Covidistan Annals XXXI: Oral Arguments, Mandate Dissent, and the Return of Covid-themed Fear-Porn Indicate the Imminent Reversal of Openings

Goodbye Ukraine-Russia, welcome back Covid Mandates: Covidistan remains the Laboratory of Post-Modernity, so stay tuned to the return of mandates in spring (it's already happening in Vienna)

What a week—so many things happened in Covidistan, so let’s take a look.

Remember the big fuss about the Constitutional Court asking former Health Minister Mückstein for data to back up the régime’s draconian mandates and the injection mandate? Well, even though Mr. Mückstein eventually answered, most legacy media outlets were really reluctant to directly make available the file. While Mr. Mückstein eventually resigned and most mandates were revoked as of 5 March, the second-guessing of the wisdom of ending the mandates never went away.

Guess what didn’t go away either—the Constitutional Court’s schedule.

Oral Arguments in Court

On Tuesday, the Court heard oral arguments by a number of aggregated plaintiffs (as is common practice elsewhere), and while any decision by the Court might retroactively declare illegal the régime’s mandates—which I think the Court should do, if only to convey to the régime not to mandate these abominations again—let’s focus on the lacklustre performance of legacy media in reporting on this.

So, here’s one Jakob Pflügl writing for Der Standard on 15 March 2022, noting that ‘the proximate complaint that caused [Judge] Hauer to demand these data was not among the cases heard [on Tuesday], but the arguments revolved around related issues. A judgement may therefore be delivered as early as next week’.

Among the plaintiffs was Stefan Gulner, a lawyer, who represented a 30 year-old employee of his firm. She was ‘imprisoned for months at a time’, and she was only permitted to legally leave her home to go to work. Gulner argued that many people who were similarly affected by the lockdown for the unvaccinated continue to suffer from bodily and psychological problems.

This line of argumentation was echoed by lawyer Astrid Nagel. Her client continued to suffer from these long-term consequences. While [her client] eventually contracted Covid-19 [apparently without serious problems], her continued refusal to get vaccinated ‘cut her off from social life completely’, even though she had antibodies that protect her from future infections.

You can probably imagine the rest of the piece: it is condescension paired with partisan disdain for those who seemingly engage in anti-social behaviour. Still, Mr. Pflügl admits that the arguments presented by the plaintiffs emphasises that the ‘lockdown for unvaccinated’ was not the least-intrusive measure to avoid an overload of the healthcare system—‘because the vaccinated, too, contributed to the continued transmission’ of Sars-Cov-2. Basically, the arguments came down to the notion that a combination of regular (frequent) testing and mask mandates were ‘the least intrusive measure’. Lawyer Thomas Marschall doubled down on this line and argued that the currently available injections did not (negatively) affect the transmission potential of Sars-Cov-2, and the more recent variants—read: Omicron—were even less affected by these biological products.

Sidenote: this is the penultimate nail in the coffin of the injection fanatics, for these were arguments made for more than a year by now, by the leading medical specialists, incl. Doctors McCoullogh and Malone, IC specialists Paul Maric and Pierre Kory, and many more. Now, the Constitutional Court has heard these arguments.

In their reply, Head of Division Meinhild Hausreither, speaking on behalf of the Health Ministry, the government argued that the infection incidence among the unvaccinated was ‘significantly higher compared to the vaccinees’. The latter have both ‘a lower risk of infection’, and, if infected, ‘the course of disease would be shorter’.

Note that the government’s answer is only given via indirect quotations.

What, by the way, does the Health Ministry’s own reply to the Court’s questions say about this? Well, I’m glad you asked, for this document reads, on p. 50:

[Q] The so-called ‘Lockdown for the Unvaccinated’ cannot rule out infection at home or at work, but elsewhere (e.g., a restaurant). With reference to 5), the court wishes to know the risk reduction for an unvaccinated individual in percent (basis: infection risk without ‘lockdown for the unvaccinated’).

[A] A quantification of the reduction of risk of infection is practically impossible. With reference to 5) [which asked about where people get infected, on which see below], it is similarly impossible to determine with certainty the spatial contexts in which infections occur.

