Putting COVID Deaths Into Perspective – The Profit Motive

Tragically, as of 7/11/2021, over four million people have died COVID according to how COVID deaths are recorded over the last year and half of the pandemic.

Even more tragically, this is how many people die worldwide every year from:

Starvation: an estimated 9 million people.

Air pollution: an estimated 7 million people.

Smoking: more than 7 million deaths.

Car accidents: approximately 1.35 million.

Remember, those are per year, totaling over 24 million people a year.

To put that in a different way — in the 18 months that 4 million people have died of COVID, approximately 36 million or 9 times as many, have died from starvation, air pollution, smoking, and car accidents.

But we don’t consider these 24 million yearly deaths to be a pandemic. Why not? Because there is in no profit in addressing these issues particularly as it is strenuously argued by various industries and corporations that there would monetary loss. And who suffers? The people of this planet and the planet itself.

But there is profit in manufacturing drugs. Pfizer made $3.5 billion dollars in revenue just in the first quarter of 2021 from the vaccine alone, nearly 1/4 of its total revenue with profits predicted in the high 20% range. (source)

Moderna logged a profit of $1.2 billion dollars. (source)

The word “pandemic” comes from the Greek pandēmos (from pan ‘all’ + dēmos ‘people’.) It doesn’t refer to just viruses (“a pandemic disease”, first use recorded in 1853) but rather anything that affects all people. We have several global pandemics which are being ignored by governments and corporations for one simple reason: there is no profit in fixing them.

The COVID-19 Spike Protein and Vascular Disease and the mRNA Vaccine

The CDC says this about the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine¹:

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines give instructions for our cells to make a harmless piece of what is called the “spike protein.” The spike protein is found on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19.

In a paper published 4/30/2021 in Circulation Research, summarized by SciTechDaily², we read:

Scientists have known for a while that SARS-CoV-2’s distinctive “spike” proteins help the virus infect its host by latching on to healthy cells. Now, a major new study shows that they also play a key role in the disease itself…

…the paper provides clear confirmation and a detailed explanation of the mechanism through which the protein damages vascular cells for the first time...

…In the new study, the researchers created a “pseudovirus” that was surrounded by SARS-CoV-2 classic crown of spike proteins, but did not contain any actual virus. Exposure to this pseudovirus resulted in damage to the lungs and arteries of an animal model—proving that the spike protein alone was enough to cause disease. Tissue samples showed inflammation in endothelial cells lining the pulmonary artery walls.

From those excerpts, and the parts that I underlined, it would seem to be a logical conclusion that the mRNA vaccine also causes vascular disease. How could it not? Doesn’t the vaccine cause the cells in your body to manufacture the same spike protein that the Salk researchers found to be the cause of vascular disease?

What am I missing? It’s confusing to read “…classic crown of spike proteins…” (plural) but then “…that the spike protein alone…” (singular), as the question is, well, is one or all of the spike proteins that cause vascular disease, and if it’s only one, then is it the same protein that the mRNA vaccine causes your cells to produce?

If anything, this is why we need open disclosure – what spike protein does the mRNA vaccine produce, and what spike protein (or proteins) did the Salk researches work with?

If anyone who reads this post knows, please leave a comment, and with your sources!

Sources

¹ – https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html

² – https://scitechdaily.com/covid-19-is-a-vascular-disease-coronavirus-spike-protein-attacks-vascular-system-on-a-cellular-level/

Lockdown and “Stay at Home” Doesn’t Work. Testing Works

All graphs are from Novel Coronavirus (COVIS-19) Infection Map as of March 28 2020.

South Korea

As indicated by the 2 purple circles I’ve drawn on the graph:

• On Feb 21, South Korea reported an 143 active cases.
• On March 11, the peak of the active cases was 7869, which is where the yellow line starts sloping down.

In 19 days (less than 3 weeks) the rate of infections began decreasing.

Regarding South Korea, the following bullet points are all quotes from a 3/13/2020 article on Forbes:

• South Korea Sees Coronavirus Slowdown—Without A Lockdown, But With Nearly 250,000 Tests
• Seo Eun-young, the director of foreign press relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said aggressive testing has been the key to containing the coronavirus.
• Unlike other countries—like the United States, where only people showing symptoms are recommended to be tested—South Korea tests anyone who had been in contact with a confirmed case, and tracks down by credit card activity, surveillance camera footage and mobile phone tracking those who are potentially exposed, a measure that has proved effective but has raised questions about privacy.
•  The U.S. has reportedly tested fewer than 14,000 people, a statistic Director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci told congress was “a failing” on Thursday. In contrast, South Korea has reported they have the capacity to test 15,000 patients per day.

Hubei China

• Jan 27, 1302 active cases
• Feb 18, the peak of the active cases was 50620, which is where the yellow line starts sloping down.

A time span of three weeks and one day (22 days).

