It may be one of the most surefire findings in all of social psychology, repeatedly replicated over almost five decades of study: American conservatives say they are much happier than American liberals. They also report greater meaning and purpose in their lives, and higher overall life satisfaction. These links are so solidly evidenced that, for the most part, modern social scientists simply try to explain them. They’ve put forth numerous possible explanations.
There are a couple clear contributors to point out first. Marriage tends to make people happier, and conservatives are more likely to be married. Religious belief is also linked to happiness, and conservatives tend to be more religious. But these explanations don’t account for the entire gap, which equates to about a half-point on a four-point scale, a sizable happiness divide.But these explanations don’t account for the entire gap, which equates to about a half-point on a four-point scale, a sizable happiness divide.
Social psychologist Jaime Napier, Program Head of Psychology at NYU-Abu Dhabi has conducted research suggesting that views about inequality play a role.
“One of the biggest correlates with happiness in our surveys was the belief of a meritocracy, which is the belief that anybody who works hard can make it,” she told PBS. “That was the biggest predictor of happiness. That was also one of the biggest predictors of political ideology. So, the conservatives were much higher on these meritocratic beliefs than liberals were.”
To paraphrase, conservatives are less concerned with equality of outcomes and more with equality of opportunity. While American liberals are depressed by inequalities in society, conservatives are okay with them provided that everyone has roughly the same opportunities to succeed. The latter is a more rosy and empowering view than the deterministic former.
Twoother studies explored a more surprising contributor: neuroticism, typically defined as “a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings.” Surveyed conservatives consistently score lower in neuroticism than surveyed liberals.
In 2011, psychologists at the University of Florida and the University of Toronto conducted four studies, aiming to find whether conservatives are more “positively adjusted” than liberals.
They found that conservatives “expressed greater personal agency, more positive outlook, more transcendent moral beliefs, and a generalized belief in fairness” compared to liberals.
“The portrait of conservatives that emerges is different from the view that conservatives are generally fearful, low in self-esteem, and rationalize away social inequality. Conservatives are more satisfied with their lives, in general… report better mental health and fewer mental and emotional problems (all after controlling for age, sex, income, and education), and view social justice in ways that are consistent with binding moral foundations, such as by emphasizing personal agency and equity. Liberals have become less happy over the last several decades, but this decline is associated with increasingly secular attitudes and actions.”
There have been a few studies that attempted to rain on conservatives’ happiness parade. In one, scientists proposed that conservatives might simply be more inclined to provide socially desirable answers to surveys than liberals. Society expects you to be happy, and so conservatives say that they are. In another, researchers found that while conservatives certainly report being more happy than liberals, liberals tend to display more signs of happiness, as evidenced by uploading more smiling photographs on Linkedin and posting more positive tweets on Twitter. So maybe conservatives just think they’re happier, or judge happiness differently? Regardless, the gap remains. So if you need some cheering up, maybe turn to a conservative friend rather than a liberal one.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, pictured May 17 during a Senate subcommittee hearing, became a hated figure on the right in part because of what he represented—the arrogant, corrupt, and often incompetent bureaucratic managerial class that believes it has a right to make decisions for our society. (Photo: Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
Of all the institutions that have become radicalized in the last couple of years, the realm of medicine is perhaps the most disturbing.
What will our society look like when you can’t trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or even your doctor?
Dr. Anthony Fauci announced Monday that he will step down in December from his position at the National Institutes of Health, ending a tenure in public health policy that stretches back to the late 1960s.
It’s a notable moment. Fauci’s long-term obscurity—followed by short-lived, media-driven stardom and then intense polarization—is illustrative of larger trends in American society.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board noted that other public health experts used Fauci, 81, to “lobby for broad economic lockdowns that we now know were far more destructive than they needed to be” and that Fauci advocated “mask and vaccine mandates that were far less protective than his assertions to the public.”
The Journal rightly highlighted the fact that Fauci’s name being widely recognized is a negative mark, not a positive one, of his tenure. It’s like being the long snapper in football: If people generally know who you are, it’s almost certainly because you messed up.
In the case of Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, he became a notable and polarizing figure because he seemed to make often dubious or at least wide-reaching political decisions while hiding behind his credentials.
Again, as The Wall Street Journal explained, Fauci’s public and private comments suggest his ethos was that the public “is supposed to let a few powerful men and women define science and then impose their preferred policies and mandates on the country.”
