Covidistan Annals XIV: the régime doesn't want to relinquish its power 'any time soon', booster jabs prevent death up to 99% (no kidding), and the decay of medical research

Furthermore, the Chamber of Commerce calls for an end to Covid Passport checks for minors (the putschists refuse) and there are more and more calls for an end to the state of exception

A couple of current items from Covidistan, which all show the increasing desperation of the régime’s pushers, first and foremost among them, if rather unsurprisingly, is Health Minister and wannabe tinpot dictator Mückstein.

As anti-mandate and restriction sentiment is rising in Covidistan, Mückstein took to the media and refused to countenance any changes (yet). Visiting a primary care centre in Vienna, Mückstein insisted that all Covid-related mandates and measures would stay in place ‘only as long as they were epidemiologically necessary’, and that necessity would be under rolling reviews.

Meanwhile, Tyrol Governor (Landeshauptmann) Platter insisted that ‘the curfew must be finally abrogated’. Speaking at a press conference in Innsbruck, the state capital, Platter questioned whether these mandates ‘make sense epidemiologically’, in particular referring to mandatory curfews—bars and restaurants must close at 10 p.m.—that most patrons simply avoid by ‘continuing to party in private’. Platter furthermore voiced his concern about the continued house arrest for the ‘unvaccinated’.

Sidenote: I mentioned this repeatedly—Covid-19 is, first and foremost, a political problem, which is on full display in the Tyrol: Platter is from the larger coalition party (ÖVP), but his deputy, one Ms. Felipe (Greens, i.e., Mückstein’s party), insisted that it would be too early to determine changes just yet.

The number of contrarian voices is increasing, though, and now it’s no longer ‘just’ the right-wing Freedom Party; now, they are joined by the small ‘libertarian’ (in US parlance) fraction NEOS as well as elements from among the Social Democratic Party. Still, Mückstein insists that he’ll determine the end of the mandates ‘in concert with the experts’.

In the meantime, state media ORF reports about growing unease and opposition on part of the business community. Earlier this week, I brought to your attention some of the discontent voiced by the Vienna Chamber of Commerce (again, US parlance, it’s the Wirtschaftskammer).

Today, it’s the Vorarlberg branch of the Chamber that called ‘for an end of vaccination/recovered status checks for minors’. Basically, the Chamber argues, logically in my opinion, that since the vaccine mandate applies to people 18 years and older, demanding and checking papers for minors.

Idiotically—and, frankly, outright tyrannically so—minors under 18 years of age must not get vaccinated against Covid-19 in Covidistan, yet if they wish to enter restaurants, get a haircut, or otherwise engage in things people normally do, they need to provide proof of either vaccination or recovery from Covid-19.

This absurd, if not outright Kafkaesque, situation prompted Vorarlberg chamber chairperson Michael Tagwerker to call for the abolishment of the ID and health status checks for minors.

Meanwhile, the libertarian (see above) NEOS party called out the government, labelling the continued house arrest for the ‘unvaccinated’ a form of ‘sheer arbitrariness’. Freedom Party chairman Kickl seconded: ‘Any day this house arrest for the unvaccinated continues reveals the utter madness of this mandate.’

Of course, the régime is very reluctant to relinquish its extraordinary, if illegitimate, powers. ‘Neither the Chancellery nor the Health Ministry wish to countenance such plans in the near future’, ORF reported. Instead, the new expert advisory group GECKO would have to propose such changes.

And this brings me to my central argument here: the régime pretends to be in charge, but the putschists who claim power don’t wish to be held responsible.

Let’s not forget that these are the putschists: Schallenberg, Nehammer, and above all Mückstein, as well as their enablers in parliament and legacy media.

Finally, here’s further evidence of the desperation the faithful adherents to the fascist creed of Covidistan resort to:

Both state and ‘private-if-state-funded’ legacy media reported yesterday that ‘booster jabs prevent death in up to 99% of cases’. Note that I’m not making this up, as seen in the screen shot below:

That text reads (my emphasis):

The Covid vaccines are very effective against severe illness and death, and the booster is even more effective, new data from vaccinated and unvaccinated people in Austria show. Three doses offer an effectiveness against deaths of 99.2 percent compared to unvaccinated persons. After two partial vaccinations, the figure is 92.6 percent, although a decline in protection against infections was observed in autumn, the analysis by Gesundheit Österreich GmbH (GÖG) shows.

Here’s the link to left-liberal daily Der Standard posting.

Here’s what I did upon reading (and almost falling off my chair while doing so): I went to the website of the agency in question (Gesundheit Österreich), and you can assess their ‘handiwork’ yourself by clicking on this link.

Entitled ‘Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccines in Austria with Respect to Death: A Retrospective Cohort Study (Feb. 2021 to Jan. 2022), authors Florian Bachner, Lukas Rainer, and Martin Zuba conclude (my emphasis):

Over the course of the pandemic there were some 13,500 Covid-associated deaths. Since the beginning of the mass vaccination campaign in early Feb. 2021, there were c. 5,600 deaths, of whom c. 4,500 (80%) occurred among the not fully vaccinated, by which are meant individuals who received max. one dose only.

Citing a recent study from the UK, the authors surmise that vaccine effectiveness against death is comparable to UK rates (97-99%), according to this study by Andrews et al. 2022.

Funny enough, it appears to have escaped the Covidistan ‘researchers’ that Andrews et al. hold that ‘Limited waning was seen 10+ weeks after the booster’, by which is meant: the booster offers some ‘protection’ for about two months.

Furthermore, Andrews et al. conclude in the following way (my emphasis):

This study provides real world evidence of significant increased protection from the booster vaccine dose against mild and severe disease irrespective of the primary course.

In case you’re wondering how this is spun by the Covidistan ‘researchers’, well, I’m glad you asked:

Here’s what this paragraph states (my emphases):

Due to the short observation period of the Omicron wave in Austria (incl. follow-up period of deaths delayed to the positive laboratory diagnosis), no valid statements can yet be made on the vaccination effectiveness against severe Omicron cases in Austria. The results refer primarily to the Delta variant among the triple vaccinated. Over the course of the pandemic, it becomes more difficult to find a suitable control group of persons who have neither been vaccinated nor recovered. Since it can be assumed that there are also people with undocumented infections in the control group, any result of vaccine effectiveness can be interpreted as a conservative estimate (VE probably higher). Since this is a study based on observational data, no conclusions can be drawn about causal effects.

This is moronic on so many levels, hence I’ll limit myself to a few points:

• No valid statements about VE can be inferred, in particular as the data derives from exposure to Delta.

• Then there’s the methodological problem of the lacking control group, which the authors skip over by assuming higher VE without any data.

• Finally, as this is an observational study, no causal relationships may be inferred.

In other words: I wasted my time to prevent you from wasting yours. You’re welcome.

As a concluding public service, keep in mind that the survival rate of Covid-19 for those who are under 75 years of age is also north of 99%, irrespective of vaccination. (Edited, thank you for spotting this.)

Does one need to think twice to infer essentially the same outcome with or without submitting to prophylactic gene therapy?