Translation: Mr. Pflügl quotes the Health Ministry’s representative without citing the above answer that the question cannot be answered definitively.

In my world, this would be quite a disingenuous piece of ‘journalistic malpractice’. In the case of Ms. Hausreither, I’d say this qualifies as something like ‘contempt of court’ for peddling that kind of dishonesty in front of the Constitutional Court. To be fair, Ms. Hausreither actually quoted from the Ministry’s reply, albeit from the second paragraph (and the first one I translated above).

You see, Ms. Hausreither’s statement appears quite reasonable, if taken out of context. You see, the media is so dishonest by now that they don’t really lie by simply misrelated facts. They lie by omitting crucial details and the like, thus creating a misrepresentation of reality. Disgraceful is the nicest word that comes to my mind.

Still, the available legacy media reports are virtually identical. This isn’t anything new, but it’s hard to say what actually happened in Court last Tuesday. My gut feeling is that the judges are now carefully weighing the arguments, especially their potential future implications, and I shall have a brief concluding comment about it at the bottom of this piece.

The remainder of Mr. Pflügl’s piece relates to the risk associated with Omicron, which resulted in the Health Ministry’s continued emphasis on the ‘lockdown for the unvaccinated’, despite the above-related caveats.

Nevermind the facts, Katharina Reich, Chief Medical Officer, is further cited (indirectly) admitting that the problem with systemic overload in hospitals, in particular ICUs, was ‘due to the high infection rates among healthcare workers, which had to undergo quarantine’, thereby exacerbating the situation.

Curiously enough, this latter point is never really mentioned, even though the lack of qualified staff has been a virtual perennial issue for the past 20-30 years. Also, I wrote about the impending protests by healthcare workers due to precisely these issues, long working hours, and measly pay many weeks ago:

Health care workers (HCW) threatened to go on strike because they haven’t had a pay raise in many years, some appreciative applause was apparently not good enough, even though the above-mentioned fear-mongering about the collapse notably failed to mention that HCW staff was short by about a quarter by now. Yep, you read that correctly: HCW are understaffed by 25%, underpaid, and bullshitted by the chattering and laptop classes for more than two years. While a day of protest was announced to take place on Thursday, 23 Feb., it was, of course, over-shadowed by the advent of Russian military operations against Ukraine.

Even earlier, in late January, I heard from a trusted source about conditions in Covidistan’s largest hospital, Vienna General Hospital, which similarly I wrote about on 1 February:

Due to the absolutely insane quarantine rules mandated by executive decree by—Mückstein—everyone who is considered ‘K1’, i.e., in direct personal contact with someone who tested positive for Sars-Cov-2, must go into quarantine for ten days.

How to get out of quarantine, you may ask? Well, if in quarantine, one could take a (rt-PCR) test on day 5 and, if that test would turn out ‘negative’, you’d be free.

This applies as well to healthcare personnel who, at Vienna General Hospital, yet, according to my trustworthy contact (whom I shall not name, for the obvious reasons), healthcare personnel overwhelmingly elects not to take that test on day 5, and instead remain ‘in quarantine’ for the full ten days.

Now, if that behaviour was, say, part of a coordinated effort to protest the mandates (which it is not), that would be something to agree with. But, according to the same source, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to fill shift rosters due to healthcare personnel electing to add some 5 more days of ‘vacation’ (my contact’s word, not mine) instead of going to work.

One last brief word about the Covid-related pressure on the Vienna General Hospital: there are virtually no Covid patients, but to the deplorable activities of the healthcare personnel, ward after ward has to be (temporarily) closed, which will cause an avalanche of serious consequences for everyone else, in particular cancer patients who will be denied treatment, as well as everyone else.

More Second-Guessing and Fear-Porn

Since we apparently forget everything, and learn nothing, there are but two developments to note. Even before the Court heard a single word, Der Standard’s Magdalena Pötsch penned a scathing piece entitled ‘re-scheduled surgeries: “the situation is more precarious than ever”’ (my emphases):

We are experiencing the biggest wave since the onset of the pandemic. Never before were case numbers as high as in the past seven days [7-14 March]. Yet, as stressed by politicians, this wave will crest in the next days or weeks, and until then a systemic overload of critical infrastructure can be ruled out, with the situation in the hospitals deemed stable. This is how the federal government justified the revocation of the mandates in early March.