It’s a philosophy that runs counter to the ideas of 1776 and the American founding, but many of Fauci’s bureaucratic and ideological ilk seem to have little problem with that.
The important matter to recognize here is how institutions and bureaucrats—like Fauci—seemingly have dropped the pretense of objectivity in favor of ideology and, in many cases, duplicity.
To believe in science is also to believe in our new state ideology.
If the facts don’t line up with preferred outcomes, then fudge the facts and silence those who have doubts.
Perhaps paradoxically, the two-sided nature of Western institutions in the past few years—that claim to be guided by objectivity while becoming more nakedly ideological and partisan—is destroying the authority of institutions in the minds of the public. That’s certainly the case in the United States, where we are particularly prone to rebel against an unqualified pseudo-elite claiming a right to rule.
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were told by Fauci and other public officials that we had to lock down and suspend the most important parts of our lives—including going to church, weddings, and funerals—to stop the spread of the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
However, when the Black Lives Matter-inspired protests erupted in the summer of 2020, many of those same officials and organizations suddenly said it was OK to gather in massive groups because stopping racism as they defined it was too important.
It only added salt to the wound that these “mostly peaceful” protests soon turned violent and caused enormous damage and loss of life in communities around the country.
Fauci became a hated figure on the right in part because of what he represented—the arrogant, corrupt, and often incompetent bureaucratic managerial class that believes it has a right to rule and make decisions for our society.
Any figure or policy that strikes at the power of the managerial class—whether it be Donald Trump or civil service reform or school choice—is met with unhinged hostility. Resistance by the wrong types is a threat to “democracy.”
The fall of so many institutions at once puts conservatives in an unusual position. The instinct of a conservative is to preserve and perpetuate culture and institutions. We look to what has succeeded in the past and try to make it work for ourselves and posterity. That’s why the Constitution of the United States, though revolutionary in design as a written framework of government, is fundamentally conservative in the best sense.
What happens when institutions and the culture they seek to perpetuate are inherently revolutionary? That is the reality of where Americans, and many of us in the West, find ourselves. Our institutions no longer perpetuate the general welfare and ideas that our societies were built on. These institutions increasingly are committed to radical societal transformation, and they think they can do it whether you like it or not, as a smarmy California politician once said.
And our institutions do this while obnoxiously holding to the façade of expertise and objectivity. We are supposed to believe, for instance, that the American Academy of Pediatrics is promoting “gender-affirming” care for children because of its commitment to good medicine and science.
However, it’s all too obvious that the academy’s “science” is working backward from ideology, that it would promote gender “transition” no matter what the facts said. Studies or physicians that say otherwise are ignored or, through the power of the academy’s allies in Big Tech, censored and banned.
Worse, every major health institution, professional organization, and government institution is following in lockstep. When a series of disturbing videos from Boston Children’s Hospital surfaced in which medical doctors advocated “gender-affirming hysterectomies” among other “treatments,” many were horrified.
This wasn’t a disturbing outlier, however. It’s the tip of the iceberg. These ideas are simply what’s being pushed in America’s top medical schools, where the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion now holds absolute sway with negligible dissent. It’s a double-edged sword, though.
As members of the institutions both tout and hide behind their credentialism, their obviously ideological positions shred the public’s faith in their credentials.
The rise and fall of Anthony Fauci is illustrative of this trend. Sure, Fauci will retain his acolytes and super fans. But his actions and attitude have only drawn public attention to the rot and illegitimacy of American institutions, institutions that have squandered their reputations in the name of revolution. This is the real death of expertise. Death by suicide
Anthony Fauci is ending his long and celebrated government career by being widely lauded for getting so much so very wrong on Covid-19.
Now 81 years old, Dr. Fauci has spent 38 years as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. He has been rightly honored for his many contributions over the decades, most notably during the fight against AIDS, for which he was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush. But to Covid-19 he brought a monomaniacal focus on vanquishing a single virus, whatever the cost—neglecting the damage that can follow when public health loses sight of the public’s health.
As the lead medical authority to two administrations on Covid-19, Dr. Fauci was unwavering in his advocacy for draconian policies. What were the impact of those policies on millions of Americans? And what would the country look like now had our public health experts taken a different approach? As Dr. Fauci is preparing to leave his post, those are a few of the questions worth asking as we consider his various Covid-19 legacies.
Dr. Fauci attends the National AIDS Update Conference in San Francisco on Oct. 12, 1989. (Deanne Fitzmaurice via Getty Images)
On Children:
Very early on in this pandemic, we knew that there was an extremely stratified risk from Covid. The elderly and those with co-morbidities were especially vulnerable, while children were extremely unlikely to get dangerously ill.
