Pandemic paradise

Any restoration requires our resilience. Recovery remains fragile and we must return to a point when liberties are not contingent and certainly not casualties of a never ending asserted ‘emergency’. Authoritarianism is not excused by a virus. We need revitalised laws and fresh guidelines that can carry us beyond this pandemic paralysis

Much is being made of the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers and now the Pandora Papers, allegedly shining light on where the elites sequester their ‘loot’. With ostentatious solemnity, The Guardian writes, “The files reveal how wealthy individuals can shield their income and their assets from taxation and scrutiny by hiding them in off-shore jurisdictions more commonly known as tax havens.” 

In a world ludicrously held hostage by the equivalent of a median influenza strain, this surely does not qualify as a major revelation. Imagine the mounting horror as we discover that rich people don’t pay tax, and this is reported on by the portentously named International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

So, all these ‘Papers’ profess that offshore accounts exist, and believe it or not, rich people use them! The revelations this time focus on politicians from Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Kenya. In starring roles, we have the King of Jordan as well as prime ministers of the UAE and the Czech Republic.

This is hardly a treasure trove of top tier potentates. The previous ‘leaks’ also fed us some reptilian B-listers. In the scheme of things, Tony Blair’s name seems to come swimming up, but then his reputation is fairly unsalvageable being accused of avoiding GBP 300K in stamp duty. A commentator calculated that may account for about 30p per Iraqi he enabled the murder of through the sham war launched as a proxy for the Cheney administration. 

These ‘Papers,’ providing a mere gloss of accountability, don’t even allege any actual crimes, much less point the finger at any noteworthy politicians (after all America has domestic tax havens galore). So, we have to wonder what the hoopla is for. Simple questions are not asked, such as “Who leaked these papers?” or even, “What did they stand to gain?” 

Instead, this consortium of ‘journalists’ seem to be stenographers and conduits for intelligence agencies and the uber rich. They parlay the narrative fed to them and call these ‘leaks.’ Truly this consortium, when you dig a tad, turns out to be commissioned by the creepily named Centre for Public Integrity (laugh reel, please): a nonprofit orchestrated by various Foundations and billionaires (yes, the stock names that always seem to be at the epicentre of global charades). 

Even though the favoured target for global mischief, Vladimir Putin, doesn’t appear in the files by name, the press, of course, continues to suggest all this somehow reveals Putin’s ‘secret wealth.’ In the Panama Papers, Putin’s name was omnipresent in the reporting whereas once more it was not present in the actual leaked paperwork. This continues to be a tortured parody of reporting, darkly funny and yet pathetic. Of course, if you are fascinated in Putin or Putin allegations, you will never be starved of such ‘reporting.’ Salacious sizzle about sex and scandals, which may be true or untrue but is usually asserted with nary a fact in sight. 

So, once more, a world blown up by a Wuhan lab-enhanced coronavirus, mildly lethal and highly treatable (despite the desperate attempt to smother and suppress these highly efficacious treatments), which has us nostalgically summoning misapplied medieval remedies like lockdown, is real ‘breaking news’ not the self-evident realisation that rich people avoid taxes and lie about it. Being pelted by these Papers is being on the receiving end of improvisational ‘reporting’ which is likely another distraction to tout ‘financial reform’ or ‘stricter regulations.’ We can publicly proclaim our probity, while actually seeking to camouflage a cabal which may be actually pulling the geopolitical strings behind the scenes. 

One classic modus operandi is to have disposable despots ditched when no longer convenient, the likes of Pinochet, Saddam and their less than wily cohorts. During the Panama Papers excitement, in addition to the Putin mentions, Bashar Al-Assad was also journalistically pilloried with relish, though also not named in any of the leaked documents. The actually mentioned names in the documents involve people like Petro Poroshenko, the former Ukranian PM Lazarenko, the former PM of Qatar, President of the UAE, King of Saudi Arabia – again shock waves as we boo and hiss at these oft demonised lightning rods for criticism. Curiously no American citizens were named, no American companies implicated. 

