Let's jump in:
Diseases come back 10x worse
A recent piece in Bloomberg shows beyond doubt that we're living through a massive resurgence of diseases since the Covid pandemic began. These diseases include: tuberculosis, measles, whopping cough (pertussis), polio, mycoplasma pneumonia, dengue, cholera, strep, flu, and RSV. These diseases are coming back anywhere from 10 to 30 times worse than their pre-pandemic averages. Bloomberg partnered with Airfinity to analyze infection data, and it debunks the immunity debt myth, citing experts that "if immunity debt were the only factor, the countries that lifted pandemic restrictions two or three years ago should be caught up by now, and they're not. The waves of illnesses keep coming." Of course, the article completely fails to discuss the mounds of evidence that even mild Covid disrupts, dysregulates, and damages your immune system.
Benjamin Mateus has given a thorough breakdown of the numbers and their implications over at the WSWS.
Strep turns into flesh-eating bacteria in Japan
Another piece in Bloomberg raises alarms about the spread of a "rare flesh-eating bacteria" that can kill within 48 hours. Except it's not a rare bacteria. It's Strep A, otherwise known as Strep throat. The real story is that as diseases come back 10-30 times more pervasive, they're also causing more damage. If Strep gets into your bloodstream, it can kill you.
It's called streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS).
Cases of STSS have already doubled over last year's record. Experts "fear the number of cases in Japan could reach 2,500 this year." Experts claim they "don't know yet" why cases are rising so fast, but they note that "various infectious diseases including flu and adenovirus increased when Covid restrictions were eased." Once again, the evidence points to immune system damage and disruption by Covid. If your body can't fight off viruses, funguses, and bacteria, then they're going to spread to places where they can kill you.
Drug shortages deepen
As a surprise to nobody, drug shortages continue to plague the world. Shortages keep reaching record highs in the U.S., with 48 more drugs added to the list as of March. A story in the AP indicates this problem won't get better anytime soon, but it insists on adding some silver lining. Apparently, politicians are "very interested" in holding hearings and maybe doing something about it. In Britain, half of people are struggling to get prescriptions filled. More than 30 percent have to go to multiple pharmacies, and 8 percent are just doing without. Once again, everyone focuses on supply chain problems. They're not linking the supply shortages to the fact that everyone's getting a lot sicker more often.
Our government isn't taking bird flu seriously
A recent piece in Politico reveals just how little our government bodies are doing to track or control the bird flu outbreak in cattle. According to them, "the federal response is largely focusing on voluntary efforts by farmers," and "testing has covered a mere fraction of the nation's nine million dairy cattle." Most farms still haven't agreed to participate in surveillance.
We don't know what we don't know.
If you want more confirmation that the FDA, CDC, and USDA have no idea what they're doing, you can look at CBS public health reporter Alexander Tin's notes from a recent conference call. During that call, the principal deputy director of the CDC (Nirav Shah), said they have plenty of testing capacity for bird flu, but they're not using it because they're worried about "happening just to pick up a stray amount of virus from their nasal passage, but not actually detecting someone who's clinically ill... who could pass it on to somebody else." They're not interested in tracking "someone who's been exposed."
Let's summarize that:
The CDC isn't tracking cattle workers who've been exposed to bird flu, because they believe it's probably just random bird flu virus in their nose. They don't seem to understand that random virus in someone's nose is exactly how an infection starts. If you wait until someone becomes symptomatic to isolate or treat them, then you've allowed them to spread the virus.
That's how transmission works.
During the same conference call, the public health officials in charge of the bird flu outbreak in cattle repeatedly demonstrated ignorance of recent science, instead "inferring from previous experiences" and "previous scientific work" to pass the blame onto things like shared equipment and boots as the primary vectors, rather than airborne spread.
Kathy Johnson, a veterinarian with the USDA, went on to say while "we don't have any evidence" that cats can transmit bird flu, she also said "we do not fully understand whether or not they are capable of transmitting," only to reiterate "we don't have any evidence that they are..."
At one point, these officials decline to raise the minimum temperature or duration for milk pasteurization, claiming that it could hurt the flavor. They said that, even while knowing that bird flu can survive the standard pasteurization process, especially if not done properly.
So there you have it.
These officials aren't taking bird flu seriously. They're leaning on phrases like "there's no evidence that..." and then making excuses for why they're not looking for data that would make their jobs more difficult. They're also showing that even when they tacitly acknowledge the aerosolized spread of viruses, they're not going to act on that information.
Bird flu conspiracies spread
We might as well talk about the bird flu conspiracy theories sprouting up all over the web. The most popular one: Bill Gates funded gain-of-function research on bird flu in U.S. laboratories. Now the USDA is manufacturing an "artificial crisis" to generate a food shortage and create an atmosphere of fear leading into the 2024 elections. As with every conspiracy theory, there's an element of truth here. The Gates Foundation did fund research on bird flu mutations, back in 2009. Scientists have at least modeled the changes bird flu would undergo to become infectious to humans. That's where the truth ends. Mistrust of governments and public health is driving resistance among farmers. If anything, the government is under-responding to bird flu, probably because they're scared of political backlash from raw milkers and conspiracy theorists.
Well, it's too late for that.
We're debilitating entire generations
A new study published by the JAMA network has confirmed statistics we've seen in other studies, that roughly 1 in 5 Covid patients don't recover after three months (90 days). This study took a number of factors into account, including vaccine status, gender, age, infection wave, and "pre-pandemic" health problems. Various experts have offered their interpretations of the data, but the bottom line remains true: The best way to avoid Long Covid is to avoid Covid by wearing a good mask, using nose sprays, and cleaning the air.
The second part of an interview series landed last week, where Lynn Parramore from the Institute for New Economic Thinking and Phillip Alvelda from the Brainworks Foundry have predicted that we're on track for a majority of Americans to develop Long Covid.
Combined, these interviews go down as two of the most important pieces published on Covid so far. Parramore and Alvelda lay everything out so clearly. Our institutions of public health from the CDC to the WHO knew Covid was airborne all along and kept it hidden, while working overtime to protect their own families. The White House has installed everything from air purifiers to UV lights to combat the virus, and they won't even let diplomatic delegations visit if there's a single positive Covid test. The Biden administration used a plan designed by global biosecurity experts to get elected, then they ditched that plan while hiring a hedge fund manager to run things, who "decided the best way forward was to convince people that the pandemic wasn't happening." Alvelda says we're slowly debilitating entire generations, and the only way forward is to remove corrupt health advisors from positions of influence.
It's a damning indictment.
A portrait emerges
This news roundup shows a clear portrait of a corrupt, broken healthcare system plagued by a resurgence of diseases and drug shortages, on the verge of another pandemic, with leaders doing absolutely nothing to help. The corporate media report on the pieces, but they fail to connect the dots.
Well, they're connected here.
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