Instead of acting on the good news for children—or drawing on the ample experience in Scandinavian and European countries where schools were open and students were without masks—American kids were seen as vectors of disease. Young children were forced to wear masks inside school and out, affecting the language and social development of many. The effects of school closures will play out for decades, but we already know that children suffered major learning loss, and many left school never to return. Throughout the pandemic, Dr. Fauci supported the most oppressive restrictions for children, including school closures and mandatory cloth masking.
Yesterday on Fox Neil Cavuto asked Dr. Fauci whether Covid restrictions “went too far” and if they “forever damaged” the children “who couldn’t go to school except remotely.” Dr. Fauci replied: “I don’t think it’s forever irreparably damaged anyone.”
Parents know otherwise.
A generation is coping with learning loss, and the impact has been the worst in poor and minority communities. According to the Brookings Institute, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20 percent in math and 15 percent in reading over the pandemic. Meantime, anxiety and depression have hit record highs among young Americans, and the surgeon general has described a youth mental health crisis. Of all of Dr. Fauci’s legacies, this might be the gravest.
On Research:
Dr. Fauci let basic research questions about the nature of the Covid-19 virus go unanswered. Somehow, despite the NIH’s more than $45 billion budget, only 2 percent of grants went to basic Covid research while billions of federal money was invested in developing vaccines, according to a study conducted by my colleagues at Johns Hopkins and I.
The federal government failed to conduct timely studies on the following: masks; the susceptibility of people in nursing homes; natural immunity; wastewater data; vaccine-induced heart injury in young people; and the optimal interval between the first two vaccine doses.
In short, Dr. Fauci didn’t deliver the basic research we needed so that public policy would be shaped by the best science. Because policymakers lacked good evidence to support their dictates, political opinions filled the void. So Covid-19 became a highly politicized health emergency—to all of our detriment.
On Natural Immunity:
One of the most inexplicable decisions by Dr. Fauci and his team was to ignore natural immunity—that is, the immune response generated by contracting Covid-19. As the evidence mounted that having had the virus was as good as—perhaps even better than—a vaccine, Dr. Fauci and his circle ignored it.
When Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked Dr. Fauci in the Fall of 2021 on CNN: “As we talk about vaccine mandates, I get calls all the time, people say I already had Covid, I’m protected, and now the study says even more protected than the vaccine alone. How do you make the case to them?” Dr. Fauci answered: “I don’t have a really firm answer for you on that.”
Hundreds of studies have now shown that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and that the level of protection vaccines have against severe disease is at the same level of natural immunity alone.
But Dr. Fauci didn’t talk about it.
Americans had circulating antibodies against the virus, but they were antibodies that Dr. Fauci seemed to ignore. The upshot was that thousands of Americans lost their jobs for their choice not to get vaccinated. Some of those Americans were nurses, pilots, truck drivers, and dock workers central to the American supply chain of food, medication, and other essential products. This summer, more than 60,000 National Guard and Reserve soldiers who refused the Covid-19 vaccine were not allowed to participate in their military duties and lost pay and benefits. All of these people should have their jobs reinstated.
On Dissent:
Any physician who has met Dr. Fauci will agree that he is one of the kindest, most charming human beings you will ever meet. That’s why it was so jarring to witness the way that he and Dr. Francis Collins, his close friend and former director of the NIH, denigrated dissent on Covid-19.
Just ask the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration—the open letter published in October 2020 that called for focused protection of the most vulnerable instead of blanket shutdowns of schools and businesses. It was authored by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, then of Harvard, and it was signed by tens of thousands of doctors and scientists.
Drs. Fauci and Collins never talked to these prominent authors to discuss their differing points of view. Instead, they criticized them.
Four days after the Great Barrington Declaration was published, Dr. Collins sent an email to Dr. Fauci in which he called the authors “fringe epidemiologists.” “There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises,” Dr. Collins wrote. “I don’t see anything like that on line yet—is it underway?” Dr. Fauci replied: “Francis: I am pasting in below a piece from Wired that debunks this theory.” Soon after, big tech platforms like Facebook and Google followed suit, suppressing their ideas and falsely deeming them “misinformation.”