The marvellous commentator Kit Knightly sums it up with searing satire: “George Soros, David Rockefeller, the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, Goldman Sachs et al – who are rabidly anti-corruption and always pay their taxes – all pooled their resources to fund the “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists” and tasked them with investigating shady international financial practices.”

She continues to the crescendo: “The result is this “leak,” a list of geo-political nobodies, has-beens, easy targets and dead ancestors. The tenuous and absurd connections to “enemies” of the West are exaggerated and plastered all over the headlines, whilst the names of allies and relatives are sidelined and barely mentioned.”

Folks this is cold porridge and journalistic detritus. The real story is “live” and impinging on our lives and liberties still, every day.

The great Ivermectin smear campaign

Ivermectin is a blessed resource for the human family, and the attacks on it will go down in the annals of shamefulness. This is a chemical anti-parasitic agent first discovered in 1975. Seven years of safety trials were conducted by Merck and WHO in its evolution to human use. It is on WHO’s list of ‘essential medicines’ which means WHO considers it should be widely available in all countries. 

In 2015 for its human (not horse) uses, Ivermectin received the Nobel Prize for Medicine. With a mere 16 deaths even indirectly ascribed since 1992 with close to 4 billion doses administered to humans, there wasn’t a whiff of controversy until 2020. Keep in mind the efficacy attacks are a distraction. When safety credentials are this unimpeachable, then utilising medication for off-label purposes is at a doctor’s discretion. I believe that is where we have wisely landed relative to Ivermectin in Sri Lanka. Not officially recommended, but at doctor’s discretion. 

When global reports of Ivermectin’s success with C-19 started doing the tour, mainstream media was commissioned to attack and undermine. Celebrities such as Joe Rogan, who affirmed he had been cured by it, were said to be ‘spreading dangerous misinformation.’ The vapid distortion spread across the media that Ivermectin was only used on animals and those using it were ‘drinking horse de-wormer.’ 

The most blatant disinformation was a story in Rolling Stone which claimed ER departments in Oklahoma were so overrun with Ivermectin poisoning they were having to turn away gunshot patients. Unfortunately for Rolling Stone, the story was so outrageously false even they had to retract it when one of the hospitals concerned made a statement that not only were they not overrun by Ivermectin overdoses, but they had also not even seen a single one! 

Ivermectin though is dangerous in another way. Available in the UK at 50p a tablet, it certainly threatens the profit aspirations of upcoming, inadequately tested antivirals being produced by Merck and soon Pfizer which will run up to $70 a tablet or $700 for a course of treatment. 

There are 63 control studies, 45 of them peer reviewed, 31 RCTs (randomly controlled), 7 meta-analyses, evident evidence from Indian states where Delta surges clearly collapsed, similar testimony from Mexico, now Indonesia, and we are told ‘on the sly’ successful treatment as prophylaxis for close to 200 US members of Congress. In the latter instance, while staying mum at the outlandish smear campaign, knowing the facts, it has been reported to the FLCCC that this was nevertheless availed of, completely successfully, setting a new standard for blatant hypocrisy. 

It is also curious on the safety front that Ivermectin in the UK, for example, is used to treat the most vulnerable who are immunocompromised, not for COVID specifically, but to prevent worms. If it is safe for the most vulnerable, how can it even be asserted credibly that it is unsafe for humans in any aspect? And such interference with a doctor’s discretion using Ivermectin for C-19 may also be part of the reason why the UK has among the highest COVID related death rates in the world (and that’s with 80+% vaxxed compared to Uttar Pradesh in India where COVID is now a nominal trickle at 15% vaxxed levels). 

