a population by scientific and medical professionals. (Hat tip to Mathew Crawford for re-introducing us to this term). Our entire economy is built around iatrogenocide — killing, covering it up, and keeping it going, in the name of public health, progress, and science(TM).

As I wrote in my last article, the motivations for these various actors, who walk amongst us and include many of the most respected members of society, include:

1. profit;
2. mental capture (because the base determines the superstructure);
3. an immortality project;
4. mass formation;
5. survival;
6. eugenics;
7. evil itself;
8. excitement/entertainment;
9. depopulation; and
10. the possibility that this is all a play by the Chinese Communist Party for world domination.

Now I wonder though if all of these actors and factors have something in common? What’s the ideology/worldview driving them? Even if we grant that the base determines the superstructure (the mode of production of any era determines the values of that society) what exactly is the ideological superstructure that connects all of this together?

On my notepad I sketched out a possible list: capitalism? winning? success? fitting in? liberalism? post liberalism? postmodernism? colonialism? narcissism? communism? fascism? totalitarianism?

And where I came out is that I think our society is guided by three values:

Idolatry (these people think that they are gods and they really like playing god);

Domination (these people gain pleasure from power over others, in their worldview everyone and everything is an object to be conquered); and

Tribalism (these people operate from the belief that their group must win at all costs, the dendrites necessary to get along with others are dead).

When you combine idolatry, domination, and tribalism, what you get is Pharma Fascism throughout the developed world.

That’s what we’re up against. That’s who and what we must overthrow in the revolution.

So then our antidote becomes:

A reverence for the truly sacred (God, family, nature, and love);

Intersubjectivity — listening to and honoring the spark of the divine in others; and

Ethics, rationality, and science — the means of resolving differences that have been lost in the global coup d’etat by the junk science mass murdering Pharma cartel.

Blessings to the warriors who have been showing the way for two decades. 🙌

Prayers for everyone fighting against Pharma Fascism around the world. 🙏

In the comments, I welcome your thoughts on all of the above.

As always, please alert me to any corrections.

https://markcrispinmiller.substack.c...m_source=email

15 videos of people all around the world just keeling over (maybe dropping dead)

Still more graphic evidence that "COVID vaccination" is now doing to humanity what "our free press," 2+ years ago, kept warning us hysterically that COVID was about to do to all humanity

Mark Crispin Miller

4 hr ago, August 31, 2022

Over the past several weeks, a tweeter who uses the nom de guerre “Aqui Ahora” (“Here Now”) has posted fifteen videos of people keeling over—eight of them in China, and the others in Vietnam, Pakistan, Peru and elsewhere throughout the world (including Orlando, Florida, site of a small plane crash that surely killed all those on board).

Could these videos be fake? Of course. But I don’t think they are, since (a) faking scenes so realistic, and in such far-flung locations, would require a budget far beyond the means of, say, Children’s Health Defense (whose people wouldn’t do that even if they could afford it); and (b) images of “sudden death” contrived for propaganda purposes would not be imperceptibly released by some lone tweeter with relatively few followers (and then belatedly reposted by a marginal “conspiracy theorist” like Mark Crispin Miller), but published thunderously, all at once, by such big “reputable” outlets as the Guardian, the New York Times, the Daily Mail, the New York Post, the Sun, the Mirror, the Telegraph, CNN, the BBC, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, the Atlantic, and many, many other outlets all throughout the world, along with countless hirelings, bots and useful idiots on “social media”—which is exactly how those bogus images of people “dying suddenly” of COVID, in the streets of Wuhan, were propagated back in January of 2020.

_________________________
https://twitter.com/AquAhora1/status/1563093149626802177?utm_source=substack&utm_medium =email



Aquí Ahora
@AquAhora1
·
Aug 10
#Repentinitis del embajador saudí en El Cairo, con resultado de muerte.[/URL][/SIZE]

Dachsie comment:

This explains a lot of the evil and diabolical iniquity.
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It Was Birx. All Birx.

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By Debbie Lerman August 31, 2022 19 minute read

In two previous articles, I looked into the shady circumstances surrounding Deborah Birx’s appointment to the White House Coronavirus Response Task Force and the laughable lack of actual science behind the claims she used to justify her testing, masking, distancing and lockdown policies.

Considering all that, the questions arise: Who was actually in charge of Deborah Birx and whom was she working with?

But first: Who cares?

Here’s why I think it’s important: If we can show that Birx and the others who imposed totalitarian anti-scientific testing, masking, social distancing, and lockdown policies, knew from the get-go that these policies would not work against an airborne respiratory virus, and nevertheless they imposed them FOR REASONS OTHER THAN PUBLIC HEALTH, then there is no longer acceptable justification for any of those measures.

Furthermore, whatever mountains of post-facto bad science were concocted to rationalize these measures are also completely bunk. Instead of having to go through each ridiculous pseudo-study to demonstrate its scientific worthlessness, we can throw the whole steaming pile in the garbage heap of history, where it belongs, and move on with our lives.

In my admittedly somewhat naive optimism, I also hope that by exposing the non-scientific, anti-public-health origins of the Covid catastrophe, we may lower the chances of it happening again.

