Covid in Norway: A New Risk Assessment Shows Fearporn and Gaslighting Never Get Old

The answer to no new variant is: more jabs, with really bad poll numbers for the governing Worker's Party quite likely driving them mulling 'new measures, if necessary'--welcome to clown country

Over here, some news on the ‘northern front’. Just as a few more critical voices appeared to make it to the mainstream a bit more often, the Institute of Public Health (IPH) has come out with a new ‘risk assessment’ for the coming winter. While the following is mainly about the most recent report dated 8 Nov. 2022—but I must tell you something about that assessment first.

IPH Changes the File Overnight

Yesterday evening (local time), I talked about it briefly during a meeting, but today there’s an ‘updated’ version, with the ‘original’ one being relegated to the memory hole of public health officialdom. Thankfully, there’s no escaping the Wayback Machine, which also allows for access to the original version. The majority of changes, according to a quick comparison of both files (summarised below), concerns irrelevant things, such as the re-formatting of graphical elements or the moving of page numbers from the bottom to the top of the page.

Yet, there were also more substantial changes made and, more worryingly, they are entirely without explanation. Take, say, the below example of p. 40 (the original report is on the left, the updated version on the right), which shows, in Fig. 22, the ‘daily number of hospitalisations, seasonal effects, and burden of disease’. In the original file (on the left), the explanation in parentheses reads: ‘green is light, blue is medium, and red is heavy’); by contrast, the updated version (on the right) has the same visualisation but the explanation in parentheses reads: ‘red is light, green is medium, and blue is heavy’. (Red dots are observed data points.)

Note that the accompanying text (the last paragraph on p. 39 and the remainder of it on the subsequent page) hasn’t been changed. It reads as follows in both versions (my emphases):

Without new variants, it will mainly be seasonality and waning immunity that will drive a possible wave. These two factors together, with uncertainty about the level of immunity in the population and uncertainty about severity (number of infected people per admission), give a good picture of different scenarios without new variants. In all these scenarios, we estimate that at the peak of a wave there will be fewer than 60 new admissions per day, i.e., roughly the same as in the summer wave with the BA.5 subvariant. The epidemic peak in these scenarios will occur in November or early December. An epidemic peak can also come later due to factors that are not included in the model, cf. Figure 22, such as interference from other circulating viruses.

So, here’s a question to you, dear IPH: why did you change the caption of the model? If it was an honest mistake by one of your own, why not admit that and explain it?

As it stands, you’re mum about it, and I’m quite interested in what this means? You know, I would like to think better of you, dear IPH, but when I take into account that you changed the caption of the modelling outcome, the below examples of legacy media gaslighting suddenly make way more sense:

State Broadcaster NRK: ‘expects new wave’

The Institute of Public Health states in a new risk assessment that there could be a lot of corona infection this winter, and that the burden on hospitals could be great. (my emphases)

Here’s a bunch of quotes from that piece (my emphases):

This winter, epidemics of both influenza, RSV infection, and perhaps also whooping cough are expected. ‘The latter three could be larger than we are used to from before the pandemic’, writes the IPH in their new risk assessment published today.

It is therefore very important that everyone over the age of 65 and people in the risk group take the fourth dose.

I don’t know about you, but how would a Covid injection do anything about, or against, RSV or whooping cough?

Nevermind, here’s more fearporn:

‘The burden on the hospitals, including their children's wards, can be great. If several epidemics or waves occur at the same time, the burden can be significant. If they come one after the other, the burden can be prolonged.’…

IPH further writes that the waves and epidemics may start before Christmas, but most likely the biggest burden will be in January and February.

Chief epidemiologist, pagan, and person who’s been quite wrong about Covid before Dr. Preben Aavitsland also appears in these pages:

‘Those who have not taken the vaccine miss out on extra protection against a serious course if they were to become infected’, says Preben Aavitsland…

Despite strong recommendations, there are many in the risk group who have not yet used the offer. [gee, I wonder why…]

65% of those aged 65 and older have so far taken the fourth dose. IPH hopes more people will do so now. [if you’re wondering why, well, I’m with you, but the IPH doesn’t offer specifics other than the below BS]

‘If they have already had Covid, they may feel that they are well enough protected. We still believe that an extra dose can provide better protection against a serious disease.’

So, in effect, Dr. Aavitsland tells us that we’ve reached the Barry O’Twelve ‘hopey’ phase of this entire shitshow masquerading as a public health emergency. Note that this may still turn in such a ‘public health emergency’, by which is quite likely meant that a few of these people will find themselves shunned, out of work, and ostracised before too long, if not in front of a judge (I hope so).

There is, by the way, no change in the IPH’s recommendations as to who is ‘offered’ such an injection. It’s risk-groups only, hence there’s no need to tell anyone differently, he?

Similarly, the ‘self-declaration form’ for those who wish to receive such an injection hasn’t been updated since 8 April 2022.

Is ‘informed consent’ actually possible now that these forms haven’t been updated since spring while new ‘bivalent’ booster jabs are offered?

Spin it like its Autumn 2020

Back to that above-related NRK piece, which informs us about the firmly established intersectionality horizon of getting a fourth injection:

In Levanger, they are now experiencing a large influx of people who want to take the fourth dose: ‘We now offer vaccination three days a week, and have fully booked appointments well into December’, says Eli Kristin Johansen, head of the Health and School Services in Levanger…

‘You should follow up on what the health authorities say we should do, so then I think we should take it.’