In addition to multiple studies there is a vast amount of real-world evidence from patients, doctors and countries. Please visit www.worldivermectinday.org. When Dr. Tess Lawrie, a highly respected evidence-based scientist who became a champion of Ivermectin on the strength of actual evidence (despite being attacked and vilified for doing so), was asked whether issues with some of the trials had weakened her belief in Ivermectin, she replied, “The only issues with the evidence base are the relentless efforts to undermine it. There are over 100 scientific papers on the use of Ivermectin that are relevant to COVID-19. The majority suggest benefit, none show harm. I do not have a belief; I have knowledge I would like to share.” 

For medical specialists or medical geeks who want to know by what mechanism of action Ivermectin makes such an impact, let’s listen to one of the most eminent early treatment practitioners in the world, Dr. Ryan Cole, “Ivermectin hinders binding of SARS- CoV-2 spike protein at the ACE2 receptor (not only the virus spike, but also the ACE2 receptor itself). This is the primary receptor on our cell surface where the virus binds and gets gulped into the cell. If the virus can’t bind, it can’t get in. If it can’t get in, it can’t replicate. Both the key and the lock are altered and don’t work together in the presence of IVM.” 

Dr. Cole goes on to say, “It also binds the alpha/beta importing and saturates it. This is the ‘taxi/Uber’ the virus uses to ride into the cell to arrive at the area where it would replicate.” So, essentially IVM takes up the seats so the virus can’t get a ride to where it would need to go to copy itself. 

We’re worse off now

In October 2018 Johns Hopkins published a report (Technologies to Address Global Catastrophic Biological Risks) which offered novel social control and mRNA vaccination ideas to deal with emerging pandemics. Chillingly the report said these ideas would be applicable whether the pandemic was naturally occurring or whether it was deliberately created and released. 

One of the very terrifying sections in this publication is a blueprint for ‘self-spreading vaccines’ which move around populations as communicable diseases would, but here they would confer protection. They do note that this would violate the rules of informed consent and possibly spur allergic reactions. And here directly quoted is a shocking prediction, “Finally, there is a not insignificant risk of the vaccine virus reverting to wild-type virulence, as has sometimes occurred with the oral polio vaccine—which is not intended to be fully virulent or transmissible, but which has reverted to become both neurovirulent and transmissible in rare instances. This is both a medical risk and a public perception risk; the possibility of vaccine induced disease would be a major concern to the public.” You think?! 

Whether our ‘vaccines’ shed spike proteins onto other people is not proven (Pfizer indicated spread through skin to skin ‘inhalation’). Nevertheless, mass vaccination with a faulty vaccine rendering a virus more transmissible and more virulent is hard to ignore at this point. After all, more people have died of COVID-19 in 2021 with most adults vaccinated than 2020 when no one was vaccinated. You would think our gain of researchers owe us some answers. 

The only country with granular weekly data is England. As per the recent PHE report, C-19 case rates are higher per capita among the vaccinated in every age group over 30. For those in the 40’s the case rate is nearly double among the ‘vaccinated’, giving us a stupefying “negative 86%” efficacy against infection rate! 

The numbers are getting worse every week. This is neither normal nor expected. Of course, if deadliness plummeted perhaps, we would be more sanguine. However, the opposite has been true. We are clearly dealing with a leaky vaccine which fails to sterilise the virus. In fact, the correlation between higher vaccination and better outcomes is not currently found anywhere in the world. Delta initially was fairly mild, described as akin to a cold, and then Israel got hit hard, England is now experiencing a higher death rate, and so case fatality is rising not falling with greater vaccination in England. And yet we are to believe that the ‘unvaccinated’ are somehow causing all of this? 

In fact, a new Israeli study of hospital workers at Sheba Medical Center showed that around the six month mark the Pfizer shot wanes the most for those over 65 and those with health issues…the very people who most need this alleged protection. If we’re going to be stripped of our freedoms, perhaps we can at least ask for a bloody jab that works – a jab that works better than proliferating infection while also aggravating adverse effects in numbers never seen in the history of vaccine adverse effect tracking.