And now, back to Birx.
She did not work for or with Trump

We know Birx was definitely not working with President Trump, although she was on a task force ostensibly representing the White House. Trump did not appoint her, nor did the leaders of the Task Force, as Scott Atlas recounts in his revelatory book on White House pandemic lunacy, A Plague Upon Our House. When Atlas asked Task Force members how Birx was appointed, he was surprised to find that “no one seemed to know.” (Atlas, p. 82)

Yet, somehow, Deborah Birx – a former military AIDS researcher and government AIDS ambassador with no training, experience or publications in epidemiology or public health policy – found herself leading a White House Task Force on which she had the power to literally subvert the policy prescriptions of the President of the United States.

As she describes in The Silent Invasion, Birx was shocked when “at the halfway point of our 15 Days to Slow the Spread campaign, President Trump stated that he hoped to lift all restrictions by Easter Sunday.” (Birx, p. 142) She was even more dismayed when “mere days after the president had announced the thirty-day extension of the Slow the Spread campaign to the American public” he became enraged and told her “‘We will never shut down the country again. Never.’” (Birx, p. 152)

Clearly, Trump was not on board with the lockdowns, and every time he was forced to go along with them, he became enraged and lashed out at Birx – the person he believed was forcing him.

Birx laments that “from here on out, everything I worked toward would be harder—in some cases, impossible,” and goes on to say she would basically have to work behind the scenes against the President, having “to adapt to effectively protect the country from the virus that had already silently invaded it.” (Birx, pp. 153-4)

Which brings us back to the question: Where did Birx get the nerve and, more mysteriously, the authority to so blithely act in direct opposition to the President she was supposed to serve, on matters affecting the lives of the entire population of the United States?

Atlas regrets what he thinks was President Trump’s “massive error in judgment.” He argues that Trump acted “against his own gut feeling” and “delegated authority to medical bureaucrats, and then he failed to correct that mistake.” (Atlas, p. 308)

Although I believe massive errors in judgment were not unusual for President Trump, I disagree with Atlas on this one. In the case of the Coronavirus Response Task Force, I actually think there was something much more insidious at play.
Trump had no power over Birx or pandemic response

Dr. Paul Alexander, an epidemiologist and research methodology expert who was recruited to advise the Trump administration on pandemic policy, tells a shocking story in an interview with Jeffrey Tucker, in which bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and lawyers from the Justice Department told him to resign, despite direct orders from President Trump and the White House: “We want you to understand that President Trump has no power,” they reportedly told Alexander. “He cannot tell us what to do.”

Alexander believes these bureaucrats represented the “deep state” which, he was told repeatedly, had decided first not to hire or pay him, and then to get rid of him. Alexander also writes in an upcoming exposé that the entrenched government bureaucracy, particularly at the NIH, CDC, and WHO, used the pandemic response to doom President Trump’s chances for reelection.

Was the entire anti-scientific totalitarian pandemic response, all over the world, a political maneuver to get rid of Trump? It’s possible. I would contend, however, that the politics were only a sideshow to the main event: the engineered virus lab leak and coverup. I believe the “deep state” Alexander repeatedly butted up against was not just the entrenched bureaucracy, but something even deeper and more powerful.

Which brings us back to deep state frontwoman Deborah Birx.

After lamenting Trump’s delegation of authority to “medical bureaucrats,” Scott Atlas also hints at forces beyond Trump’s control. “The Task Force was called ‘the White House Coronavirus Task Force,’” Atlas notes, “but it was not in sync with President Trump. It was directed by Vice President Pence.” (Atlas, p. 306) Yet, whenever Atlas tried to raise questions about Birx’s policies, he was directed to speak with Pence, who then failed to ever address anything with Birx:

“Given that the VP was in charge of the Task Force, shouldn’t the bottom-line advice emanating from it comport with the policies of the administration? But he would never speak with Dr. Birx at all. In fact, (Marc) Short [Pence’s chief of staff], clearly representing the VP’s interests above all else, would do the opposite, telephoning others in the West Wing, imploring friends of mine to tell me to avoid alienating Dr. Birx.” (Atlas, p. 165-6)

Recall that Pence replaced Alex Azar as Task Force director on February 26, 2020 and Birx’s appointment as coordinator, at the instigation of Asst. National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger, came on February 27th. Subsequent to those two appointments, it was Birx who was effectively in charge of United States coronavirus policy.

What was driving that policy, once she took over? As Birx writes, it was the NSC (National Security Council) that appointed her, through Pottinger, and it was her job to “reinforce their warnings” – which, I continue to speculate, were related to the accidental release of an enhanced pandemic potential pathogen from a US-funded lab in Wuhan.

Trump was probably made aware of this, as evidenced not just by his repeated mentions, but by what Time Magazine called his uncharacteristic refusal to explain why he believed it. The magazine quotes Trump saying “I can’t tell you that,” when asked about his belief in the lab leak. And he repeats, “I’m not allowed to tell you that.”

Why in the world was the President of the United States not allowed to override AIDS researcher/diplomat Birx on lockdown policies nor explain to the public why he believed there was a lab leak?

The answer, I believe, is that Trump was uncharacteristically holding back because he was told (by Birx, Pottinger and the military/intelligence/biosecurity interests for whom they worked) that if he did not go along with their policies and proclamations, millions of Americans would die. Why? Because SARS-CoV-2 was not just another zoonotic virus. It was an engineered virus that needed to be contained at all costs.