A couple of calls to hospitals around the country paints a less optimistic picture: ‘To those who claim that the hospitals aren’t full, I may only reply: that’s not true. The situation is very unstable, unlike at any earlier time’, states Elisabeth Bräutigam, head of medical services of the confessional Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy in Linz. The reason for this situation was the staffing situation, which is worse compared even to last autumn.

This spring, though, is different, as Ms. Pötsch admits: during the Delta wave in November, it were the ICUs that were at risk. Back then, some hospitals were forced to postpone every second surgery, but ‘we’re far from that level of pressure on the ICUs now’.

Ms. Bräutigam: ‘Last autumn, we could reduce and reschedule everything in a well-ordered manner. This isn’t the case right now.’ The ICUs are not at risk right now, but the pressure on ‘normal’ wards and staff shortages…

Bräutigam: ‘We are forced to reschedule surgeries on short notice. Planning anything is de facto impossible’…‘We are experiencing massive staff shortages and must therefore plan from day-to-day now.’

I’ll spare you the remainder of the piece, which consists of similar fear-porn, and we shall now focus on the current ‘debate’, courtesy of a summary by state broadcaster ORF:

The current actions suggested by the new Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) face significant headwinds. The Medical Association holds that hospitals are overloaded, and Vienna, which is on the brink of re-introducing mandates, will announce the next steps on Thursday [17 March].

Background for this is Mr. Rauch’s announcement on Tuesday to reduce the availability of free testing and amendments to the quarantine rules—undertaken to kinda counter the staffing problems discussed above.

As is quite conventional in Covidistan, as soon as someone says something that’s not really well-liked by anyone, public announcements to the contrary ensued.

At first, the experts of the civil-military advisory board GECKO stated that they were against the revocation of the mandates…on Wednesday, the Covid Prognostication Committee announced that case numbers would continue to rise until at least the end of [March]…

In two weeks, 300 ICU patients and 4,000 ‘regular’ admissions are expected.

The Deputy Head of the Medical Association, Gerald Gingold, MD, warned today that letting the virus gonna virus would result in disaster. Right now, 3,000 Covid patients are in the country’s hospitals already: ‘Our hospitals are overflowing, our staff is overworked, and many are infected themselves, this is not going to end well’, ORF quoted Gingold.

He went on to remind everyone that Omicron was first discovered in South Africa in summer where it spread rapidly despite warm temperatures. ‘It will likely be worse in autumn 2022’, Gingold added…he was seconded by the Public Employees Union whose chairman Reinhard Waldhör stated: ‘Our hard-working colleagues in the hospitals and nursing homes can’t go on like this! They need more support from those who are politically responsible.’

Injection mandate panelist Eva Schernhammer went on the national nightly news on Wednesday (16 March) to state her ‘displeasure’ with the current state of affairs. She decried the politically motivated decisions to revoke the mandates and recommended—‘at the least’—to keep on wearing FFP2 (N95) masks, maintain social distancing, and work from home.

There is now a ‘new’ alliance of concerned citizens, ‘Wir Alle’ (All of Us), which consists mainly of seasoned party hacks, as far as a quick survey of the many pictures on their website shows. Originally convened as a non-partisan ‘big tent’ by ‘scientists’, according to their own website, to seemingly provide a catch-all ‘container’ of vaguely pro-lockdown and pro-injection, they host events, such as this one, hosted by the ‘alliance of Green scientists’

The topic: do the anti-mandate protest damage democracy?

There’s also a laundry list of the platform’s ‘10 commandments’ that all revolve around expressions of hate in combination with the affirmatory incantation that ‘we all get vaccinated’ that concludes every single statement.

