Free Republic

Few people in 2020 came under more heat than Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top epidemiologist.But the man who forged Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to COVID-19 early in the pandemic says new international data reveal a hard truth about government lockdowns.“I think people will probably think very carefully about these total shutdowns, how good they really were,” Tegnell told Reuters in a recent interview. “They may have had an effect in the short term, but when you look at it throughout the pandemic, you become more and more doubtful.”Tegnell was referring to data published by Reuters that show Sweden, which shunned the strict...

Powers that be want to f@#$ us, and we have no choice, because they restrict us just for the privilege of continuing to exist.

We are committing a grave mistake by rejecting our Lord and God Jesus Christ by staying away because government officials say we must,’ the priest said... Irish Catholic priest Father P.J. Hughes has once again been confronted by police. Hughes was fined €500 fine for not turning people away from Mass during the current COVID-19 lockdown. Fr. Hughes, of Mullahoran parish in Co. Cavan, was reportedly approached by Gardai (Irish police) and presented with a €500 fine. His perceived offense was refusing to turn away members of his congregation who turned up in the church for Mass, since he refuses...

There’s no proof that lockdowns save lives but plenty of evidence that they end them... Now that the 2020 figures have been properly tallied, there’s still no convincing evidence that strict lockdowns reduced the death toll from Covid-19. But one effect is clear: more deaths from other causes, especially among the young and middle-aged, minorities, and the less affluent. The best gauge of the pandemic’s impact is what statisticians call “excess mortality,” which compares the overall number of deaths with the total in previous years. That measure rose among older Americans because of Covid-19, but it rose at an even...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered his “sincere condolences” to people who have lost loved ones to the pandemic on the one-year anniversary of lockdown. “The last 12 months has taken a huge on us all, and I offer my sincere condolences to those who have lost loved ones,” Johnson wrote in a statement shared on social media.

On Monday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show,” White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said he doesn’t think the United States made mistakes with lockdowns. Host Hugh Hewitt asked, “If you’re studying the data, have you led to any conclusion on lockdowns? Because we have some states like California that went in hard for lockdowns, they’re not doing any better, indeed, they might be doing worse than Florida, which did not go in for lockdowns at all. So, the sunk costs on lockdown are enormous and prevent people from dealing with it objectively. But you understand sunk costs. Did we make...

In multiple articles I have published recently I outlined why an attempt at a new national covid lockdown in the US is inevitable. In my article ‘The Real Reasons Why Millions Of Americans Will Defy Covid Mandates And Vaccines’, I examined new polling numbers which show that a vast portion of the US population is refusing to comply with medical controls. The bottom line is this: Covid is a non-threat to 99.7% of the public, and the citizenry is getting wise to this fact. However, there are certain people that NEED the pandemic lockdowns to continue regardless of what the...

Carlson: They want you to know that defiance is the real crime.. Tucker Carlson updated viewers Friday on the status of Michigan restaurant owner Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, who appeared on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" earlier in the week to discuss how authorities were trying to have her arrested for operating her business during the coronavirus pandemic. CARLSON: Marlena Pavlos-Hackney is in jail. She was arrested very early this morning, before 6 a.m. by police, taken away in ankle shackles and wrist cuffs. One of the few people in this country who gets up really early to go to work because she really...

Ventura County just announced that it is dropping lawsuits against the remaining five businesses which had resisted COVID lockdown restrictions. BUT, not churches as we learned today from a VC church... .. Per Emily Gardner, Principal Assistant County Counsel, the businesses are: The 5 most recently dismissed cases involved the following businesses: The Original Pizza Cookery Oxnard Bootcamp LLC (referred to as Colosseum Bootcamp) House of Gains Gym, Inc. (referred to as House of Gains) Mrs. Olson’s Coffee Hut Westlake Fitness LLC (referred to as Anytime Fitness Westlake) The previously dismissed cases involved the following businesses: Endo Fitness TO LLC...

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health previously revoked the eatery's health permit, and the Burbank City Council last month revoked its conditional-use permit.. A judge ruled Tuesday that the city of Burbank can padlock the doors at a Burbank bar and restaurant that has continued operating despite the issuance of a temporary restraining order allowing the city to enforce its closure order. But in the latest round of back-and-forth between the city and bar, the owners of Tinhorn Flat removed the doors.. "We found out a judge signed off on padlocking our doors, so we took maters into...