As Dr. Atlas repeatedly notes with great dismay: “the Task Force doctors were fixated on a single-minded view that all cases of COVID must be stopped or millions of Americans would die.” (Atlas, p. 155-6) [BOLDFACE ADDED]

That was the key message, wielded with great force and success against Trump, his administration, the press, the states, and the public, to suppress any opposition to lockdown policies. Yet the message makes no sense if you believe SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that jumped from a bat to a person in a wet market, severely affecting mostly people who are old and debilitated. It only makes sense if you think, or know, that the virus was engineered to be especially contagious or deadly (even if its behavior in the population at any given moment might not justify that level of alarm).

But, again, before indulging in more speculation, let’s get back to Birx. Who else did she (and her hidden handlers) bulldoze?
She dictated policy to the entire Trump administration

In his book, Atlas observes with puzzlement and consternation that, although Pence was the nominal director of the Task Force, Deborah Birx was the person in charge: “Birx’s policies were enacted throughout the country, in almost every single state, for the entire pandemic—this cannot be denied; it cannot be deflected.” (Atlas, p. 222)

Atlas is “dumbstruck at the lack of leadership in the White House,” in which, “the president was saying one thing while the White House Task Force representative was saying something entirely different, indeed contradictory” and, as he notes, “no one ever set her [Birx] straight on her role.” (Atlas, p. 222-223)

Not only that, but no matter how much Trump, or anyone in the administration, disagreed with Birx, “the White House was held hostage to the anticipated reaction of Dr. Birx” and she “was not to be touched, period.” (Atlas, p. 223)

One explanation for her untouchableness, Atlas suggests, is that Birx and her policies became so popular with the press and public that the administration did not want to “rock the boat” by replacing her before the election. This explanation, however, as Atlas himself realizes, crumbles in the face of what we know about Trump and the media’s hostility towards him:

“They [Trump’s advisors] had convinced him to do exactly the opposite of what he would naturally do in any other circumstance—to disregard his own common sense and allow grossly incorrect policy advice to prevail. … This president, widely known for his signature ‘You’re fired!’ declaration, was misled by his closest political intimates. All for fear of what was inevitable anyway—skewering from an already hostile media.” (Atlas, p. 300-301)

I would suggest, again, the reason for the seemingly inexplicable lack of gumption on Trump’s part to get rid of Birx was not politics, but behind-the-scenes machinations of the (to coin a moniker) lab leak cabal.

Who else was part of this cabal with its hidden agendas and oversized policy influence? Our attention naturally turns to the other members of the Task Force who were presumably co-engineering lockdown policies with Birx. Surprising revelations emerge.
There was no troika. No Birx-Fauci lockdown plan. It was all Birx.

It is universally assumed, by both those in favor and those opposed to the Task Force’s policy prescriptions, that Drs. Deborah Birx, Tony Fauci (head of NIAID at the time) and Bob Redfield (then director of the CDC) worked together to formulate those policies.

The stories told by Birx herself and Task Force infiltrator Scott Atlas suggest otherwise.

Like everyone else, at the onset of his book, Atlas asserts: “The architects of the American lockdown strategy were Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. With Dr. Robert Redfield… they were the most influential medical members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.” (Atlas, p. 22)

But as Atlas’s story unfolds, he presents a more nuanced understanding of the power dynamics on the Task Force:

“Fauci’s role surprised me the most. Most of the country, indeed the entire world, assumed that Fauci occupied a directorial role in the Trump administration’s Task Force. I had also thought that from viewing the news,” Atlas admits. However, he continues, “The public presumption of Dr. Fauci’s leadership role on the Task Force itself…could not have been more incorrect. Fauci held massive sway with the public, but he was not in charge of anything specific on the Task Force. He served mainly as a channel for updates on the trials of vaccines and drugs.” (p. 98) [BOLDFACE ADDED]

By the end of the book, Atlas fully revises his initial assessment, strongly emphasizing that, in fact, it was primarily and predominantly Birx who designed and disseminated the lockdown policies:

“Dr. Fauci held court in the public eye on a daily basis, so frequently that many misconstrue his role as being in charge. However, it was really Dr. Birx who articulated Task Force policy. All the advice from the Task Force to the states came from Dr. Birx. All written recommendations about their on-the-ground policies were from Dr. Birx. Dr. Birx conducted almost all the visits to states on behalf of the Task Force.” (Atlas, p. 309-10) [BOLDFACE ADDED]

It may sound jarring and unlikely, given the public perception of Fauci, as Atlas notes. But in Birx’s book the same unexpected picture emerges.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much

As with her bizarrely self-contradictory statements about how she got hired, and her blatantly bogus scientific claims, Birx’s story about her mind-melded closeness with Fauci and Redfield falls apart upon closer examination.

In her book, Birx repeatedly claims she trusts Redfield and Fauci “implicitly to help shape America’s response to the novel coronavirus.” (Birx, p. 31) She says she has “every confidence, based on past performance, that whatever path the virus took, the United States and the CDC would be on top of the situation.” (Birx, p. 32)

Then, almost immediately, she undermines the credibility of those she supposedly trusts, quoting Matt Pottinger as saying she “‘should take over Azar, Fauci, and Redfield’s jobs, because you’re such a better leader than they are.’” (Birx, p. 38-9)

Perhaps she was just giving herself a little pat on the back, one might innocently suggest. But wait. There’s so much more.

