Join me on my Quixotic adventure as the IPH seeks to rewrite 'pandemic' history and fails to really answer anything, BUT at least I've got their attention now (and Aavitsland‘s email address)
Omg, they must absolutely hate us. At least, I now know at least one of the 6 numpties who answered "it would have been worse but for the vaccines" in my poll! Next time you email him, please ask about my bridge. Is he interested??
Hihi, I thought the same (and almost fell off my chair when I read your comment).
I could very well imagine asking him about that bridge; alternatively, they ay also take ship-tunnels, if that‘s also on offer.
Jokes aside, I‘m terribly sorry dragging you into this mess here; given the G20‘s aim to prevent ‘the unclean‘ from traveling internationally next time a ‘pandemic‘ comes around, better arrange for a trip to Norway before that happens…
You know, the worst thing about this entire mess described above is this: he and his ilk over at the IPH may actually believe this nonsense (or, alternatively, they think we‘re too stupid to understand this).
By the way, what do you make of these modeling assumptions about seasonality and waning immunity?
Excuse my ignorance of Norway, but when Aavitsland says "there is a large body of evidence...", is he referring to independent research done in Norway on vaccine efficacy, or, is he relying on the evidence provided by Pfizer and Moderna which gets uncritically recycled by the American CDC (which we recently learned shares the same PR firm as Pfizer [1])?
Perhaps in your next email ask him if it's possible that the reason every single country that vaccinated it's population saw cases explode and excess mortality increase isn't because "omicron was more transmissible" but rather, the vaccine had the same known problem of all previous SARS vaccine attempts - it made the host more susceptible to variants like Omicron. It was the reason we didn't have a working SARS vaccine despite 15 years of trying in the first place. [2]
I don't know what goes on their minds (or hearts, for that matter). As far as Aavitsland and the IPH are concerned, their reports look, to the untrained eye, quite o.k., I'd say: typically there are lots of footnotes and the like, but once you look at the underlying papers, it's quite often something they use to support whatever claims they made.
Case in point, the Qatar study by Altarawneh et al 2022, which, appearing in the NEJM, showed that natural immunity was, on average, some 95% effective fourteen months after infection; based on more than 1.3m people, it is very solid, destroys the case for 'hybrid immunity', and would suggest that it's a substantial paper.
However, the IPH lumped that study together with a paper by Carazo 2022 whose empirical base (some 2,400 health care workers in Quebec) was not only much more limited, to say the least, but then they also 'weighted' (their words, not mine) the results; guess what: the Qatar study was held at .7% relative weight vs. the paper by Carazo with its much, much smaller basis.
Of course, they never explained, in understandable detail or wording, how they did the 'weighting'; it's not only far from 'good scientific practice', but this is tantamount to fraud.
Note that it's but one of these instances that I've documented; just look up 'Covid in Norway' and 'monkeying' or 'monkeys' (apologies to our simian relatives included).
Oh, I will ask him about these notions, and I'll also ask him about the diagnostic codes, too. My gut feeling is that there's a memo or the like somewhere in the institutional bowels that 'recommended' (that's all that's required to make Norwegians jump into needles) using the R991 (suspected/possible) ICD code for virtually anyone who sees a doctor and coughs or sneezes.
Oh, I will ask him about these notions, and I'll also ask him about the diagnostic codes, too. My gut feeling is that there's a memo or the like somewhere in the institutional bowels that 'recommended' (that's all that's required to make Norwegians jump into needles) using the R991 (suspected/possible) ICD code for virtually anyone who sees a doctor and coughs or sneezes.
About the usage of "recommended" in official communications in norwegian civil services, it is as far as I know the same as here: recommended does not mean "we think it would be best if you did X but the choice is yours", but means "do this".
In swedish, we use the term "kanslisvenska" asa term for what words mean in an official (or officious...) capacity, as opposed to common usage, something you get training in when you start working in the higher echelons of the civil service and which all lower tiers know how to interpret.
The swedish Skolverket (School office) oftenused "recommended" when I was still teaching, with the meaning "compulsory" when it came to how things are to be done:
"Skolverket recommends students be given leave of absence for funerals of close family members (definitions in footnotes)" is a typical such use of "recommended".
Just want to help to avoid cross-cultural confusion re: "kanslinorsk".
" I do believe it highly likely that there were instructions from highly-ranked public health officials who told every MD in the country to more or less code everything that even looked like a respiratory disease with R991 (presumed/probable), thus creating the ‘data basis’ for the declaration of the ‘pandemic’ in the first place."
This is the crux of I believe. And I'll expand on it. Governments knowingly conspired to do such with harmonized messaging including the US CDC which fully allows presumed DX - no lab testing needed.