The ultimate irony is that federal officials are now endorsing many of the policies the Great Barrington Declaration authors suggested, insisting schools stay open and quietly ending isolation and quarantine requirements. In the end, Sweden, which adopted many principles in the Great Barrington Declaration, had roughly half the Covid deaths as Michigan, despite having the same population, percent of elderly, and climate.
If dissent had been welcomed from the start—which is what science demands—a lot of suffering could have been avoided.
On Science:
Here’s what Dr. Fauci and other public health authorities could have been saying from the start: We strive to provide you with the best information and recommendations, but in the face of an emergency we will surely make mistakes. We will sometimes change our minds. We may even reverse our guidance. But we will always own up to our mistakes, explain our policy changes and strive to do better. Instead, Dr. Fauci admitted to telling noble lies.
Covid brought us the concept of “The Science.” Dr. Fauci famously said last year: “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.” But no person embodies science. To suggest as much betrays a cast of mind that is entirely at odds with science itself.
On Leadership:
George Washington was onto something when he decided to limit his presidency to two terms. New leaders don’t just avoid the risk of too much power concentrated in the hands of one person or group, they also bring new ideas. New perspectives are especially important to accelerating scientific inquiry by challenging deeply held assumptions. In his long tenure, Dr. Fauci made tremendous contributions, but during this crisis we needed someone at the top who took a broad view of how to fight a novel virus, and made recommendations based on weighing the direct and indirect consequences to society.
How to Regain Trust:
We now face the threat of a future pandemic in a country in which a large number of people no longer trust public health authorities. What happens when we have a novel, highly contagious, airborne virus with a much higher fatality rate than that of Covid-19?
We desperately need to rebuild public trust now. That begins by having public health officials apologize for being dogmatic in their pronouncements, when the correct answer should have been: “We don’t know.” One lesson we should all learn from Covid-19 is that we should not put our entire faith and trust in one physician.
Dr. Marty Makary is a public health expert, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the author of the bestselling book The Price We Pay.
His last piece for Common Sense was about top doctors and scientists at the NIH, FDA and CDC who are alarmed at the direction of those institutions. Read it here.
Chairman of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission ‘pretty convinced’ pandemic’s origin from ‘US lab biotechnology,’ suggests governments aren’t investigating because even more ‘dangerous research underway right now’
The chairman of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission has come forward to say that he is “pretty convinced” that the pandemic’s origin is from “U.S. lab biotechnology.” He also warns that even more dangerous research is happening right now – which could be why governments don’t seem to be interested in investigating the origins of COVID-19.
Jeffrey Sachs is the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, the president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, winner of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, a best-selling author, and a Chairman of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission.
In November 2020, Sachs assembled a task force for the prestigious medical journal to determine the origins of COVID-19. He hand-selected Dr. Peter Daszak – the president of EcoHealth Alliance – to be the chairman of the task force. However, Daszak recused himself from the investigation in June 2021, following accusations of a conflict of interest.
Daszak had deep ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of National Institutes of Health funding to the Chinese lab. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Daszak has vehemently argued that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease that jumped from animals to humans. Furthermore, he vociferously argued that suggesting that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak is a baseless conspiracy theory.
By September 2021, the task force organized by the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission was disbanded because of EcoHealth’s conflict-of-interest issues.
Sachs said at the time, “I just didn’t want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins, which was EcoHealth Alliance.”
Last week, Sachs told Current Affairs that he appointed Daszak to the task force dedicated to discovering the origins of COVID-19 because he said to himself, “Well, here’s a guy who is so connected, he would know.”
Sachs added, “And then I realized he was not telling me the truth. And it took me some months, but the more I saw it, the more I resented it.”
Sachs revealed that he disbanded the task force because other members were “part of this thing.”
He noted that the NIH had been hiding documents from the public – which were later revealed by a Freedom of Information Act request. Emails exposed by a FOIA request revealed that officials with the NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases were concerned that EcoHealth could be conducting gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab.
Sachs noted that Daszak should have informed him that EcoHealth Alliance was “manipulating the viruses.”
Sachs said that he requested a research proposal from Daszak, but the EcoHealth head allegedly balked, “No, my lawyer says I can’t give it to you.”
A video went viral last month featuring Sachs proclaiming that “after two years of intensive work,” he is “pretty convinced” that COVID-19 originated from “U.S. lab biotechnology, not out of nature.”
“So it’s a blunder in my view of biotech, not an accident of a natural spillover,” he said. “We don’t know for sure, I should be absolutely clear.”