Birx claims that in a meeting on January 31 “everything Drs. Fauci and Redfield said about their approach made sense based on the information available to me at that point,” even though “neither of them spoke” about the two issues she was most obsessed with: “asymptomatic silent spread [and] the role testing should play in the response.” (Birx, p. 39)

Then, although she says she “didn’t read too much into this omission,” (p. 39) just two weeks later, “as early as February 13” Birx again mentions “a lack of leadership and direction in the CDC and the White House Coronavirus Task Force.” (p. 54)

So does Debi trust Tony and Bob’s leadership or does she not? The only answer is more self-contradictory obfuscation.

Birx is horrified that nobody is taking the virus as seriously as they should: “then I saw Tony and Bob repeating that the risk to Americans was low,” she reports. “On February 8, Tony said that the chances of contracting the virus were ‘minuscule.’” And, “on February 29, he said, ‘Right now, at this moment, there is no need to change anything you’re doing on a day-to-day basis.’” (Birx, p. 57)

This does not seem like the kind of leader Birx can trust. She half-heartedly tries to excuse Redfield and Fauci, saying “I now believe that Bob and Tony’s words had spoken to the limited data they had access to from the CDC,” and then, in another whiplash moment, “maybe they had data in the United States that I did not.”

Did Tony and Bob provide less dire warnings because they had insufficient data or because they had more data than Birx did? She never clarifies, but regardless, she assures us that she “trusted them” and “felt reassured every day with them on the task force.” (Birx, p. 57)

If I was worried that the virus was not being taken seriously enough, Birx’s reports on Bob and Tony would not be very reassuring, to say the least.

Apparently, Birx herself felt that way too. “I was somewhat disappointed that Bob and Tony weren’t seeing the situation as I was,” she says, when they disagreed with her alarmist assessments of asymptomatic spread. But, she adds, “at least their number supported my belief that this new disease was far more asymptomatic than the flu. I wouldn’t have to push them as far as I needed to push the CDC.” (Birx, p. 78)

Is someone who disagrees with your assessment to the point that you need to push them in your direction also someone you “implicitly trust” to lead the US through the pandemic?

Apparently, not so much.

Although she supposedly trusts Redfield and sleeps well at night knowing he’s on the Task Force, Birx has nothing but disdain and criticism for the CDC – the organization Redfield leads.

“On aggressive testing I planned to have Tom Frieden [CDC director under Obama] help bring the CDC along,” she recounts. “Like me, the CDC wanted to do everything to stop the virus, but the agency needed to align with us on aggressive testing and silent spread.” (p. 122) Which makes one wonder: If she was so closely aligned with Redfield, the head of the CDC, why did Birx need to bring in a former director – in a direct challenge to the sitting one – to “bring the CDC along?” Who is “us” if not Birx, Fauci and Redfield?

Masks were another issue of apparent contention. Birx is frustrated because the CDC, led by her “we’ve-got-each-other’s-back” bestie, Bob Redfield (Birx, p. 31), will not issue strict enough masking guidelines. In fact, she repeatedly throws Bob’s organization under the bus, basically accusing them of causing American deaths: “For many weeks and months to come,” she writes, “I fretted over how many lives could have been saved if the CDC had trusted the public to understand that …masks would do no harm and could potentially do a great deal of good.” (Birx, p. 86)

Apparently, Fauci was not on board with the masking either, as Birx says that “getting the doctors, including Tom [Frieden] and Tony, to be in complete agreement with me about asymptomatic spread was slightly less of a priority. As with masks, I knew I could return to that issue as soon as I got their buy-in on our recommendations.” (Birx, p. 123)

Who is making “our recommendations” if not Birx, Fauci and Redfield?
The myth of the troika

Whether or not she trusted them (and it’s hard to believe, based on her own accounts, that she did), it was apparently very important to Birx that she, Fauci and Redfield appear as a single entity with no disagreements whatsoever.

When Scott Atlas, an outsider not privy to whatever power plays were happening on the Task Force, came in, his presence apparently rattled Birx (Atlas, p. 83-4), and for good reason. Atlas immediately noticed strange goings-on. In his book, he repeatedly uses words like “bizarre,” “odd” and “uncanny” to describe how Fauci, Redfield and Birx behaved. Most notably, they never ever questioned or disagreed with one another in Task Force meetings. Not ever.

“They shared thought processes and views to an uncanny level,” Atlas writes, then reiterates that “there was virtually no disagreement among them.” What he saw “was an amazing consistency, as though there were an agreed-upon complicity” (Atlas, pp. 99-100). They “virtually always agreed, literally never challenging one another.” (p. 101) [BOLDFACE ADDED]

An agreed-upon complicity? Uncanny agreement? Based on all of the disagreements reported by Birx and her repeated questioning and undermining of Bob and Tony’s authority, how can this be explained?

I would contend that in order to obscure the extent to which Birx alone was in charge of Task Force policy, the other doctors were compelled to present a facade of complete agreement. Otherwise, as with any opposition to, or even discussion of, potential harms of lockdown policies, “millions of Amercans would die.”

