Normalcy COVIDiocy: Who is "Urgency of Normal" and Why Are They In So Much Hurry to Repeal Pandemic Protective Measures?

In the past two or three months, you may have seen a new hashtag online #urgencyofnormal. They are a vocal minority group of doctors and scientists calling for repeal of as many pandemic protective measures as soon as possible, preferably immediately. Their reasoning is the measures are doing more harm than the pandemic itself. They are going as far as claiming that existing measures are just "panic porn". One such spokesperson for this group is Dr. Lucy McBride. 

Dr. Lucy McBride, on CNN, "Doctor says 'panic porn' is hurting her patients"

Are they making any sense? Is the attempt to contain COVID, i.e. masks and vaccines and boosters (there's no lockdown now) doing more harm than good? 

What exactly is the "harm" of these protective measures? 

According to urgencyofnormal.com/our-statement, pandemic and/or its protective measures have caused "youth depression, suspected suicide attempts, drug overdose deaths, and obesity". In their "toolkit", they have also cited polls as evidence of these increases, and dropping grades in 2020 vs 2019. 

What I find interesting is they can only cite an increase in suicide attempts in girls... so boys are not affected?

UrgencyOfNormal Toolkit claims pandemic and/or protective measures have caused harm... to girls? 

Also, just how do you separate harm from the pandemic itself vs. the protective measures designed to combat the pandemic? 

You can't. 

Yet their solution is to stop all the protective measures for children! No masking! Vax or not just go back to school! Pretend there is no pandemic! 

Maintain in-person learning regardless of case counts and vaccination rates. 

So why are they against masking in schools? First they told us that masking is NOT proven to work (i.e. any benefits are not statistically significant). But does it really?

Does the Georgia study really say mask use was not statistically significant? Yes, but... 

They helpfully included a link to the study in the footnotes, and this is where the cracks started to show in their "logic". I will quote from the study's page 5

The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional. This finding might be attributed to higher effectiveness of masks among adults, who are at higher risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection but might also result from differences in mask-wearing behavior among students in schools with optional requirements. Mask use requirements were limited in this sample; 65.1% of schools required teacher and staff member mask use and approximately one half (51.5%) required student mask use. Because universal and correct use of masks can reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission (6) and is a relatively low-cost and easily implemented strategy, findings in this report suggest universal and correct mask use is an important COVID-19 prevention strategy in schools as part of a multicomponent approach

(bold and italics added by me)

The UrgencyOfNormal folks took one sentence they liked, and ignored the REAL finding of the study. What the study said was they have no data from the mask "optional" schools. They have no idea what percentage of people are actually wearing or NOT wearing the masks. So it cannot act as a proper control group against "mask required". 

But the UrgencyofNormal folks read it as if it said "masks did not do anything". 

I have not checked the rest of the other studies they cited, but it would not surprise me if they used similar leaps in logic and cherry-picking. 

And based on this, UrgencyOfNormal is calling for an end to ALL school masking. 

But there are a couple other problems with their suppositions... They are basing their numbers on Delta, and omicron, while supposedly milder, is FAR more contagious. 

UrgencyOfNormal claims are based on Delta numbers. Omicron turned out to be FAR FAR WORSE

Let's look at some REAL numbers... CDC mortality of 0-17 year olds as of now, which is over 2 years. Remember to divide by 25.7 (1.7 months into 2022) then times 12 for rough yearly numbers. 

One also wonders where did they get their flu numbers, which seems to be a bit... exaggerated. 

According to CDC, 2019-20 flu season had 188 pediatric flu death (0-17 yrs of age), which tied the record set during 2017-18. So why does their graph show death in the 500's? Can they be... massaging the numbers? Oh, but also look at the 2012-2013 bar... over 1200 deaths? Why does the CDC say only 170 pediatric deaths? Where did they even find these numbers? 

Flu does NOT kill at the rate of two dozen PER WEEK non-stop. 

Another 23 children died from Covid last week according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Parents need to understand that Covid can be quite serious and children can be safely protected through vaccination. #VaccinesSaveLives pic.twitter.com/cwBXiSC8vL

— EMK (@eveamk) February 22, 2022

Oh, and they also claimed that children don't get long COVID. You did read that on the slide, right? The latest results say something very different... AT LEAST 10% of all kids infected with COVID get long COVID. The number can be as high as 20%. And these numbers are based on PRE-OMICRON numbers. The current numbers could be worse, FAR WORSE, and we won't see the results for at least a MONTH after the infection. 

By now, it's clear that UrgencyOfNormal is not based on data as they claimed, but potentially deliberate misinterpretation and/or outright fabrication of data. 