Sachs noted, “But there’s enough evidence that it should be looked into. And it’s not being investigated, not in the United States, not anywhere.
“And I think for real reasons that they don’t want to look underneath the rug.”
In the interview with Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson, Sachs suggested that scientists were “creating a narrative” of COVID’s origins early in the pandemic by collectively claiming that COVID-19 naturally originated from the Wuhan wet market without definitive evidence.
Sachs asked, “Did we find an animal? No. Do we have an explanation of where that furin cleavage site came in? No. We don’t have an explanation of the timing, which doesn’t quite look right.”
He accused health officials and the media of pulling a “kind of misdirection” since February 2020.
Sachs believes the laboratory hypothesis is “very plausible.”
“The alternative that is the right one to look at is part of a very extensive research program that was underway from 2015 onward, funded by the NIH, by Tony Fauci, in particular NIAID, and it was to examine the spillover potential of SARS-like viruses,” Sachs told Robinson.
Sachs suggested that COVID-19 may have come from gain-of-function research, “There was a lot of research underway in the United States and China on taking SARS-like viruses, manipulating them in the laboratory, and creating potentially far more dangerous viruses.”
Governments could be saying, “Don’t poke your nose into that.”
“We know that at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the scientists there had been trained by American scientists to use advanced bioengineering methodologies,” Sachs explained. “And in particular, we have scientists in North Carolina, Texas, and so forth who do this kind of research, believe in it, argue for it, and say that they don’t want any regulations on it and so on. And they were in close contact with Wuhan Institute of Virology, and they were part of a joint research group that was stitched together by something called EcoHealth Alliance.”
Sachs described EcoHealth Alliance as a “vehicle for funding from the U.S. government, especially from the National Institutes of Health, and especially from Tony Fauci’s unit, the NIAID.”
Sachs said Dr. Anthony Fauci and the NIH “haven’t shown us anything” about possible research at the Wuhan lab.
“So you saw a narrative being created,” he continued. “And the scientists are not acting like scientists. Because when you’re acting like a scientist, you’re pursuing alternative hypotheses.”
Robinson asked Sachs why governments aren’t vigorously investigating the origins of a disease that has killed more than 6.4 million people in less than three years.
Sachs responded, “There are at least two reasons why they might be doing what they’re doing. One is, as you say, the implications are huge. Imagine if this came out of a lab. And we have, by some estimates, about 18 million dead worldwide from this. That’s not the official count. But that’s the estimated excess mortality from COVID. Well, the implications of that—the ethical, the moral, the geopolitical—everything is enormous.”
The chairman of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission added, “But there’s a second matter that is really important, too. One thing that is rather clear to me is that there is so much dangerous research underway right now under the umbrella of biodefense or other things that we don’t know about, that is not being properly controlled.”
He suggested that governments could be saying, “Don’t poke your nose into that.”
On Saturday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said, “The fact that virtually no one in Washington DC wants to investigate the origins of COVID-19 should tell you all you need to know about the origins of COVID-19.”
Hmm. Guess all those “conspiracy theory nuts” weren’t so nuts after all.
The Biden administration has declared monkeypox a public health emergency as cases of the disease continue to spread in the U.S., according to various news reports that said the announcement came during a briefing with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
As of August 3, there were a total of 6,617 confirmed monkeypox cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A CDC map of the outbreak showed that at least one case had been detected in all U.S. states apart from Montana and Wyoming as of Wednesday.
“We are prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters, according to NPR.
As the U.S. continues to contend with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, though data shows that COVID cases are significantly lower now than they were during the Omicron-driven surge in late 2021 and early 2022, many details on what monkeypox is, its symptoms and how it spreads may remain unclear.
According to the CDC, it is a rare disease resulting from infection with the monkeypox virus, which is part of the same family of viruses as the one that causes smallpox. The symptoms of monkeypox—which can include fever, headache, exhaustion and a rash—are similar to those of smallpox, but monkeypox is milder and rarely fatal, the CDC said.
‘Winter of Death’ 2.0? Dr. Fauci Just Threatened 70% of Americans
Dr. Anthony Fauci has once again sounded the warning bell over COVID-19, saying in an interview on Tuesday that those who are not up to date on vaccines will “get into trouble” this fall and winter.
“If they don’t get vaccinated or they don’t get boosted, they’re going to get into trouble,” Fauci told Los Angeles radio station KNX-AM.
A large part of the U.S. population is not up to date on the COVID-19 vaccines.