“The object of power is power,” and, it’s important to add, the exercise thereof. We as Americans have seen the truth of that bit of wisdom played out all over our nation for the past year, and the results have been horrifying. Power-mad Democrats and Republicans alike have discovered that most Americans are perfectly willing to become imprisoned in their homes, deny their children access to education, have their freedoms of association, assembly and religion stolen from them, see their friends and neighbors be put out of jobs and have their businesses destroyed and walk around wearing masks like every...

The lines used to be so clear. On the one side were free markets, free societies, and openly-elected representative governments. On the other, was the force of totalitarianism choking off individual initiative, private ownership of property, and providing a ballot box with but one choice, normally defined as communism. The ideological lines were drawn as a titanic battle ensued across an iron curtain. The Western world united in a mixture of proud, independent, sovereign nations to fend off the creeping black plague that swallowed whole nations and erased their identities. In the end, the “Evil Empire” disintegrated under the weight...

Up to 16 million people in the United States may have had undiagnosed, asymptomatic COVID-19 as of September 2020 -- twice as many as previously estimated -- an analysis published Tuesday by JAMA Network Open reported. Just under 7% of about 62,000 people in the United States with no symptoms of infection tested in the study had antibodies against the virus, the data showed.. Antibodies are cells produced by the immune system to fight off infection, and their presence in blood suggests that people either are battling the virus or were recently. The nearly 16 million asymptomatic cases is more...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – When Southern California’s theme parks reopen as early as April, it could be with one very significant and silent difference: no screaming on rides. The California Attractions and Parks Association (CAPA), a trade group which represents theme parks statewide, is backing a plan that would tamp down on shouting on rides, such as rollercoasters, in an effort to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus... California’s reopening guidelines calls for businesses to limit activities that can spread the virus, such as singing and shouting. That means that visitors to parks such as Disneyland, Universal Studios, Six...

Pastor James Coates’ church had been admitting believers exceeding 15 percent of the building’s capacity, violating lockdowns in Alberta... EDMONTON, Alberta,.... Canadian Pastor James Coates, who was jailed for holding church services amid COVID lockdowns, will soon be released from prison. His legal team announced today that Crown prosecutors agreed to drop most of the charges. “The Justice Centre today announced that Crown Prosecutors have agreed to withdraw all but one of the Public Health Act offences that Pastor James Coates has been charged with. The Justice Centre expects Pastor Coates will be released from jail in the coming days,...

With election season over and a Democrat president safely in the White House, the mainstream media appears to have gained an increased willingness to acknowledge greater nuances in the debate over COVID-19 response policies than was the norm at the height of the public health panic. Over the weekend, the Associated Press published a report acknowledging that “California and Florida have experienced almost identical outcomes in COVID-19 case rates,” despite the former state imposing some of the most draconian lockdown measures in the United States under Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the latter state remaining mostly open under Republican Gov....

In the latest episode of “TRUTH” with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kennedy sat down with the iconic Naomi Wolf for a spirited discussion on abuse of power, standing up to tyranny and preserving our Constitution. Wolf explained how tyrants always follow the same predictable route in their attempts to bring democracies to a close and how she believes our society has reached “Step 10” of her “Fascism in 10 Easy Steps.”

There is no evidence shutdowns did anything but deepen the economic suffering, increase suicides, and prevent lifesaving medical tests and treatments.The government response to COVID-19 has mostly been a failure. Theatric, yes—see New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Emmy. Symbolic, yes. But there is no evidence shutdowns did anything but deepen the economic suffering, increase suicides, and prevent lifesaving medical tests and treatments.With the exception of former President Trump’s effort to speed research, approval, and rollout of a COVID vaccine through Operation Warp Speed, and efforts to discourage the spread of the virus through border restrictions (now abandoned by President Biden),...

If a child doesn't have to die to save grandma from coronavirus, why would we ever let that child die? A heartbreaking longread from ProPublica challenges the nation.One year ago, when lockdowns began, Americans were told we had to make a terrible choice akin to the climax of the superhero movies in which a villain threatens two things the hero loves, forcing him to choose which to save and which to sacrifice. We were told that millions of Americans were going to die from a Chinese supervirus, and the only way to reduce that death toll from inflating even higher...

When the state announced its own version of lockdowns and face mask mandates last spring, Peaster briefly experimented with remote learning. But a survey of parents and students showed that a majority didn’t like it. When it came time for classes to start in August, Peaster simply ignored most of the mandates. They continued their classes as usual. For both teachers and students alike, if you wanted to wear a mask you were free to do so. If not, you didn’t. It was as simple as that. They didn’t move the student’s desks any further apart. Nobody was learning “remotely”...