This assessment is strengthened by Atlas’s ongoing bafflement and distress at how the Task Force – and particularly the doctors/scientists who were presumably formulating policy based on data and research – functioned:

“I never saw them act like scientists, digging into the numbers to verify the very trends that formed the basis of their reactive policy pronouncements. They did not act like researchers, using critical thinking to dissect the published science or differentiate a correlation from a cause. They certainly did not show a physician’s clinical perspective. With their single-minded focus, they did not even act like public health experts.” (Atlas, p. 176)

Atlas was surprised, indeed stunned, that “No one on the Task Force presented any data” to justify lockdowns or to contradict the evidence on lockdown harms that Atlas presented. (Atlas, p. 206) More specifically, no data or research was ever presented (except by Atlas) to contradict or question anything Birx said. “Until I arrived,” Atlas observes, “no one had challenged anything she said during her six months as the Task Force Coordinator.” (Atlas, p. 234) [BOLDFACE ADDED]

Atlas cannot explain what he’s witnessing. “That was all part of the puzzle of the Task Force doctors,” he states. “There was a lack of scientific rigor in meetings I attended. I never saw them question the data. The striking uniformity of opinion by Birx, Redfield, Fauci, and (Brett) Giroir [former Admiral and Task Force “testing czar”] was not anything like what I had seen in my career in academic medicine.” (Atlas, p. 244)

How can we explain the puzzle of this uncanny apparent complicity by the Task Force troika?
Methinks the intelligence agent also doth protest too much

An interesting hint comes from the string of anecdotes comprising Matthew Lawrence’s New Yorker article “The Plague Year.” Lawrence writes that Matt Pottinger (the NSC liaison to Birx) tried to convince Task Force members that masking could stop the virus “‘dead in its tracks’” but his views “stirred up surprisingly rigid responses from the public-health contingent.” Lawrence continues to report that “In Pottinger’s opinion, when Redfield, Fauci, Birx, and (Stephen) Hahn spoke, it could sound like groupthink,” implying that those were the members of the “public-health contingent” who did not agree with Pottinger’s masking ideas.

But wait. We just noted Birx’s frustration, indeed deep regret, that the CDC led by Redfield, as well as Fauci (and even Frieden) did not agree with her ideas on asymptomatic spread and masking. So why does Pottinger imply that she and the “public-health contingent” of the Task Force were group-thinking this issue, against him?

I would suggest that the only way to make sense of these contradictions within Birx’s narrative and between her, Atlas and Pottinger’s stories, is if we understand “align with us” and “our recommendations” to refer not to the perceived Birx-Fauci-Redfield troika, but to the Birx-Pottinger-lab leak cabal that was actually running the show.

In fact, Birx and Pottinger put so much effort into insisting on the solidarity of the troika, even when it contradicts their own statements, that the question inevitably arises: what do they have to gain from it? The benefit of insisting that Birx was allied with Fauci, Redfield and the “public-health contingent” on the Task Force, I would argue, is that this deflects attention from the Birx-Pottinger-cabal non-public-health alliance.
Her authority and policies emanated from a hidden source

The explanation of Atlas’s perceived “puzzle of the Task Force doctors” that makes the most sense to me is that Deborah Birx, in contrast and often in opposition to the other doctors on the Task Force, represented the interests of what I’m calling the lab leak cabal: those not just in the US but in the international intelligence/biosecurity community who needed to cover up a potentially devastating lab leak and who wanted to impose draconian lockdown measures such as the world had never known.

Who exactly they were and why they needed lockdowns are subjects of ongoing investigations.

In the meantime, once we separate Birx from Trump, from the rest of the administration, and from the others on the Task Force, we can see clearly that her single-minded and scientifically nonsensical emphasis on silent spread and asymptomatic testing was geared toward a single goal: to scare everyone so much that lockdowns would appear to be a sensible policy. This is the same strategy that was, uncannily in my opinion, implemented almost to the letter in nearly every other country around the world. But that’s for the next article.

I’ll close this chapter of the Birx riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, with Scott Atlas’s report of his parting conversation with President Trump:

“‘You were right about everything, all along the way,’” Trump said to Atlas. “‘And you know what? You were also right about something else. Fauci wasn’t the biggest problem of all of them. It really wasn’t him. You were right about that.’ I found myself nodding as I held the phone in my hand,” Atlas says. “I knew exactly whom he was talking about.” (Atlas, p. 300)

And now, so do we.
Author

Debbie Lerman

Debbie Lerman has a degree in English from Harvard. She is a retired science writer and a practicing artist in Philadelphia, PA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVeeDhZCSws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVeeDhZCSws

I can't BELIEVE he just said this | Redacted with Clayton Morris
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Dr. Anthony Fauci says that he never ordered lockdowns and he does not regret them anyway because there was no lasting irreparable damage. Really??? Tell that to people who were late to detect cancer, people who died alone in hospitals, children who are painfully behind in school, people who developed addictions, people who suffered from domestic abuse... This list could go on. But yea, no irreparable damage.

"What did they know and when did they know it."
Dr. Stan Monteith M.D.
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https://brownstone.org/articles/covi...tm_source=push

Covid was Spreading Across the U.S. in 2019

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By Bill Rice August 31, 2022

If it could be proven that the virus that causes COVID-19 was spreading throughout the world by November 2019 (or even earlier), the shift in the Covid narrative might be seismic.

For example, if the virus had already infected large numbers of people, the justification for the lockdowns of mid-March 2020 to “slow or stop the spread” of a newly arrived virus would be shown to be nonsense.