The Kaiser Family Foundation found that as of July 21, 227.8 million Americans either had not received a primary series of shots or had not gotten a booster dose. That is about 70 percent of the population.
“In each state, at least half the population is not up to date on COVID-19 vaccines. In Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia, over 80% of people are not yet up to date on COVID-19 vaccines,” KFF noted.
The number of Americans who have received the second booster shot is even lower.
The CDC recommends that people over the age of 50 receive the second booster. Only 19,935,913 members of that demographic — about 31 percent — have done so.
In the Tuesday radio interview, Fauci called the overall vaccination and booster rates “quite discouraging.”
“If you want to get your arms around — metaphorically, as it were — the outbreak, you want to get as many people in our community — and by community I mean our nation and the world — vaccinated and boosted so you don’t give this virus such ample opportunity to freely circulate,” Fauci said.
He insisted that the only way to get the virus under control and to keep it from continually mutating is to get everyone vaccinated.
Fauci called getting vaccinated and boosted a “communal responsibility.”
“People say, ‘Well, the risk to me is low, so why get it?’ It is about you as an individual, but it’s also about the communal responsibility to get this outbreak under control.”
Unvaccinated do better than vaccinated.- National Pulse.
You know there’s this lurker who follows me and never fails to comment on this obscure website that has about 25 maybe 30 followers about articles I write. This person never fails to attack my medical sources. Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Tufts Research University, New England Journal of Medicine, and even The Mayo Clinic. This loons credentials? A part time secretary. The person who makes the coffee and files reports.
Now we see that a group of dozens of doctors and scientists signed off on a small research study of a startling result to many. Folks vaccinated against COVID-19 remained contagious with the virus for a longer period of time than their unvaccinated counterparts. This was printed in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers compiled a variety of graphs tracking how long people remained contagious with the virus, using both PCR tests and viral cultures as indicators.
When the data was separated into the categories “unvaccinated,” “vaccinated,” and “boosted,” individuals who did not receive a COVID-19 vaccine were contagious for a shorter period of time.
Regarding positive PCR tests, within the first 10 days of contracting the virus 68.75 percent of unvaccinated subjects were no longer contagious. In contrast, just 29.72 percent of vaccinated and 38.46 percent of boosted people were no longer contagious.
Fifteen days into the study, 93.75 percent and 92.31 percent of unvaccinated and boosted people, respectively, were no longer contagious; however, just 78.38 percent of vaccinated people weren’t contagious.
Study Data.
So please do the research and trust Science. Not some part time secretary.
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 09: White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx listens during the daily coronavirus briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 09, 2020 in Washington, DC. U.S. unemployment claims have approached 17 million over the past three weeks amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
That’s right, Birx just admitted what we’ve known for some time.
One of the former U.S. officials who led the COVID-19 response during the Trump administration said July 22 that COVID-19 vaccines were not expected to protect against infection.
I KNEW these vaccines were not going to protect against infection.
“I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection. And I think we overplayed the vaccines. And it made people then worry that it’s not going to protect against severe disease and hospitalization,” Deborah Birx, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator under former President Donald Trump, said during an appearance on Fox News.
Paxlovid is a COVID-19 pill produced by Pfizer. It has an ‘uneven’ history against the virus.
The Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines were granted emergency use authorization in late 2020 to prevent symptomatic COVID-19, and were promoted by many health officials, including Birx.
“This is one of the most highly-effective vaccines we have in our infectious disease arsenal. And so that’s why I’m very enthusiastic about the vaccine,” Birx said on an ABC podcast at the time.
She made no mention of concerns the vaccines might not protect against infection.
Data shows the vaccines did prevent infection from early strains of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, but that the protection waned over time. The vaccines have proven increasingly unable to shield even shortly after administration, and provide little protection against the Omicron virus variant and its subvariants.
The vaccines continue to protect against severe disease and hospitalization, Birx said on Friday. “But let’s be very clear—50 percent of the people who died from the Omicron surge were older, vaccinated,” she said.
“So, that’s why I’m saying, even if you’re vaccinated and boosted if you’re unvaccinated, right now, the key is testing and Paxlovid,” she added.
Paxlovid is a COVID-19 pill produced by Pfizer that has had uneven results in clinical trials and studies, but is recommended by U.S. health authorities for both unvaccinated and vaccinated COVID-19 patients to prevent progression to severe disease.
President Joe Biden, who tested positive this week, was prescribed Paxlovid by his doctor.