That's what Hanne Etnestad says, one of several who received the fourth dose today.

She thinks it is important to protect yourself, because there are always new variants of the virus: ‘You get a little worried. Even if the new variant doesn’t sound so bad, you feel a little safer after taking the vaccine.’

Whatever happened to ‘trust, but verify’?

As an afterthought, why not ‘follow-up on what the health authorities say’, for example, and read the bloody risk assessment?

That Updated Risk Assessment, Once More

It’s actually a weird document, but—to my knowledge—it’s also the first such public document that actually shows some valuable information about the risk groups and how these injections may or may not help them.

So, please check out Table 1 here:

The upper half shows all hospitalisations irrespective of injection status while the lower half provides information about hospitalisations after three or four injections.

The left side (i.e., left of the red line I added) shows hospitalisation data for the entirety of 2022 (weeks 1-42, i.e., the reign of Omicron) while the right side shows these data for the past four weeks (weeks 39-42).

Notice anything?

Hospitalisation for Covid-19 among low-risk individuals across the entire age spectrum changed ‘momentum’: if the entire year to-date is considered, approx. 52% of all hospitalisations befell individuals who took no, one, or two doses; in the past four weeks, however, approx. 71% of all hospitalisations in this group occurred among the three or four-dose recipients.

The numbers and shares for medium-risk individuals are even more striking: across the entire year to-date, approx. 79% of hospitalisations for Covid-19 occurred among the three or four-dose recipients; in the past four weeks, however, approx. 84.5% of all hospitalisations in this group occurred among the three or four-dose recipients.

The numbers and shares for high-risk individuals are equally striking: across the entire year to-date, approx. 68.5% of hospitalisations for Covid-19 occurred among the three or four-dose recipients; in the past four weeks, however, approx. 81% of all hospitalisations in this group occurred among the three or four-dose recipients.

I’ve just computed these shares for the overall numbers, and I shall not do anything else with these data provided in the above table.

All I’m going to do is ask a bunch of questions:

How on God’s green earth is it possible that the IPH and public health officialdom such as Preben Aavitsland are still pushing these products onto clearly uninformed people like Hanne Etnestad?

How is it possible that no-one in legacy media looks at these numbers and goes, you know, do these ‘bivalent boosters’ by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna actually ‘help’ those who are categorised as falling into medium-to-high risk groups? I mean, the IPH’s own data shows that these injections are not preventing a serious course of disease (as measured by proxy of hospitalisation for Covid)…

And that’s leaving out issues such as adverse events, the questionable conduct of public health institutions at the national and international levels (here’s specifically looking at you, you soulless bastards over at the EMA), and the spineless critters masquerading as politicians.

We don’t even ask about early treatment (on which—rather: it’s absence—see here) or the despicable role played by GPs and family doctors, the disgusting cowardice of ‘journalists’ in covering this topic, or the striking disregard by Norwegian society to care about any of the above.

Oh, care to know what these politicians say about this?

Here’s what Health and Welfare Minister Ingvild Kjerkol (Worker’s Party) said when she looked at that risk assessment (my emphases):

‘We have plans to be able to step up measures if necessary’.

Any such measures at the hospitals may concern the redeployment of personnel and mutual relief between hospitals…

‘What we are particularly watching now is whether we get several epidemics at the same time, i.e., a tough season with, for example, winter flu, and increased Covid infections’, says Kjerkol.

These quotes are related via Bergens Tidende, but there’s more:

As of now, the capacity in Norwegian hospitals is normal, but if many people fall ill with different viruses at the same time, the burden can be great. IPH also warns us that the burden could be prolonged if the epidemics come right after each other.

Talk about a rock and a hard place, eh? Nothing we can or will do (or won’t) will save us from these measures, it would appear.

Nothing new under the winter sun, though:

The government is therefore strongly urging people to get vaccinated, both with the Covid vaccine and the flu vaccine.

Today, people in risk groups and everyone over the age of 65 are offered a fourth booster dose of the corona vaccine. The Minister of Health says the government is now considering whether even more people should receive the offer.

‘We are now considering the issue of a booster vaccine for those aged 18-64 without underlying diseases. It will then apply to most of us, and it is a decision we will make within a short time. IPH has given its assessment’, she says.

This is insane, and clearly so.

There’s no data on how the Covid and flu shots may or may not interact with each other (or whatever drugs people are taking, for that matter).

Ms. Kjerkol also didn’t rule out annual booster jabs, much like against (?) the flu, which is a supremely idiotic notion given that these booster jabs are unable to keep up with viral evolution so far.

I mean, most public health documents show—including BioNTech/Pfizer’s documentation they dumped at the EMA (I’ve gotten myself ‘media access’, and you can do the same here: https://clinicaldata.ema.europa.eu/web/cdp/home; register and log in) that the ‘durability’ of these modRNA products is, well, less than a year.

This all brings us back to the above shenanigans, which is to say: taking (yet another) Covid shot is akin to participating not only in a medical experiment; it’s also tantamount to an intelligence test.

What’s your score?

By the way, voters’s in Norway aren’t stupid: Ms. Kjerkol’s Worker’s Party polls at 16.9% now, which is about 1/3 less than a year ago when they ‘won’ the elections.