I agree with you, Barney, but I'd argue that due to the seemingly (almost bipolar) notion of 'public service' over here, we may even get that memo disclosed or via a freedom of information request.
I'd also think that once there's one western country that bucks the dictates of Big Pharma and their ilk, others will follow. Right now, I believe at the point where everyone is looking sideways so as to avoid being perceived to move first.
There is nothing a priori wrong with modelling seasonality via a factor to the transmission rate. However, making the factor a direct function of temperature is kind of a hint that they do not have any data at hand. And how could they have? This is only the second season with omicron, and new subvariants at that. Moreover, viruses seem to have to compete with each other, and influenza or rsv might be coming back with a vengeance.
Here in Germany, there is definitely much more to seasonality than temperature. All the Covid waves (and maybe waves of other respiratory viruses, too) started in the south (Bavaria) and southeast (Saxony), and worked their way to the north and west.
Edit: I wrote the above before scanning the report. They seem to be aware of the difficulties of modelling, and comparison to influenza and rsv is actually in the report. From a modelling perspective, they seem to be doing their best. But as William Briggs never tires to remind us: all models only say what they are told to say. The crucial aspect is model use: do model users know the limitations of models; are they maybe too impressed by the diagrams, the tables, the precision on display; how do model results influence their decisions?
Ha, thanks for this--I thought about the same: the IPH is, as far as public health institutions are concerned, comparatively transparent and cooperative.
That said, I think their a priori assumptions about the number of injections, the exclusion of 'the unvaccinated', the absence of any control group, and their dithering with respect to what constitutes an 'immunological event' are, to say the least, methodically appalling (and, to me at least, intellectually supremely disingenuous).
The enlightened scientific community in Norway must be shaking their heads. Why are ALL these alphabet agencies across the world spewing nonsense? Were they ALL bought and paid for?
The yet long term unknown results of these many injections must be an exciting sexual event for these WEF administrators. Since they believe there to be too many people on the planet, it (this continuing injection event), being a human sacrificial death event is of little consequence at best Those who volunteered are to be an early arrival to their funeral is my take.
Omg, they must absolutely hate us. At least, I now know at least one of the 6 numpties who answered "it would have been worse but for the vaccines" in my poll! Next time you email him, please ask about my bridge. Is he interested??
Hihi, I thought the same (and almost fell off my chair when I read your comment).
I could very well imagine asking him about that bridge; alternatively, they ay also take ship-tunnels, if that‘s also on offer.
Jokes aside, I‘m terribly sorry dragging you into this mess here; given the G20‘s aim to prevent ‘the unclean‘ from traveling internationally next time a ‘pandemic‘ comes around, better arrange for a trip to Norway before that happens…
You know, the worst thing about this entire mess described above is this: he and his ilk over at the IPH may actually believe this nonsense (or, alternatively, they think we‘re too stupid to understand this).
By the way, what do you make of these modeling assumptions about seasonality and waning immunity?
Is there a chance the other 5 votes just "fat thumbed" your poll on a small phone screen? (Also don't rule out alcohol).
Stephan,
Excuse my ignorance of Norway, but when Aavitsland says "there is a large body of evidence...", is he referring to independent research done in Norway on vaccine efficacy, or, is he relying on the evidence provided by Pfizer and Moderna which gets uncritically recycled by the American CDC (which we recently learned shares the same PR firm as Pfizer [1])?
Perhaps in your next email ask him if it's possible that the reason every single country that vaccinated it's population saw cases explode and excess mortality increase isn't because "omicron was more transmissible" but rather, the vaccine had the same known problem of all previous SARS vaccine attempts - it made the host more susceptible to variants like Omicron. It was the reason we didn't have a working SARS vaccine despite 15 years of trying in the first place. [2]
[1] https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/weber-shandwick-provides-pr-for-moderna
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7094954/
Michael,
I don't know what goes on their minds (or hearts, for that matter). As far as Aavitsland and the IPH are concerned, their reports look, to the untrained eye, quite o.k., I'd say: typically there are lots of footnotes and the like, but once you look at the underlying papers, it's quite often something they use to support whatever claims they made.
Case in point, the Qatar study by Altarawneh et al 2022, which, appearing in the NEJM, showed that natural immunity was, on average, some 95% effective fourteen months after infection; based on more than 1.3m people, it is very solid, destroys the case for 'hybrid immunity', and would suggest that it's a substantial paper.
However, the IPH lumped that study together with a paper by Carazo 2022 whose empirical base (some 2,400 health care workers in Quebec) was not only much more limited, to say the least, but then they also 'weighted' (their words, not mine) the results; guess what: the Qatar study was held at .7% relative weight vs. the paper by Carazo with its much, much smaller basis.
