Free Republic

thousands of elderly COVID patients in the United Kingdom were secretly euthanized in April 2020 ... This disturbing claim came from an investigation directed by Wilson Sy, director, Investment Analytics Research Australia, and ... The alleged euthanasia claim seems unlikely because in the U.K., it is regarded as either manslaughter or murder by the National Health Service ... Having had a career in analytics, I was skeptical. I reviewed the ResearchGate investigation documentation fully expecting to find fake news. Instead, I found that the report was exceptionally well researched and documented, and the claim appears valid. The truth was buried...

The Minister for Healthcare, Willum Thor Thorsson, said that with the current level of infections, continued restrictions are useless. “Restrictions do not have any effect at this point in time,” he said. The Health Ministry also said the way to end the pandemic is herd immunity through infections, and it wants “as many people as possible” to be infected to achieve “widespread societal resistance”. Vaccines will not provide the necessary immunity.

Carlos A. Rodríguez

President Obama's re-election team has already been lauded for its mastery of data and organziation, but a feature in today's The New York Times looks at another secret, and more subtle, weapon: Behavioral science. Reporter Benedict Carey talks to some of the members of the campaign's "COBS" team, an informal group of unpaid advisors who shared their knowledge on the latest academic research and theories on how to influence the public's knowledge behavior. Publicly, the group—which it gave itself the name of "consortium of behavioral scientists"—where just friendly volunteers offering advice. None of the social scientists and psychologists who took...

The Amish claim of herd immunity was previously reported by Associated Press and other news organizations, but didn't get wide circulation. The propagandists and fake fact checkers didn't challenge the topic at the time. But my report on the same, which aired last Sunday on Full Measure, must be having an impact. In response, Facebook's Health Feedback propagandists have made several false and unsupported claims in an attempt to discredit The Amish approach and the reporting about it. The fake fact-checkers falsely claim that "natural immunity post-infection is variable, while vaccination provides safer and more reliable immunity." The bulk of...

Research shows the U.S. had reached what some scientists believed to be "herd immunity" status against Covid-19 last May, with more than 80% of the population immune to Covid either through natural infection or vaccination. And the actual number of immune Americans may be higher. That's because the new study, funded by the Centers or Disease Control (CDC), factored in only 20% of the population as being protected through natural infection after recovering from Covid-19. But over three months ago, CDC estimated the naturally-infected population to be substantially higher: more than 120 million or 36%. And after the spread of...

Israel will likely achieve herd immunity for coronavirus in the next month or two, top health officials said as the Delta variant continues to rage through the country. The recent spike in infections coupled with the country’s aggressive booster campaign for the third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine could mean “there is a good chance that in the next month or two, we’ll reach a situation that is very similar to herd immunity,” officials were quoted as saying, according to a report by Kan public broadcaster this week.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to US President Joe Biden, described his work fighting the novel coronavirus, his time working alongside former President Donald Trump and currently under Biden, in an interview with Channel 13 News on Wednesday night. "I would say consistently that my worst nightmare would be the appearance of a new virus that jumps species from an animal host to a human that would have two characteristics: one, that it would jump extraordinarily easy from person to person, and two, it had the capability of resulting in a considerable degree in morbidity and mortality, said Fauci....

Of all the moving goal posts in the COVID-19 pandemic, herd immunity may be the most difficult to pin down — and it may even be the wrong metric to track. Herd immunity is the concept that once a majority of the population has been vaccinated or has natural immunity to an infectious disease, in this case SARS-CoV-2, life will shift back to normal. But to listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is to hear him downplay the focus on this “elusive” concept...

(CNN)If you think herd immunity is the finish line to this pandemic, it's time for a reality check. Herd immunity with Covid-19 could come and go, scientists say. Or we might never reach it at all. "There's a lot of things that have to go our way to actually get to herd immunity," said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. But don't panic. Here's why it's possible to dip in and out of herd immunity, and what you can do now to maximize the chances of snuffing out Covid-19 for good:

The United States will reach a level of herd immunity to COVID-19 that will allow for a return to normal by April, according to Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Makary noted that the number of COVID-19 cases is down 77% in the last six weeks. He claimed this is due to natural immunity among people who have been previously infected and the 15% of the population already vaccinated. Depending on the estimate, herd immunity to the coronavirus is thought to be...

