For much of the Covid-19 pandemic, I felt as though I was a spectator to unlikely scenes from the strange world of Alice in Wonderland, and through a frosted glass for good measure. Sometimes it seemed to make sense, but when I looked for the science, it wasn’t there, and the images started to evaporate as so much smoke.
Nothing quite added up; “Odder and odder,” I would mutter, à la Alice. Strangely, nobody seemed to mind and just carried on, continuing to believe the official narrative.
First, we were told that the virus came from a wet market in Wuhan when humans ate pangolins that had eaten bats. In fact, the more likely explanation is that the virus escaped from the research lab in the city while scientists were working on gain-of-function technology funded by the US government.
Then statistical modelers warned us we faced an pandemic as severe as the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, but that didn’t happen, not even close. Then we were assured that lockdowns would save lives, but comparing data between countries that did full lockdowns with those that didn’t, instead adopting sensible social distancing rules, revealed similar mortality levels.
Then, the great hoorah. The first Covid vaccines rolled off the production lines (suspiciously quickly). These were a game-changer and would protect everyone: curtains for Covid. Now it appears that the vaccines’ effectiveness lasts for around six months, during which time you can still catch the virus and pass it on to anyone else, including the vulnerable. That’s why you need a second shot, oh yes, and then a third. No wonder a top pharmaceutical executive described the pandemic as “Christmas Day every day.”
And, of course, the vaccines are perfectly safe, as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reassured fellow Brits quite recently, and any wavering and uncertainty was down to anti-vax ‘mumbo jumbo.’ In fact, they aren’t perfectly safe, but reporting systems are so poor that we don’t actually know how many people have died, although it’s estimated the vaccines claimed the lives of anything from 40,000 to 150,000 Americans last year.
The US Food and Drug Administration isn’t exactly falling over itself to provide the facts. It has offered to release papers concerning the safety of the vaccines over a 55-year period, while, in the UK, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has refused in the High Court to release data about deaths and adverse reactions among those over 12. The judge told parents they probably wouldn’t be able to understand the numbers, anyhow.
A group of scientists and doctors, collectively called HART (Health Advisory & Recovery Team), estimates that deaths among boys under the age of 19 is 50 percent above the expected average and is asking for a moratorium on the vaccine roll-out for adolescents over 12 until safety has been established. Nothing’s happening so far.
Cracks started to appear in my frosted glass last month when Italian researchers discovered that of the 130,468 Covid deaths in the country, just 3,783 could be directly attributed to the virus. The rest died with Covid but had life-threatening conditions such as cancer and serious heart problems.
Now, the ONS has come clean about the real numbers in England and Wales. The official narrative has it that around 144,000 people have died from Covid, but strip out those with serious health problems and the true number for 2020 up to the third quarter of 2021 is just 17,371.
It’s all down to sleight of hand around the definition, “died within 28 days of a positive Covid diagnosis.” Indeed they did, but they didn’t die from it. At worst, the virus sped up an inevitable process.
Presumably, governments have access to the same data we’ve seen. So, why have they been prepared to crash their economies for a virus that is nasty, but nowhere near as deadly as the propaganda machines have constantly warned us?
Yes, a small group has benefited enormously from the pandemic, from the health officials with shares in the pharmaceutical companies to those holding patents to vaccines. Then there are the government apparatchiks who enjoyed an enormous boon for providing PPE gear and the like that protected us from the virus.
But can that be the reason? The only way to keep sane is to believe that everything was well-intended and that a series of unfortunate events followed.
The alternative is to step through the glass and into Wonderland—and be trapped there forever.