The harm they claimed is based on polls, not science. The comparisons they made are unscientific and based on inflated and possibly fabricated numbers, and out-of-date numbers. And their anti-mask justification is based on deliberate cherry-picking of study results. They also claim the danger is minimal, by minimizing numbers, using outdated numbers, or outright FABRICATING pediatric flu deaths in prior years. 

But let us be absolutely clear:

What UrgencyOfNormal proposed is to get our children back into school without ANY protection, and roll the odds, ASSUMING the vast majority of them will survive, instead of doing EVERYTHING we can to make sure they do.

That is not epidemiology. 

That's playing roulette with someone else's children. 

That's COVIDiot thinking. 

Child COVIDiocy: Latest Data Shows 10% of CHILDREN with COVID become "Long Haulers" (i.e. "long COVID")

One of the most common refrains from antivaxxers about vaccinating children is "children don't need COVID jabs, because they don't get very sick even if they caught COVID". Take a look at JuliaHB1's tweet here just last week. She's a pretty famous talk show host in the UK. 

Children don't need Covid jabs, let alone boosters. And there's not a single study showing mask wearing in the real world has any effect at all. You used to be a journalist who looked at facts rather than virtue signalling to get approval. What happened to you?

— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) February 12, 2022

But latest round of science shows very worrying prospects for children who was infected with COVID: 10% of them became sufferers of "long COVID" that lasts months, even years, with symptoms such as rashes, heart palpitations, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, memory struggles, headaches... and more. And the numbers may be conservative. Numbers from Israel indicate 11.2%, and numbers from UK range from 12% to 15% depending on age group. Some doctors are estimating up to 20% of children infected by COVID may be suffering long COVID. 

The worst part about this is the long COVID symptoms typically start 30-days to 6 weeks AFTER the child recovers from mild COVID symptoms. And this data is PRE-OMICRON. We simply don't have enough data on how Omicron is affecting kids... other than hospitalization... and omicron in children accounted for 22% of all COVID hospitalizations in the US for the week ending Feb 10th. 

There is also the question of MIS-C, which is another rare but very serious post-COVID condition, with almost 7000 cases reported in the US, and killed 59, but so far we have not seen a corresponding increase due to omicron. 

CDC had also warned that post-COVID child is more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes, based on pre-Omicron data. 

While symptoms seem worse in older children, experts warn that younger children lack the ability to express nuanced distress or comfort. 

And you have "conservative" hosts denying that children need COVID vaccinations because symptoms are "mild". As a parent, would you not want your children to have EVERY layer of protection you can get, including vaccinations and masks? 

Don't be a COVIDiot. 

Commentator COVIDiocy: British Columnist / Talk Show Host With No Facts Accuse Others of Not Dealing With Facts

Julia Hartley-Brewer, a British TV/Youtube talkshow host / interviewer, and a known conservative, claimed that a fellow show host (MSNBC/Al Jazeera TV) Mehdi Hasan was not dealing with facts. 

Children don't need Covid jabs, let alone boosters. And there's not a single study showing mask wearing in the real world has any effect at all. You used to be a journalist who looked at facts rather than virtue signalling to get approval. What happened to you?

— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) February 12, 2022

One does wonder what happened to JHB herself, as NOTHING she claimed is actually true. Let's examine the issues one at a time: a) children don't need COVID jabs, b) children don't need boosters, c) mask-wearing does not work. 

Do Children Need COVID Vaccinations and Boosters? (a,b)

One of the frequent antivaxxer claims is "because Omicron doesn't show heavy symptoms in children, children don't need to be vaccinated against Omicron COVID."

A similar claim is "COVID is no worse than the flu when it comes to children."

Indeed, Daily Mail, a known gossip rag from the UK that occasionally covers real news, claimed that "no healthy child has died from COVID in the UK" as of September 2021. However, that's simply untrue, as fact-checked by FullFacts.org.  Daily Mail also claimed that only 300 or so children were hospitalized for COVID in UK and all but 20 have underlying health conditions, when in truth, the real numbers are over 23x larger... 7050 hospital admissions and 3181 with no underlying health conditions. And this is PRE-Omicron. 

In the US the numbers are not that different. According to CNN, citing CDC data, average of 672 children were admitted to hospital EVER DAY in the final week of January 2022. And this is with US starting offering vaccinations to ages 5+ in September 2021. Though it's clear that vaccinations do little to protect something against Omicron. One needs boosters, and those are not available to children yet. Indeed, that seems why CDC has refrained from recommending vaccinations to under 5 at this time. 

According to CDC as of Mid January 2022,1045 children under 18 have died from COVID. 