Estimates of the number of people who had already developed natural immunity as well as of the infection fatality rate (IFR) might be dramatically different. It would suggest the disease was not nearly as lethal as experts proclaimed. The mass fear in the public – a prerequisite for lockdowns and later for mass vaccinations – might be much lower.

Given these points, it’s odd public health officials and investigative journalists have eschewed serious investigations that might confirm this virus had already spread around the world before January 1st 2020.

A commonsense project to ‘prove’ early spread was occurring would be simply to test tranches of blood that were donated before the birth date of the official outbreak (December 31st 2019).

Surprisingly, however, very few antibody studies of archived blood collected before December 31st 2019 have occurred. Will Jones of The Daily Skeptic recently highlighted one such study published by researchers in France as well as a sewage study from Brazil. The first provides antibody evidence and the second RNA evidence the novel coronavirus was spreading by November 2019 in these countries.

To Will’s list, I’d add the only antibody study of archived Red Cross blood conducted by the U.S. CDC to date. This study found 39 antibody-positive serum samples collected December 13th-16th 2019 in California, Washington and Oregon (2% of blood samples collected from these states tested positive for antibodies).

As it takes the human body one to two weeks to produce detectable levels of antibodies, most of these 39 antibody-positive donors had been infected in November 2019 if not earlier.

For some reason, American officials performed only one antibody study of blood collected by blood bank organizations. It’s also strange that results of this study were not published until November 30th 2020 – more than 11 months after the first tranche of archived Red Cross blood had been collected.

In a CDC press briefing held May 29th 2020, CDC officials stated they’d searched for and could find no evidence the novel coronavirus had been “introduced” anywhere in America prior to January 20th 2020.

I believe this statement was false as by the time this press briefing was held, copious evidence of early spread had already been disseminated via published news accounts. For example, I’ve identified at least 17 Americans who were sick with definite Covid symptoms in November and December 2019 and all 17 had antibody evidence of prior infection. Also, all 17 of these reports were published by prominent news organizations at least 13 days before this press conference.

While a source of important evidence, antibody studies are not necessary to prove that early spread almost certainly occurred in America. Close examination of individual case histories also allows one confidently to reach this conclusion. What follows is a summary of three individual histories that lead me to conclude community spread was already occurring in America by November 2019 and probably October 2019.

For details on other American cases that date to December 2019, see this Seattle Times story and a feature story I wrote that, for some reason, was completely ignored by the mainstream press and public health officials, a fact I document in this follow-up article.

Case 1: Michael Melham of Belleville, NJ

Michael Melham, the Mayor of Belleville, NJ, was among a large group of New Jersey municipal employees who attended a conference in Atlantic City on November 19th-21st 2019. While at the conference, Melham experienced symptoms common to COVID-19.

“I was definitely feeling sick when I was there, and fought my way through it,” Mayor Melham told NJ Advance Media on April 30th 2020.

“I have never been sicker in my entire life,” the Mayor said. “These symptoms included a 102-degree fever, chills, hallucinations and a sore throat that lasted for three weeks.” In a story published by Fox News, Mayor Melham said the illness made him feel “like a heroin addict going through withdrawals… I didn’t know what was happening to me. I never felt that I could be so sick.“

Mayor Melham felt sick enough to contact his doctor who diagnosed him with the flu. However, this diagnosis was given “over the phone” and Melham never actually received a flu test.

In late April 2020, Melham visited his doctor for his annual physical and brought up his November illness. The doctor administered an antibody test, which came back positive for Covid antibodies.

Melham later told me he actually received two positive antibody tests (previous reports mentioned just one).

“My first antibody test was a rapid test. My second was a blood test that was sent to a lab. Both were positive for the longer antibody,” Mayor Melham wrote in one email.

Mayor Melham has repeatedly made the important (if ignored) point that he tested positive for the ‘long’ (IgG) antibody. He tested negative for the IgM antibody. The presence of IgM antibodies indicate more recent infection and, per studies, these antibodies fade and are only detectable for about a month after infection.

This combination of antibody results would seem to rule out the possibility Mayor Melham experienced an asymptomatic case of Covid in the month before receiving his first antibody test. The only time Melham was sick was November 2020.

He added: “I will also tell you that since the media attention surrounding my claim, many others have come forward. I have emails from those who were actually at the same conference in Atlantic City NJ, who became just as sick as I was.”

Those who wish to gauge the credibility of the Mayor’s claims can view this four-minute YouTube interview with Mayor Melham.

I also asked Mayor Melham a question no other journalist seems to have asked him. “Did any public health official ever contact you to investigate your possible case?”

Melham’s email response: “No, nothing.”

DISCUSSION

Multiple acquaintances as well as his physician would confirm Melham was sick with symptoms common to Covid victims in November. Since he received two positive antibody tests, if the results were a false positive, he received two false positives.

As noted, Mayor Melham reports receiving emails from “multiple people… who were at the same conference who became just as sick as I was”. This would suggest the presence of community spread – a possibility which might have been confirmed if contact tracers had tested the people who’d been sick at the same conference for antibodies.

We know no public health officials contacted Mayor Melham to investigate his claim. We also know, thanks to nj.com‘s reporting, that state health officials were aware of his claim:

“Asked about the Mayor’s statements, the state health department declined comment. A spokesperson for Gov. Phil Murphy did not immediately respond to a message.”