There are signs the protection from vaccines against severe illness is also dropping quickly as new strains emerge.
That protection was just 51 percent against emergency department or urgent care visits, and dropped to just 12 percent after five months, according to a recent study. Against hospitalization, protection went from 57 percent to 24 percent. A booster increased protection but the shielding quickly dropped to substandard levels.
Fauci
Dr. Anthony Fauci also helped lead the U.S. pandemic response along with Birx and once said that vaccinated people would not get infected.
“What was true two years ago, a year and a half ago, changes because the original ancestral strain did not at all have the transmission capability that we’re dealing with with the omicron sublineages, particularly BA. 5. So the vaccine does protect some people, not 95 percent, from getting infected, from getting symptoms, and getting severe disease. It does a much better job at protecting a high percentage of people from progressing from severe disease,” Fauci said on Fox.
He said that vaccines with updated compilations, which are expected to debut in the fall, are necessary.
“We need vaccines that are better. That are better because of the breadth and the durability, because we know that immunity wanes over several months. And that’s the reason why we have boosters,” he said. “But also, we need vaccines that protect against infection.”
“But also, we need vaccines that protect against infection.”
Gee, isn’t that what a REAL vaccine does? Otherwise why require it? And why require people to take the jab or lose their jobs?
The Seattle Fault goes east-west through downtown Seattle and Puget Sound.
The study noted that the last earthquake on the fault took place about 1,100 years ago. This is key, since a major (Magnitude 6.5 or more) earthquake has occurred on average every 584 years since 1500 BC. The fault is overdue.
Over the past 3,500 years, five additional earthquakes estimated to have a magnitude of 6.5 took place along the Seattle Fault.
For the sake of worst-case scenario planning, the study looked at the impact of a 7.5-magnitude earthquake.
Flooding from a tsunami would exceed 20 feet along the shoreline of the Seattle area and could generate waves as high as 42 feet tall, according to Fox News.
Maximilian Dixon, the hazards and outreach program supervisor for the Washington Emergency Management Division, said the department does not want to provoke panic, but urges individuals to be prepared.
“The ground shaking will be your warning that a tsunami may be on the way. Make sure you know where the closest high ground is and the quickest route to get there,” he said.
The study said that tsunami waves would hit the eastern side of Bainbridge Island, Elliott Bay and Alki Point, and could last for more than three hours.
The Port of Tacoma would face six feet of inundation with waves going as far as three miles inland, according to the study.
A long history of earthquakes on faults in the Puget Sound
“Most often, when we think of tsunamis, we think of our outer coast and communities along the Pacific Ocean. But there’s a long history of earthquakes on faults in the Puget Sound,” Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said.
“While the history of earthquakes and tsunamis along the Seattle Fault is less frequent than the Cascadia subduction zone, the impacts could be massive. That’s why it’s critical these communities have the information they need to prepare and respond.”
A 2001 earthquake caused $36 million worth of damage in Seattle from the impact on buildings, roads and other infrastructure, according to the city’s website.
The city noted that damage from an earthquake would also include landslides throughout the Seattle region. Further, the city estimated there are 1,100 un-reinforced buildings in Seattle that would be prone to extensive damage in an earthquake. About 15% of Seattle’s total area is soil that is prone to ground failure in earthquakes. The Duwamish Valley, Interbay, and Rainier Valley are vulnerable to ground failure and shaking because of the liquefiable soils in these areas.
And that is only one type of quake the area suffers from.
The second type would be a megathrust quake along the Cascadia fault line. Megathrust earthquakes are the greatest risk to the broader west coast region. A megathrust earthquake could reach M9.0+ and affect an area from Canada to northern California. A Cascadia megathrust earthquake could rank as one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, but because Seattle is several hundred miles from the source seismic waves would weaken slightly before they reach Seattle. Shaking would be violent and prolonged, but possibly not as intense as in a Seattle Fault quake.
Mount Rainier Will Erupt Again, Say Researchers Studying Volcano’s Magma Flows
Then there’s that 800-lb gorilla known as Mt. Rainier.
Mount Rainier last erupted in the 19th century. It is the tallest volcano and the fifth-highest peak in the contiguous U.S.. The volcano is about 14,410 feet tall and located about 58 miles southeast of Seattle.
The U.S. Geological Survey has described Mount Rainier as “an active volcano that will erupt again.” Sitting atop volcanic flows as much as 36 million years old, Rainier has erupted explosively dozens of times during the past 11,000 years, spewing ash and pumice.