Flu kills maybe 5-6 children a year at most. 

Clearly, COVID is much deadlier than the flu, due to its ease of spread, is putting more kids into hospitals despite "lighter" symptoms. 

Evidence is clear: children need COVID vaccinations and boosters as soon as they can get them, but ones that work against Omicron. 

Does Mask-Wearing Help in Reducing COVID? (c)

Logically, mask-wearing makes perfect sense. Don't breathe the COVID virus in, don't breath the COVID virus out if you're infected. But what does the science say? Is what JWB said true, there has been NO study that proves mask-wearing works in the real world? 

There have been SEVERAL studies on this matter, actually. Some even involve kids. 

"An Evidence Review of face masks against COVID-19" by Howard, Huang, Li, et. al published by PNAS concludes "Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission..."

The US CDC data shows that "people who reported always wearing a mask in indoor public settings were less likely to test positive for COVID than people who didn't", and N95/KN95 masks offer significantly lower odds compared to surgical masks or cloth masks. 

And finally, "Association of Child Masking with COVID-19 Related Closures in US Childcare Programs" Published on JAMA Network Open (Jan 2022) concludes: "This survey study of childcare professionals suggests that masking young children is associated with fewer childcare program closures, enabling in-person education. "

The evidence is clear... There were PLENTY studies showing the efficacy of masks, even on children, in the real world, such as childcare facilities. 

Conclusion

Even minor Googling (tm) shows that it is JWB who is not dealing with facts, while JWB accused a fellow talk show host of not dealing with facts. 

Antivax COVIDiocy: WHO Says Unvaxed Breeding More Variants

Bloomberg's Emma Barnett has just interviewed WHO's chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, and they discussed a lot of stuff about COVID. One of the subjects raised was how fast the variants such as Delta and Omicron spread. Dr. Swaminathan believed that we may not have seen such rapid rise of COVID variants, had we been less selfish. 

"If those hundreds of millions of doses we had in 2021 had been distributed equitably that the WHO had laid out the framework; let's protect all the vulnerable people around the world first, doesn't matter where they live, so we can reduce deaths, then we can start vaccinating the other age groups coming down to adults and adolescents and so on. Then maybe we would not be seeing new variants."

"Do you think the West, the richer countries hogging vaccines has led to the variants?" @Emmabarnett asks.

“Yes, I think we can say that,” @WHO's Chief Scientist @doctorsoumya says https://t.co/FwpoxCQlSG pic.twitter.com/2r8yRx5DHn

— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) February 11, 2022

So what does this have to do with antivaxxers, you ask? 

Let us consider the fact that Delta variant was first detected in India, and Omicron Variant first detected in South Africa. These are far from the only variants observed but these two are "variants of concern". 

Dr. Swaminathan is basically saying that due to the countries not sharing their vaccines so we can vaccinate as many of the most vulnerable we can, we let COVID run wild among the unvaxxed, and that produced more variants.

The point is the more unvaxxed (or effectively unvaxxed) people there are, the more variants we will see, because more of them get sick, and thus, more COVID virus produced, more mutations occurs, and more chances of variants.

Thus, the obvious answer is to PREVENT them from getting sick through vaccinations, so less COVID virus, less mutation, less variants.  

The people in India and South Africa are involuntarily unvaxxed because they lack the vaccines and/or the infrastructure to deliver them. 

Yet we have people in the US (and everywhere in the world, aka the antivaxxers) INTENTIONALLY avoiding vaccines and boosters, and thus, helping to generate more variants. And they are fighting vaccine mandates at every level, with no more reason than "I say government cannot jab me! Freedom!"

The antivaxxers are the ones preventing us from getting over COVID, as I've pointed out last September. We could have saved tens of billions in hospital costs, and tens of thousands of lives, had we all gotten vaccinated and boosted. And we may have gotten over COVID already. 

Instead, we are suffering the most COVID casualties of any nation, including China and Russia, and it's not letting up, and some so-called "lawmakers" are trying to pass laws to let us kill ourselves by OUTLAWing mask and vaccine mandates, even for children. 

Don't be a COVIDiot. Or you may be helping breed the next variant of COVID, and it may be more virulent than omicron. 

Medical COVIDiocy: Surrendering to COVID Risks Heart Problems for Up to a Year

 Among some so-called health commentators, some of them with a peripherally relevant medical degree, are calling for "return to normalcy", which basically means "we should cut any mandates as early as possible", which includes both vaccine AND mask mandates, for ANY age group. This is sheer madness. 

Denmark has voted to cut ALL COVID restrictions as of Feb 11, 2022, despite surging COVID cases since last November. Denmark has a COVID vaccination rate of about 80% and booster rate of about 75%. 