Excluding those currently ineligible for vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 due to age or other conditions leaves 75% of Americans with no restrictions on vaccination. Factoring in the 13% of Americans who definitely don’t want the vaccine and the 7% who would get it only if it was required means just 49.5% of Americans would have immunity in the near future. If half of those who are in a wait-and-see mode don’t get vaccinated — another 15% of the population — then we are looking at just 40% vaccine coverage of the currently eligible population, far below the 70% needed for herd...

Lockdown measures, such as closing schools, likely prolonged the epidemic by preventing the virus from naturally moving through low-risk populations and building herd immunity. A recent study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that the closing of schools in response to the novel coronavirus could actually increase overall deaths resulting from the disease. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh reevaluated a model produced by the Imperial College London earlier this year that prompted the extensive government lockdown measures, including the closing of schools, implemented in the U.K., ... school closures and isolation of younger people would increase the...

Top scientists are calling for a herd immunity approach to the coronavirus pandemic by allowing people who are less vulnerable to the effects of the disease to return to normal life. The so-called Great Barrington declaration, signed by leading experts from the universities of Oxford, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Cambridge, Sussex and York, suggests herd immunity as a way forward. The declaration states: "The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to coronavirus through natural...

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned about a staggering death toll from the coronavirus, particularly among vulnerable people, if the US allows the infections to sweep across the country in a bid to achieve possible herd immunity. “If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people without symptoms … a lot of people are going to die,” the nation’s top infectious diseases expert said during a live Instagram session Thursday with actor Matthew McConaughey, CNN reported.

Redefining - and radically cheapening - the human species in the eyes of its constituent members. Back in the 1980s, when I worked as the editor of leftish magazines in Ireland, I came to see that photographers were often more journalistic in their existential curiosity than the scribbling kind of NUJ member. I could not escape that the lensmen who shuffled into my office were always odd, watchful customers, who gazed into the souls of their subjects and seemed to look upon their fellow humans as unfinished entities, or maybe as beings lacking the necessary knowledge to make themselves whole....

Conclusion: as the epidemic whirls on, the effective HIT drops dynamically, down-- at the end-- to only 10%. And-- for everyone worried about whether or not effective first wave suppression has just left everyone vulnerable, and implies a nearly-as-big second wave once distancing is reduced: the model nicely predicts that removing the "highly susceptibles" from the population in the first wave makes the second wave likely rather muted.

This video is called, “Customers In Packed Colorado Coffee Shop Ignore Mask And Distancing Advice.” They all look under the age of 60. I support their actions. I hope they help create herd immunity. This video is called, “Customers In Packed Colorado Coffee Shop Ignore Mask And Distancing Advice.”Everyone in the video looks under the age of 60.I support their actions.I hope they help create herd immunity.Please be sure to check out this other blog post that I wrote: Here are 44 reasons why I’m against the COVID-19 lockdownshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulTS0IDpg_M

Sweden's ambassador to the U.S. believes the country's controversial strategy of imposing only limited restrictions — and not locking down the country — is bearing success, with the capital, Stockholm, on course to reach herd immunity in the next few weeks. "About 30% of people in Stockholm have reached a level of immunity," Karin Ulrika Olofsdotter told NPR. "We could reach herd immunity in the capital as early as next month."

The Prime Minister of Sweden has issued a stark warning to his citizens, telling them to prepare for innumerable deaths following the country's laid back attitude to Covid-19. Stefan Löfven's grim message came after some 2,300 doctors and academics hurled criticism at Sweden for not taking the pandemic seriously - barely tightening up preventative methods. Social Democrat Löfven warned citizens to prepare for thousands of deaths. To the amazement of many European countries, who have for the most part enforced lockdowns and social distancing measures, life in Sweden has been permitted to go on with relative normality. Many bars, eateries,...