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A Firehose of Junk Science

Every day is bringing fresh coronavirus quackery disguised as science. Getting COVID makes you dumber ; kids are at significant risk of COVID ; the unvaccinated are driving infections --these are actual, mainstream ideas out there. There are not enough days in the week for me to debunk it all: my vacation is over today; my cracked bathroom ceiling is half-scraped and the fan-light I dropped and broke needs to be replaced; and I badly need some time engaging with people who haven't lost their minds.  So I am calling on readers to sharpen their thinking skills, use the scientific method and learn how to read studies and understand risk. Don't worry--the videos below are entertaining and succinct. In less than an hour, you'll know more about science than most reporters on the news.  * * * * * This four-minute video by Gerd Gigerenzer shows you the difference between relative and absolute risk--or how Pfizer can claim, with a straight face, 90% effectiveness for a vaccine that

Kids and the Delta Variant: the Crazy Maker Edition

Have you ever known a crazy-maker--someone who lied, exaggerated, and caused trouble for its own sake? At some point, it's wise to ignore them or even cut off contact. While we can't stop the corona kiddie crazy-making in the media, we can hold it up to scrutiny by looking at more reliable sources than Nurse Ratched and tabloid journalists working for organizations formerly known as newspapers.  Would you take advice from this woman? Stock photo from Pexels . If you think I'm exaggerating, the Miami Herald quotes an epidemiologist : Mary Jo Trepka, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at Florida International University, said the spike in pediatric hospitalizations over the last week was preventable. “It’s very unfortunate,” she said. “ These kids didn’t even get to make the decisions that are impacting their health.” Trepka said she is especially concerned about kids starting school again. She urged parents to get their eligible children 12 and older vaccina

Pandemic of the Unvaccinated--Right?

I'm starting to wonder if I should cancel my trip to West Virginia and go someplace without COVID--someplace with a high vaccination rate where they've pretty much gotten rid of COVID. That's how it works, right--when enough people get vaccinated, you get rid of COVID? We only have a 50% vaccination rate here in the US. It's only 43% in West Virginia. The horror! It's put us in a pandemic of the unvaccinated, according to the CDC  in an article from a few weeks ago.  People who are fully vaccinated are protected against severe Covid-19, including the delta variant, [CDC Director Dr. Rochelle] Walensky said. Where to jet off to? England seems like a nice place, so full of pretty scenery, history, and impressive architecture and twee towns. The UK has an impressive vaccination rate of 73%, too. There must not be much COVID there...right? Source: Spectator UK Oh! They must have taken most of their vaccines around the end of July...right? Source: Spectator UK Wait...wa

Schedule Labs, Procedures NOW

Our health care heroes who worked through the pandemic are now getting fired if they won't take one of the experimental COVID vaccines. It started with a few major hospitals, but others are now following the institutional imperative .  Hospitals are already short-staffed and this policy can only make it worse. Just last week, ten hospitals in Indianapolis were on diversion , meaning they were too full to accept new patients. One ambulance driver had to take a patient eighty miles away. The article linked to says it's not because of COVID or a lack of beds, but a shortage of nurses.  Indy hospitals aren't alone. Lots of nurses nationwide retired during the pandemic, there's a backlog of patients who put off care, and now some nurses are leaving over vaccine mandates. Even companies that have nothing to do with health care and whose jobs don't put employees at any elevated risk for catching COVID have jumped on the bandwagon.  So far, I haven't seen any labs issue

No Death Reduction, Little Benefit in Vaccine Study, but Employers Demand Jab

Update : Twitter suspended writer Alex Berenson , who  accurately reported some of the disappointing results of Pfizer's COVID vaccine trial described below. The message stated, "we require the removal of content that may pose a risk to people's health, including content that goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources of global and local public health information." His account has been reinstated with the "misleading" label removed from the tweet. If you still think tech censorship is fine, I'm not sure what to say. The vaccine evangelists have been spreading more than the good news about sanctification through injection. The incidents of breakthrough cases in vaccinated people have piled up to the point that the CDC has gone back to recommending masks even for fully vaccinated people. If you can get COVID, you can spread COVID. Of course, nobody has spread it intentionally, and I'm not faulting anybody who got a vaccination and went

Vaccine Mandates May Make Healthcare Worse

"It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.” -John Ioannidis on lockdowns Such is the case with vaccine mandates for health care workers. California, New York City and the Veterans Administration--among the worst-run states, the worst-run cities, and the worst-run federal agencies in the US--are either requiring employees to get vaccinated or requiring frequent testing for non-vaccinated employees. No matter what your stance is on COVID vaccines, it's important to think beyond stage one before making a policy, which nobody in charge seems to have done.  The first problem is that some--perhaps many--of the vaccine records are fakes. There's apparently a big black market for forged shot records. Given how easily they could be forged--I could whip one up on the computer in five minutes--it's surprising that people want to buy a pre-printed one.  The second problem is th

What is the Exit Plan?

Surgeon General Jerome Adams said last year that we were about to have a "Pearl Harbor" moment. It didn't feel like World War II then, but now, I feel like I'm sipping Veuve Clicquot at Rick's Café Américain in Casablanca as the world burns. New Zealand just ended a stay-at-home order , while  officials in Australia told citizens not to even have a conversation with neighbors they come in contact with . (No, these aren't links to the Babylon Bee .) Six hundred thousand people were "pinged" in the UK and asked to stay home. Meantime, I spent part of my day at the office deciding whether to have the bison fajitas or the new beef parfait (shredded beef on mashed potatoes) at the upcoming state fair and then wondered where to stay on vacation in West Virginia. It felt decadent. Going to a fair and planning a vacation should feel normal .  State Fair. Source: Pixabay . West Virginia  is done with restrictions;  Indiana , pretty much so. But what is the ex