(Some antivaxxers will use this to argue "vaccination didn't work". Vaccination did work... it just did not work well enough. And it's well known that simple two doses were not enough to protect against omicron.)

It is obvious that vaccinations alone will not stop omicron. Not even boosters. It's vaccinations AND boosters AND masks that will slow omicron, and hopefully, nothing more deadly or virulent comes along, like how Omicron usurped Delta. 

Yet here are these health commentators claiming "we just need to live with COVID, it's becoming endemic like the flu". 

Except flu did not kill a million Americans in 2 years, or a thousand children. 

THEN there's the problem of long COVID... even for those with only mild COVID symptoms. Lingering blood clots can exacerbate all sorts of conditions as well as increase irregular heart rhythms, such as myocarditis, once thought to be a danger of COVID vaccines. Turns out, NOT getting the vaccine is MORE dangerous. 

Yes, you MAY still catch COVID even if you are vaxed and boosted. That's why you also wear an N95 mask. So you don't get infected in the first place. Why take chances when you can layer protection? 

And whoever wants to end all that because it's "inconvenient" is basically advocating for more COVID death and COVID suffering. 

Don't be a COVIDiot and argue for normalcy. We are still in pandemic times. Ignoring the problem does not make the problem go away. It only KILLS people. 

Qanon COVIDiocy: How Qanon Carried On Without Trump by Merging with the Antivax Movement

Qanon started as some nameless droppers of info promising new revealing information about a conspiracy... and somehow Trump was battling some sort of "deep state" conspiracy full of child traffickers led by notable Democrats such as former first lady Hilary Clinton. Enough of them stuck around for the January 6th insurrection, and enough of them remain to discredit and undermine the Biden government now. And one of the most obvious targets was the vaccine and mask mandates. 

Before January 2022 came about, there were plenty of doomsday predictions from Qanon fodders claiming that when 5G activates all you COVID vaccine lovers will be turned into mind-controlled zombies. They don't realize they've been repeating an old debunked story when someone uploaded a guitar effect pedal circuit diagram and claimed it's a "5G mind control chip" embedded into COVID vaccine nanotech. 

Then of course Bill Gates gets dragged into it because he's rich. And fearmonger mockumentaries such as Plandemic II made false claims about Bill Gates, among many other egregious factual problems. 

Then there are Qanon fodders who decided to martyr themselves for news. Cirsten Weldon was known for sprouting Qanon beliefs on YT, Facebook, Telegram, and Telegram, still refers to Trump as president, and claiming arrests of enemies are already happening. She also called people who got COVID vaccines "idiots". In December she fell sick of COVID, but chose to use the term "bacterial pneumonia", a common term among Qanon fodder as a euphemism for COVID. In hospital she refused antiviral treatment, and died in January 2022. Apparently her followers harassed the staff of the hospital, some even called for death of hospital staff for contributing to Weldom's death. 

But the weirdest and craziest Qanon fodders actually killed people. Troy Burke killed his wife Jessica after being told by Qanon members that his wife is a transgender offspring of President Biden and is working for the CIA as a child trafficker. So he shot her in the head 3 times. 

And he's not the only one. Another Qanon fodder lighted a pipe bomb and blew up his RV killing himself and injuring 3 others. Another tried to kill his family ahead of Biden's inauguration day because he was convinced the "great revelation" will be horrible. Another tried to kill his own children with a spear gun because he believed they had DNA from lizard people and would "grow up to be monsters". They all are Qanon fodder egged on by other Qanon to do evil. 

Burke was declared not guilty by reason of insanity and will likely spend his life in an institution. 

If you are antivax or on the fence, consider the strange bedfellows you're keeping, They may be insane, or they are egging on unstable people to actually go insane. 

Maybe they are egging you on... 

Foreign Influence COVIDiocy: Foreign Agitators Started the Occupy LA Movement

The Occupy Canada convoy shows no signs of ending, and their boldness has encouraged foreign agitators to stir up similar movement in the US, and the antivaxxers have swallowed the bait. 

Facebook has confirmed that foreign actors are controlling several trucker convoy Facebook groups. Various groups are being run by IP addresses traced to Romania, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and other countries. Many of them used to be MAGA or Trump-related Facebook groups. Facebook have removed several that are confirmed to be run by foreign IPs, but the astroturfing has caught American attention, and even RFKjr's website has settled on a March 5th "convoy" targeting Los Angeles. 

Some have tried to organize groups to disrupt the traffic in Los Angeles to target the Superbowl this weekend, but they simply did not have enough time. 