Our time to move on

Now, while applying no evidentiary thresholds at all to the bunk and blarney that make up Covidian “public health”, the evidentiary demand for all the other therapeutics (other than the less than stellar excuse for “vaccines” we’ve concocted, confected, and now are threatening to jab the world with), is completely at odds with what you would sanely expect in a pandemic. “Regulation” and “innovation” are different impulses, and to be applied at different moments of stability or volatility.

Of the types of studies scientists rely on, you of course have the double blinded, randomised, controlled trials. The second though, of immense value and relevance, are non-randomised but still “controlled.” The claim that only randomised controlled trials are to be trusted has kernels of truth, but also bushels of confusion to it. 

The great majority of drugs, Dr. Harvey Risch of Yale reminds us, developed to treat heart diseases were the result of non-randomised trials. Cholesterol-lowering drugs were in widespread use well before randomised trials were done. Azithromycin, the most common antibiotic for children, emerged without randomised trials. Penicillin worked, and worked again, and it was deployed on that outstanding efficacy. As Professor Risch says, “I am an epidemiologist because even though I love biologic theories, I develop them all the time to study how nature works, but it is from the human empirical data that we learn how indeed nature works.”

The Cochrane Library Consortium, a British international organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about interventions, studied tens of thousands of comparisons between randomised trials and their non-randomised counterparts and found that the two types of approaches arrived at virtually identical conclusions. Large amounts of consistent, clinical, empirical data, doctors deploying their wisdom and innovation and calibrating and course correcting from actual results and the vicissitudes of patient well-being – that has always been how we have been treated, and how we have navigated our way through pathogens, diseases and all the myriad health pangs that attend our living and evolving.

Coming back to pandemia. This panicked crisis response has caused colossal damage in terms of destitute businesses, educationally shipwrecked students, ignoring care for multiple life-threatening ailments and capsizing mental and emotional health. The global economy has been given a more savage shock collectively than it has experienced in perhaps over three centuries. Both inflation and lower living standards await our attention. In too many countries the ratio of debt to GDP far exceeds 100%. Former Supreme Court Justice of the UK, Lord Sumption was speaking on behalf of much of humanity when he pointed out, “The repealing of our ancient civil liberties is the most significant interference with personal freedom in the history of our country.”

It seems we are gifted with glimpses of restored autonomy but with a diabolical precedent set that with another surge of untrustworthy positive test results, government somehow could again assert the never expiring right to push us obliviously to the brink. For a respiratory virus with a 99% global recovery rate, how thrilled should we be to have the genius of Ivermectin concealed as we are being ordered into economic devastation while being offered leaky ‘vaccines’ as palliatives?

So, any restoration requires our resilience. Recovery remains fragile and we must return to a point when liberties are not contingent and certainly not casualties of a never ending asserted ‘emergency’. Authoritarianism is not excused by a virus. We need revitalised laws and fresh guidelines that can carry us beyond this pandemic paralysis. 

Lanka is besieged. There is a crisis of confidence. Let’s take the edge off our panic. Let’s refocus on the future. Let’s anchor ourselves in facts and move onto fresh possibilities. We need to revive education, we need to restore competitiveness, we need to infuse confidence and reliability in the operation of our economy and society. We need to build bridges to allies, we need to commit to digital leadership, and truly stimulate human capital development. We must welcome businesses to thrive here without undue regulation and invite tourists to fall under Serendib’s bewitching spell without undue Covidian mania. We need to locate our will, draw on our natural gifts and not doubt our latent capabilities. 

We cannot do this while being lapdogs to vested interests peddling pharmaceutical fantasies and inflating viral challenges. Yet again, with 60% of the world’s population, Asia has merely 19% of the world’s COVID ascribed fatalities. Poverty is a far greater crisis, so are our suicide rates. Carl Jung once wrote that most of the real problems of the world have to be more than “solved,” they have to be “outgrown.” It’s time we outgrew this current crisis.