The following points should also be emphasized. If his diagnosis had been confirmed by public health officials, Mayor Melham would have been the first known Covid case in the world, and would have been the first confirmed case in America by approximately 61 days (the first official case in America is still recorded as January 20th 2020 – a man from Washington state who had recently returned from Wuhan).

Significantly, Mayor Melham can date the onset of his symptoms. Per numerous studies, it takes two to 14 days after infection for symptoms to manifest. This means Mayor Melham would have been infected some time between November 5th and November 19th 2019.

Since Mayor Melham did not give the virus to himself, logic tells us the chain of transmission that ended with Michael Melham being symptomatic around November 20th 2019 very possibly began before November 1st 2019. This would mean that community spread was possibly occurring in New Jersey as early as October 2019.

Case 2: Uf Tukel of Delray Beach, Florida

As reported by Palm Beach Post on May 16th 2020:

“At least 11 people… on two small blocks alone… in a small Delray Beach (Florida) neighborhood tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in April. They felt symptoms as early as November (2019). “It didn’t have a name back then, but I have no doubt now that it was the coronavirus,” one neighbor said.”

The article names seven of these individuals and provides details and quotes about their symptoms. These seven people include Uf Tukel who was “first among (residents of the neighborhood) to feel sick in late November (2019)… For weeks, he had body aches, a severe cough and night sweats/”

While “Tukel is reluctant to say he had the coronavirus a month before Chinese officials reported the outbreak to the World Health Organisation, ‘I had all the symptoms though,’ Tukel said.”

The same logic applied to Michael Melham’s possible case would apply to Mr. Tukel’s possible case. That is, the unknown person who infected Mr. Tukel was infected earlier than Tukel, and the unknown person who infected this person contracted the virus even earlier, suggesting early spread was also happening by some point in November, if not October, in Delray Beach, Florida.

If confirmed, Mr. Tukel’s case would indicate that American cases in November were not isolated to the state of New Jersey.

Several other points included in the Post’s coverage deserve attention.

These possible Delray Beach cases include two couples, with one spouse presumably infecting the other. One child of one of these couples became infected, providing further evidence of community spread.

According to the story, none of the individuals experienced close contacts with other non-family residents of the same neighborhood. That is, there seems to be no evidence of neighbor-to-neighbor transmission.

According to the story, “all (11 individuals) recovered and haven’t been sick since”. None of the 11 had travelled to China.

Like Michael Melham, none of these 11 people tested positive for the ‘short’ (IgM) antibodies – thus none had been recently infected.

The Post article also includes this eye-opening information: “Since March (2020) about two-fifths (approximately 200, 40%) of the 500 antibody tests taken by Xera Med (a DelRay Beach private testing lab/medical clinic) have been positive, said CEO Emily Rentz.” The first two confirmed cases in Florida were recorded March 1st.

The following sentence from this article might be even more significant: “The lab shares its data on positive tests with the state health department, (Rentz) added.”

And from the same article: “The state wouldn’t say whether it is collecting antibody data from hospitals or private laboratories.”

The Post article referenced a May 5th article by the same newspaper:

“In Florida, health department reports show patients who eventually tested positive for the virus experienced symptoms as early as January. The Florida Department of Health hasn’t explained those potential fault lines in the state’s assertion that the first cases didn’t appear in Florida until March.”

The fact 40% of 500 antibody tests administered by the clinic between March and early May 2020 tested positive for Covid antibodies suggests infections were widespread in this community. And according to the CEO of this lab, these antibody results were being shared with Florida State Department of Health officials.

And apparently these weren’t the only positive antibody results that were being reported by testing labs. As reported in the same article:

The University of Miami, in randomly testing Miami-Dade County residents for antibodies, has found that the rate of infection could be 16 times higher than state data suggests, said Dr. Erin Kobetz, a professor and lead researcher on the project …

“Since first publishing her findings, Kobetz has heard from several people who shared experiences similar to the Tropic Isle neighbors… They described being sick in December and later testing positive for antibodies. They asked if what they’d experienced was COVID-19.”

Significantly, if we count possible December 2019 cases, Americans from five geographically-dispersed U.S. states were featured in published articles. An unknown number of Americans who’ve never been featured in a newspaper article undoubtedly fit the same profile. If one adds this unknown number of never-identified people to the list of known individuals, evidence the novel coronavirus was spreading widely across America in November and December 2019 becomes even more compelling.

Not every infectious disease expert agrees with the CDC’s assessment that widespread transmission did not begin until January 20th 2020.

“It’s possible that the disease spread as early as November,” Dr. Kobetz said.

As in New Jersey, apparently no official with the Florida Department of Health contacted any of the 11 people referenced in the Post’s article. Nor have public health officials apparently followed up with Emily Renz, CEO of Xera Med, who stated approximately 200 other local residents received positive Covid antibody tests at the clinic between March and the end of April.

Ms. Renz noted that information on all of these positive test results had been forwarded to officials at the state’s health agency. Which prompts this question: How many clinics and testing labs in America also forwarded positive antibody test results to state health agencies, agencies which presumably could and would pass this information along to their colleagues at the CDC or NIH?

What the public doesn’t know but should is how many other Americans – those with lab results not reported in the press – also tested positive for antibodies between March and early May 2020. Presumably, the CDC and state and local health agencies have these data, which have never been released to the public.