There are FIVE active volcanoes in Washington State. The last one to erupt was Mt. St. Helen (1980.) If you’re not old enough to remember, you can see videos of it on YouTube and elsewhere. Seattle disaster planners claim it is ‘unlikely’ that a lahar would reach Seattle itself. Tell that to the people around St. Helens.
Envision that there would be solid blocks the size of Volkswagens and fine grain material being blasted into the atmosphere and then falling back on Rainier’s surface. It would be hot, and would melt the ice and snow on Rainier’s flanks And tumble over cliffs.
The lava flows encounter those very steep slopes and make avalanches of hot rocks and gas that are hurtling down the mountain maybe 100 miles per hour or so.
The lava would stop flowing near the boundaries of the national park.
But the snow water it melted would create a much bigger hazard: A flash flood that would look like concrete and chew up everything in its path.
It would pull down trees. Giant boulders would bounce on its surface, cracking as they collide with each other.
Scientists say Orting will probably have plenty of warning before an eruption. But just in case, there’s a backup plan, a siren that gives people in Orting roughly 40 minutes warning before the lahar hits.
There are several rivers running from Rainier straight towards Puget sound.
This nightmare mud flow is called a lahar. And it would sound like “a rocket launching. Or maybe a train barreling down a track where no railroad tracks exist.”
How would it affect Seattle-Tacoma?
An earthquake on the Seattle fault by itself would cause a massive catastrophe. So would a Seattle-facing Mt. St. Helen eruption. If they occurred at nearly the same time? Likely everything from Olympia north to Vancouver island would be in ruins with many thousands dead or injured.
On the upside, Redmond (and therefore Microsoft) would disappear.
Note: data for this story comes from investigative news reports and the Seattle and WA state government websites.
It’s hard to get my head around the idea that anyone with more than a double digit IQ can still believe anything this man says.
I want to turn your attention to a revealing interview conducted with Dr Fauci this week. It shines a light on his faith-based approach to the mRNA “miracle,” and his overall lack of a data-based thought process regarding his own bout with the virus.
In the interview, Fauci credited getting quad vaxxed with keeping him from having a “much more serious” bout with COVID-19.
A visibly illFauci told the interviewer:
“I’m really fortunate that I’ve done very well, and I keep telling people … is that I was vaccinated (with first two doses) and doubly boosted, and I believe that if i did not have that degree of background protection, I would have had a much more serious course. My course was relatively light. Minor symptoms. And right now i am completely without symptoms.”
Notably, Fauci did not mention the fact that he took two full rounds of Pfizer’s oral antiviral pill, against the guidance of his own government health agencies. So was it the pills or the vaccines, or maybe even his mask and lockdown advocacy that “saved” him? Fauci did not elaborate.
Fauci’s messaging on the miracle cure continues to change as pharmaceutical companies recommend more and more doses of miracle cure. At first, Fauci claimed the primary series of mRNA shots would effectively immunize people from COVID-19 and work as a sterilizing agent. Then, Fauci claimed that three doses was the optimal regimen. Now, he has endorsed seasonal injections of miracle cure.
Moreover, Fauci’s change in tone is striking from his previous interviews concerning his bout with COVID-19. In late June, while on his second course of the Pfizer bill, Fauci claimed to be feeling “really poorly,” and credited the second course of the pill with reversing his troubling symptoms.
There is no evidence that these shots serve any benefit to children, but the loyal pharmaceutical salesmen stayed on message.
All together, Fauci has claimed to have been sick for almost a whole month, after testing positive in mid June. This is hardly evidence that a quad vaxxed and double antiviral pilled regimen somehow saved Fauci from a worse outcome, as his bout with COVID was much worse than the statistical norm.
At the end of the interview, Fauci expressed disappointment that his friends at Pfizer and Moderna have only been able to inject a small percentage of the infant and toddler population with the experimental mRNA injections. There is no evidence that these shots serve any benefit to children, but the loyal pharmaceutical salesmen stayed on message.
“We’ve gotta do better on the numbers because we’ve still got a relatively small fraction of those children who are eligible, and we need to get them vaccinated,” said the NIAID’s chief drug pusher.
Sprinkling in the usual evidence-free fear mongering, he added: “Children can get severe disease. There’s no doubt about that.”
The interview ended with Fauci recommending that everyone make sure to get another dose of miracle cure, endorsing Pfizer and Moderna’s latest injection for when it receives another rubber stamp FDA authorization in the fall.