It's clear that antivaxxers no longer cared if they've been led through the nose by foreign actors. They are willing to gather in tight quarters because they prefer to care about themselves and their "freedom" to spread COVID rather than care about keeping everyone safe. 

Vaccines prevent hospitalization, and masks prevent infection. That is the science of COVID. 

Such a "convoy" will pull in agitators of every sort, from Jan 6 insurrectionists to antivaxxers to free-dumbers to Maga dreamers who still believe the election was stolen from Trump even though all evidence shows Trump tried to steal the election, not to mention anarchists who just want to see some chaos, and whichever foreign actors with their own agendas. 

I hope CHP, LAPD, and Governor Newsome have contingency plans. If they don't start making some now. This can get VERY ugly. 

And if you join up, you're a COVIDiot sheeple who don't care if you've been used by foreign actors. 

Propaganda COVIDiocy: Care To Guess Who ELSE Had Been Reporting Pfizer COVID Vaccine Killing People? The Russians, Of Course

One of the often-repeated refrains from antivaxxers is Pfizer COVID vaccine (Cominarty) had killed thousands, though the same claims were also levied against all the other Western COVID vaccines such as the AstroZeneca vaccine and J&J vaccine as well. 

Care to guess who's the loudest "news outlet" (besides Fox News, and I don't mean Tucker Carlson?) that claimed so? 

The Russian RT News, of course, with clickbait titles such as "Health authorities on alert after nurse DIES follow vaccination with Pfizer's Covid-19 shot in Portugal"

RT news as screencap'ed by FirstDraft News
https://firstdraftnews.org/articles/rt-fringe-undermine-covid-vaccinations/

Of course, nobody cares about the rebuttal from the Portuguese Government stating that there is no link between her death and the vaccine. 

Keep in mind that RT is a Russian propaganda website spreading plenty of fake news along real news. It has amplified fake news such as harm of 5G, including "5G caused COVID". 

The disinformation is so bad that Germany has officially banned RT German only a few days ago. 

So if you are repeating antivax propaganda, consider your sources carefully. You may be helping the Russians spreading fake news. And I mean fake as in "not real", not Trumpian fake news, which is any news he didn't like. 

COVID Mystery: Who Is Operating These Unknown COVID-19 Testing Sites?

Petaluma, California police got multiple reports between January 15 and January 26 about a questionable pop-up COVID testing site in that city, according to KRON4 News. 

Officers approached the site and asked for documentation, and they produced documents that they were operated by Crestview Clinical laboratory. Officers left the scene satisfied that all seems to be in order. 

However, officers later learned that Crestview, when contacted, denied they have a site in Petaluma. 

Officers returned to the site, to find the area empty. The pop-up site had disappeared. 

However, police have also received reports from people who used the site earlier and have received results. So there may or may not be fraud involved. 

Several jurisdictions in California, including San Francisco, and Marin counties have also reported suspicious pop-up COVID testing sites claiming to be operated by Crestview. 

Legal COVIDiocy Denied: Anti-Masker Got His Day In Court. Got Glorious Federal Judge Smackdown

There is a saying, "a lawyer who represents himself in court has a fool for a client". So when a civilian (read: non-lawyer), probably goaded on by antivaxxers, decided to sue Whole Foods for enforcing a local (Dedham, Massachusetts) mask mandate on January 4th, 2021 and going in "pro se" (without a lawyer, only as himself), you know things will get ugly... for the civilian. But let's lay out the case. 

Ryan Manning went to Whole Foods in Dedham, Massachusetts on Jan 4, 2021, without a mask. He was stopped by staff who asked him to mask up, and he refused. It was escalated to both the manager and head manager, both of whom told him he needs to mask up. Instead of complying, he left the premises  to call the police, alleged that his civil rights were being violated, then returned to the store with the police. The manager tried to offer him compromises, like doing the shopping for him, or giving him a health screening and a temperature check. Manning refused both. (It's obvious he's looking for a fight.) Why he won't wear a mask? He believes masks are used for satanic rituals so he won't wear one, and he refuses to "slowly commit suicide by lowering his immune system and depriving himself of oxygen". He eventually left. He filed the lawsuit in May 2021, with no less than EIGHT alleged violations of law:

1) Violated his first amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion (42 USC 1983)

2) Violated 18 USC 242 

3) Discriminated against him in public and violated 42 USC 2000a in two instances (counts as 2)

4) Conspiracy to interfere with his civil rights violating 42 USC 1985

5) Engaged in "unauthorized practice of medicine" against MA general laws CH 112 / 6

6) Harassed him

7) Falsely imprisoned him. 

Let's just say the judge eviscerated him in every count.