As I said last week, I'm ready to move on. The pandemic is finally coming to an end, thanks to Omicron.
Unfortunately, Canada's mainstream press clearly remains committed to obfuscation and lies. The CBC has spent the last several months calling ivermectin a horse-dewormer, and demonizing the unvaxxed. When the truth finally comes out, it will be clear that the CBC was an active cheerleader for some of the worst public health policies of the past century. So the CBC remains a truth-averse institution. My work is not yet done.
Here's my suggestion: let's do this in stages.
Be aware that there is a whole shitload of new information coming out this week. There's a large, peer-reviewed Brazilian study on the efficacy of ivermectin as a prophylactic. Senator Ron Johnson held public hearings in Washington yesterday with a who's who of American doctors who saved thousands of lives with early COVID treatments. And, and, and - but you get the picture.
For your sanity and mine, let's go at this one step at a time. Today let's start with a very important CDC study that came out last Wednesday. The mainstream press of North America has worked very hard to try to ignore this CDC study, but it is a game-changer.
The CDC study didn't tell us anything new. We already knew from numerous previous studies several months ago that natural immunity provided better protection against serious COVID outcomes than vaccines did. Those same studies also indicated that vaccination offered minimal extra immune protection for those with natural immunity.
What's new is that with this document the US Government, in the form of the Center for Disease Control, has now finally admitted those obvious truths. That's huge.
Here's my guess on what's happened. The CDC is aware that most Americans will soon have robust natural immunity caused by exposure to the Omicron variant. That is going to bring the pandemic to an end. That will provide a solid scientific justification for ending all mask mandates, vaccine mandates and lock-downs. But before that can happen the US Government needed to admit that natural immunity is real, robust and long-lasting.
The CDC has spent the last 18 months waffling about natural immunity. It has seized upon every study it could find to throw doubt on the efficacy of natural immunity, no matter how flawed on tiny those studies were. This study is the closest the CDC is going to come to giving a mea culpa, to admitting they spent the last 18 months denying obvious truths.
Clearly the CDC is deeply embarrassed by what it's own research has found. How else can we explain why their study has been written to be almost unintelligible. I've read a lot of scientific studies in the past year, and not one of them was as deliberately obtuse as this one is. Though they have finally admitted the truth, they have done so in a way that most of North America's science-challenged journalists won't understand, at least not right away.
Let's go over the findings of the CDC study.
The CDC study was huge, involving hundreds of thousands of people in New York and California, which strengthens the reliability of its findings.
The study looked at negative outcomes for four groups during the Delta wave: 1) those who were unvaccinated with no prior COVID infection, 2) those who were unvaccinated and who had recovered from infection with a previous COVID variant, 3) those who were vaccinated and who had never been infected with COVID, 4) those who were vaccinated and who had recovered from infection with a previous variant of COVID.
Though the CDC report is full of gobbledegook, they did have the basic decency to include one graph that summarized the results clearly for the risk of hospitalization with Delta. Here it is:
You see the highest (dark blue) line? That's the group that was unvaccinated with no prior immunity. Lots of hospitalizations!
Way below that, the dark blue dotted line is those who were vaccinated with no prior infection. Far fewer infections than the unvaccinated, but with a much higher rate of hospitalization than the light blue dotted line below it, which is the unvaccinated with natural immunity.
Notice that the black dotted line, which shows the group who were vaccinated and also had natural immunity, is practically on top of the line for those who were unvaccinated but had previous natural immunity.
This graph lays out in visual form two obvious truths: 1) Natural immunity is superior to vaccine immunity, and 2) Vaccination offers only a miniscule reduction in risk to those who already have natural immunity.
Buried in the data tables is the most important information: the vaccinated are three times as likely to catch COVID as those with natural immunity. The vaccinated are twice as likely to be hospitalized with COVID as those who have natural immunity.
Grudgingly, the CDC has finally admitted the truth 18 months after the fact. That will enable public health authorities in the US to admit that Omicron is finally bringing the COVID pandemic to an end.
What are the implications for Canada?
Well, first of all, it offers a face-saving way for Canada's public health officials to increase the number of medical personnel available to address the Omicron wave of hospitalizations.
Remember all those doctors and nurses who got fired because they refused to get vaccinated? Well, a very large number of those doctors and nurses weren't willing to get vaccinated because they already recovered from COVID infections. COVID infections they often got working in hospitals before vaccines were available. COVID infections they got putting themselves at risk working to keep other people alive. And we rewarded them for that great service by firing them.
So, immediately, hospitals across Canada should hire back every fired health care worker who had documented case of COVID or a positive COVID antigen test. Give them all apologies.
Better yet, invite all of those fired staff in for an antigen test. Any health care worker who has had Omicron and recovered has way better immunity than fully-vaccinated healthcare workers who haven't had Omicron. That is beyond doubt now. Hire them back. We need them.
Yes, I know the Government wants to punish all the unvaccinated, but perhaps it's time to set aside that vindictiveness before it kills too many people in hospital systems that are being pushed beyond capacity.
In a similar way, the Canadian Government could partly defuse the current supply-chain crisis it has created with its trucker vaccine mandate by allowing cross-border traffic for all Canadian or American trucker with positive COVID antigen tests, recognizing their natural immunity as being equivalent to vaccination.
More than two million Canadians have recovered from COVID. A very significant proportion of those "racist, misogynistic anti-vaxxers" our Prime Minister has demonized are Canadians who were unwilling to get vaccinated because they already had natural immunity.
Those Canadians figured out months ago what the CDC finally admitted last week: that they have much better immunity than the vaccinated do, and that for them to get vaccinated would be wasting a vaccine dose that could be much better used elsewhere.
If our Prime Minister has even a tiny shred of decency or integrity, he will admit that this large group of Canadians exists. He will admit they were absolutely right to refuse to get vaccinated. And he will apologize for slandering them. I'm not holding my breath.
I do wish that scientific proof lead to policy changes. There has been so much evidence revealed over the last few months, that render the core reasons for the mandates empty. the vaccine does not stop transmission and will not lead to herd immunity. There are and have been safe, inexpensive and effective early treatments. Yet so many people don't believe this, ignore the evidence and continue to stick with their beliefs. Today I looked at a site dedicated to American Democrats on FB. They were celebrating that Neil Young says he will pull his music off Spotify if they do not get rid of Joe Rogan. People where calling to get rid of the first amendment rights as Joe was going to kill people, and they said all dissenters should be thrown in jail. I could not believe my eyes, shocked these were democrats! We live in an upside down world.
All people should have access to full participation in society no matter what their medical Status. If you have symptoms stay at home.