Indeed, I’ve come to believe it’s possible at least some high-ranking officials may have conspired to suppress antibody results which, if published, might have led the public to conclude this virus was spreading widely months before officials said it had been introduced in this country. Such knowledge might have changed the way tens of millions of Americans evaluated their personal Covid risk as well as their support for lockdowns.

Case 3: Shane from Marin County, California

Perhaps the first early case in America (with antibody evidence that would confirm infection) is Shane of Marin County, California. Shane’s possible early case was not featured in a newspaper article, but by Shane himself in the reader comments section that followed a May 7th 2020 New York Times story (the story describes symptoms experienced by Covid patients).

Writes Shane: “I had COVID-19 last fall, far earlier than anyone else I’ve heard of. I suspect I caught it while on an overseas trip to Italy and the Middle East – I’ve taken two antibody tests in the past month, both of which confirmed I was infected.”

As Shane recounts, he was extremely sick with signature Covid symptoms.

“For me the worst symptom by far was the dry, unproductive cough. The cough was so intense, so relentless, it left me with bruised ribs and a horrible searing pain in my chest, which also felt as if someone were sitting on it. The fever at one point reached 104.9 upon which I began hallucinating – seeing my dogs talking to me and forgetting how to open a sliding glass door. Horrible chills which led to my teeth chattering so hard my jaw ached were also another noxious gift of Covid.

“What I most remember about my experience with Covid is pain, pain from coughing, pain in my body and head, pain everywhere around me, like a smothering red blanket. At times I felt I was going to die during that week and even today I must admit I am surprised I didn’t.”

Adding credibility to his claim, Shane’s post cited two labs where he claims to have received his positive antibody tests.

“The local health centre in West Marin is where I took the latest one. The other one I took directly at the manufacturer’s location – ARCpoint Labs in Richmond. That one is only 87% accurate and not FDA approved so that’s why I took the more recent one, which was done through Quest Labs I believe.”

In the comment thread, one poster suggests it’s unlikely Shane developed Covid as there had been no reported confirmed cases from that time. This poster opines that Shane was sick with some other nasty virus and later developed an asymptomatic case of Covid. However, Shane stuck to his theory and presented reasons for his opinion.

“I suppose it’s possible but I tend to think that since what I contracted had the exact same symptoms as COVID-19 – that COVID-19 is what I had. In addition, mid-February through mid-March I was in isolation, caring for my sister who died mid-March from metastatic cervical cancer. When COVID-19 made its first appearance in the U.S. in February we very quickly put in strict isolation protocols as my sister had a compromised immune system due to chemotherapy, further insulating myself from contact and infection as well.”

Shane does not report what month he thinks he had Covid – only that it was “last fall… and far earlier than anyone else I’ve heard.” He could have been sick in November or October (maybe even late September). Shane (if he really had Covid) contracted the virus from an unknown person who would have been infected earlier than him.

Shane shared his belief he might have contracted the virus in Italy or in the Middle East, which, if true, would provide more evidence of early global spread. However, it’s also possible he contracted the virus in California.

Shane’s claim was posted in the moderated New York Times’ comments section, meaning one or more Times employees were aware of Shane’s startling claim. I imagine any Covid article, including the popular reader comments, published by the New York Times was also read by at least some employees of the CDC, NIH etc.

As only paid subscribers can make comments in the New York Times comment section, the newspaper possesses Shane’s subscription information. That is, someone at the newspaper could have easily ascertained Shane’s full name and contact information, including his street and email address.

For what it’s worth, I contacted the NY Times via its news tip email address and suggested a reporter follow up on Shane’s eye-opening claim. I did not receive a reply. This leads me to believe the New York Times is not interested in pursuing evidence of early spread in America, even in the case of a person who very well could be the first known Covid case in the world.

Conclusion

At least three Americans (either known, or in Shane’s case, easily identifiable if effort was made) possessed antibody evidence of Covid in November 2019. The infection chain that ultimately produced these symptomatic individuals likely traces to October 2019. Of note, two of these individuals received two positive antibody tests, making a false positive explanation far less likely. These cases occurred not in one state, but three states (New Jersey, Florida and California). Americans from at least 12 U.S. states had antibody evidence of infection prior to mid-January 2020.

As far as I know, none of these 123 Americans (17 Americans identified in press reports and 106 in the Red Cross antibody study) had travelled to China. All 123 are either known or could be identified. (For unstated reasons, the CDC did not interview any of the 106 Americans who provided positive blood samples to the Red Cross.) The figure 123 does not include the unknown individuals who infected these Americans, nor does it include the possible cases that never became known to reporters or the public.

This antibody evidence strongly suggests the novel coronavirus was being transmitted person-to-person throughout the United States well before January 1st 2020, and was probably occurring by October 2019.

If certain officials concealed this truth or were simply too incompetent to figure it out, any trust placed in such authorities is undermined. The above information also suggests that officials are not interested in conducting serious investigations into early spread of the virus, prompting a skeptic to wonder why this might be the case.

My hope is that journalists with more resources than myself, as well as officials and scientists, will belatedly and seriously investigate the strangely-ignored evidence of early spread.

This story also appeared in The Daily Skeptic.
Author

Bill Rice

Bill Rice, Jr. is a freelance journalist in Troy, Alabama.