Of course, they never explained, in understandable detail or wording, how they did the 'weighting'; it's not only far from 'good scientific practice', but this is tantamount to fraud.
Here's the story: https://fackel.substack.com/p/covid-in-norway-lies-of-omission
Note that it's but one of these instances that I've documented; just look up 'Covid in Norway' and 'monkeying' or 'monkeys' (apologies to our simian relatives included).
Oh, I will ask him about these notions, and I'll also ask him about the diagnostic codes, too. My gut feeling is that there's a memo or the like somewhere in the institutional bowels that 'recommended' (that's all that's required to make Norwegians jump into needles) using the R991 (suspected/possible) ICD code for virtually anyone who sees a doctor and coughs or sneezes.
What about asking for the large body of evidence!?
Oh, I will ask him about these notions, and I'll also ask him about the diagnostic codes, too. My gut feeling is that there's a memo or the like somewhere in the institutional bowels that 'recommended' (that's all that's required to make Norwegians jump into needles) using the R991 (suspected/possible) ICD code for virtually anyone who sees a doctor and coughs or sneezes.
About the usage of "recommended" in official communications in norwegian civil services, it is as far as I know the same as here: recommended does not mean "we think it would be best if you did X but the choice is yours", but means "do this".
In swedish, we use the term "kanslisvenska" asa term for what words mean in an official (or officious...) capacity, as opposed to common usage, something you get training in when you start working in the higher echelons of the civil service and which all lower tiers know how to interpret.
The swedish Skolverket (School office) oftenused "recommended" when I was still teaching, with the meaning "compulsory" when it came to how things are to be done:
"Skolverket recommends students be given leave of absence for funerals of close family members (definitions in footnotes)" is a typical such use of "recommended".
Just want to help to avoid cross-cultural confusion re: "kanslinorsk".
Exactly. Conformism über alles, so to speak.
Thanks for pointing this out, too!
Thanks for what you all are doing.
" I do believe it highly likely that there were instructions from highly-ranked public health officials who told every MD in the country to more or less code everything that even looked like a respiratory disease with R991 (presumed/probable), thus creating the ‘data basis’ for the declaration of the ‘pandemic’ in the first place."
This is the crux of I believe. And I'll expand on it. Governments knowingly conspired to do such with harmonized messaging including the US CDC which fully allows presumed DX - no lab testing needed.
I agree with you, Barney, but I'd argue that due to the seemingly (almost bipolar) notion of 'public service' over here, we may even get that memo disclosed or via a freedom of information request.
I'd also think that once there's one western country that bucks the dictates of Big Pharma and their ilk, others will follow. Right now, I believe at the point where everyone is looking sideways so as to avoid being perceived to move first.
Bravo! Keep holding feet to the fire.
There is nothing a priori wrong with modelling seasonality via a factor to the transmission rate. However, making the factor a direct function of temperature is kind of a hint that they do not have any data at hand. And how could they have? This is only the second season with omicron, and new subvariants at that. Moreover, viruses seem to have to compete with each other, and influenza or rsv might be coming back with a vengeance.
Here in Germany, there is definitely much more to seasonality than temperature. All the Covid waves (and maybe waves of other respiratory viruses, too) started in the south (Bavaria) and southeast (Saxony), and worked their way to the north and west.
Edit: I wrote the above before scanning the report. They seem to be aware of the difficulties of modelling, and comparison to influenza and rsv is actually in the report. From a modelling perspective, they seem to be doing their best. But as William Briggs never tires to remind us: all models only say what they are told to say. The crucial aspect is model use: do model users know the limitations of models; are they maybe too impressed by the diagrams, the tables, the precision on display; how do model results influence their decisions?
Ha, thanks for this--I thought about the same: the IPH is, as far as public health institutions are concerned, comparatively transparent and cooperative.
That said, I think their a priori assumptions about the number of injections, the exclusion of 'the unvaccinated', the absence of any control group, and their dithering with respect to what constitutes an 'immunological event' are, to say the least, methodically appalling (and, to me at least, intellectually supremely disingenuous).
Well done for digging this out of the horrendous mess at large in a crazy world.
Cheers.
Also: I'm not done with these people. Not by a long shot.
The enlightened scientific community in Norway must be shaking their heads. Why are ALL these alphabet agencies across the world spewing nonsense? Were they ALL bought and paid for?
The yet long term unknown results of these many injections must be an exciting sexual event for these WEF administrators. Since they believe there to be too many people on the planet, it (this continuing injection event), being a human sacrificial death event is of little consequence at best Those who volunteered are to be an early arrival to their funeral is my take.