Italy

• Feb 29, 1049 active cases
• March 27, 66414 active cases

A time span of 4 weeks with no sign of the daily number of new active cases decreasing.

• Italy has been in lockdown for 3 weeks now.

When I look at these graphs, the conclusion I draw is that a blanket lockdown does not work.  What does work is:

1. extensive testing
2. quarantining if infected
3. tracking and testing the people with which the infected person has been in contact

New York

• March 18, 1635 active cases
• March 27, 44116 active cases

If we look at the active confirmed reports for New York:

• March 23: 20718
• March 24: 25455 (an increase of 4737 from the day before)
• March 25: 30526 (an increase of 5081 from the day before)
• March 26: 36873 (an increase of 6347 from the day before)
• March 27: 44116 (an increase of 7243 from the day before)

New York has been under a “stay at home” order for 13 days now (initiated at 8 PM on March 15).  The rate of new cases daily continues to increase.  “Stay at home” isn’t working.  If we were to achieve what South Korea and Hubei achieved, reversing the increase in daily new infections in 3 weeks, we should start seeing this curve decreases, well, about now, as we have one week left to go since the stay at home order at which point there would be somewhere around 100,000 active cases.  I seriously doubt this will be the case.

Why doesn’t lockdown and “stay at home” work?  My personal opinion is:

1. I suspect this relates to “essential businesses” that must stay open.  This doesn’t just include hospitals, walk in clinics, pharmacies, gas stations, grocery stores, etc.  This includes the entire healthcare, production and delivery system for the goods and medicines that these essential businesses require.  We have to eat, people have to feed their pets, take their medications, go the the hospital, be treated, etc.
2. Many people don’t know they are infected as they are asymptomatic but continue to spread the disease to others.
3. Support staff required to keep these essential businesses open and the supply chain “supplying”: drivers, packers, distribution centers, administrative workers that must be on site, etc.

March 26:

Many COVID-19 cases are thought to be mild, and infected individuals with mild or no reported symptoms are still contagious and capable of spreading the virus. Plus, the virus has a long incubation period, with many people not showing symptoms for an average of five days after infection. Together, these two factors result in a lot of people who are infected and spreading the virus without knowing it….In a study published in the journal Science earlier this month, Shaman and his colleagues found that undocumented COVID-19 cases were responsible for 86 percent of the spread of the disease in China before the country enacted travel restrictions on January 23, 2020…“The fact that there may be some silent transmission for COVID-19 makes it very difficult to contain,” says Meyers. That’s why people worldwide are now taking such extreme social distancing measures to try to get the outbreak under control.  – ssource

And yet South Korea did contain the outbreak.  Through testing.

Again, regarding testing:

March 13:

Despite the fact that last week, Vice President Mike Pence promised that “roughly 1.5 million tests” would soon be available, an ongoing Atlantic investigation can confirm only that 13,953 tests have been conducted nationally. New York, which has shut down Broadway and has at least 328 coronavirus cases, is still failing to test patients who have worrying symptoms. – source

March 20:

Los Angeles County health officials advised doctors to give up on testing patients in the hope of containing the coronavirus outbreak, instructing them to test patients only if a positive result could change how they would be treated.  The guidance, sent by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to doctors on Thursday, was prompted by a crush of patients and shortage of tests, and could make it difficult to ever know precisely how many people in L.A. County contracted the virus. – source

March 21:

New York City health officials have directed medical providers to stop testing patients for the coronavirus, except for those sick enough to require hospitalization, saying wider testing is exhausting supplies of protective equipment.  In an advisory issued Friday, the health department said outpatient testing should stop unless results would impact a patient’s treatment.  It said demand for unnecessary testing is contributing to a national shortage of masks, gowns, collection swabs and other supplies, all of which need to be discarded by health care workers after each test.  As of Friday morning, more than 32,000 people had been tested in the state, almost a third of them in the last day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.  More than 7,000 New Yorkers have tested positive. More than 1,200 have been hospitalized. – source

Contrast that to South Korea’s capacity to test 15000 people per day.  Again, why testing is important:

Testing allows infected people to know that they are infected. This can help them receive the care they need; and it can help them take measures to reduce the probability of infecting others. People who don’t know they are infected might not stay at home and thereby risk infecting others. – source

Also, points to note regarding Coronavirus disease 2019 (this is from wikipedia) and why testing is so important:

• Details about how the disease is spread are still being determined.
• The virus can remain infectious for hours to days on surfaces.  Specifically the virus was infectious for up to three days on plastic and stainless steel, for one day on cardboard, and for up to four hours on copper.  This however varies based on the humidity and temperature.
• One study found that small droplets with coronavirus, generated by laboratory equipment, could stay airborne for three hours.

Personal comment: Have you handled money recently?

We need to start testing!

Other reading:

How prepared is the US to respond to COVID-19 relative to other countries?

What WHO advisor David Heymann told us about COVID-19