This is a veritable laundry list of ‘the government promises things and doesn’t deliver’ (no. 1) to vague sentiments in favour of the healthcare system and its worker (nos. 2 and 3), the increasing gap between rich and poor (no. 4), that ‘no-one explains anything properly’ (no. 5, my favourite lunacy, for remember: this originates with ‘concerned scientists’), expressions of hate over conspiracy theories (no. 6) and ‘horse dewormers’ (no. 7, again, nevermind the evidence, which now incl. Pfizer’s own clinical trial data), the lack of transparency in terms of Covid data (no. 8), and two generalised expressions about ‘how unfair it all is’ (no. 9) and against the condescending way people are treated (no. 10).

All of these are concluded with the mantra ‘we are also angry, and we all get vaccinated’.

Now, this is just another silly feel-good website by those who self-identify as lift-liberal and espouse progressive wokery, which must be confronted (for to ignore these ignorant crusaders will lead to their victory, as seen on, say, many Anglophone campuses that now don’t let students read Shakespeare or Orwell).

Yet, state media ORF boosts these people, quoting, of course without providing any context, a brief snippet that ready:

All of us are dismayed by the recent developments of the pandemic, in particular the inaction by the government. No-one understands as to why, in the face of drastically rising infection rates, there is no recourse to the tried and true models of infection reduction—like the one in Vienna—on the federal level…to prevent another hot [i.e., Covid-driven] autumn.

Canaries in the Coalmine

All these maniacal histrionics appear to bear fruit: late in the afternoon on Thursday, the city-state of Vienna became the first large entity to re-introduce a variety of mandates, for time being only in ‘vulnerable settings’. While the infamous 2G rule (only injected and recovered may patronise restaurants) and the FFP2 mask mandate never went away in Vienna, mayor-governor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) reduced the number of visitor contacts in hospitals and nursing homes to one person per day, in addition to 2G+, that is, they may either be injected or recovered plus a negative PCR test.

Citing pressures on the hospital system, Mr. Ludwig called on the federal government to follow Vienna. ORF quotes (again, indirectly) Mr. Ludwig declaring that the number of Covid patients being on the rise, as are staff shortages, which results in a higher per-capital number of patients per healthcare worker. He called the federal government’s Omicron policy a ‘mistake’, in particular Omicron’s impact on the ‘unvaccinated’, who ‘who are facing a severe course of disease’, including Long Covid.

Mr. Ludwig further insisted on continued federal funding for the testing mania that worked to well in Vienna, cost about half a billion € and which, according to the Vienna government in late February, had prevented ‘up to 80,000 infections’. Here’s what I wrote about it on 27 Feb.

What’s the price tag, you may ask? Well, Mr. Hacker said this clocked in at 500m € (yes, half a billion), which means that for the small sum of 6,250 €, one of such infections was prevented. (At 1.9m inhabitants, this is tantamount to claiming every 24th inhabitant missed out on one opportunity to get infected; money well spent, I’d say /sarcasm).

Oh, lest I forget, the company, Lifebrain, which runs the PCR test mania in Vienna has gotten quite a lot of money from the federal government (via the Vienna city-state) during the past 2 years. Now, however, ‘with the impending end of free tests’ (well, ‘free’, as in the funding scheme mentioned in the previous sentence), Vienna daily Die Presse purports that up to 1,200 of the company’s 1,700-strong workforce will soon be unemployed. Curiously, mayor-governor Ludwig consistently ruled out funding this charade out of the city’s own coffers, so, we’ll probably see what gives before too long.

The Road Ahead

As can be seen quite clearly by these events, there are three main items to focus on:

First, all state and de facto state media outlets are failing to appropriately inform the public about the oral arguments in Court. Note that the arguments heard on Tuesday were but one of the many pending cases, and it is my expectation that now, with the first hearings done, media will not report on the next hearings, and once—and irrespective of the outcome—claim (fake) ‘surprise’ and voice ‘disagreement’ with the rulings.

I sincerely hope that the Court will retroactively declare illegal the mandates, and I shall try to provide you with a detailed write-up of the Mr. Mückstein’s 50-odd page answer in the next few days. My impression is that this course of action by the Court is quite plausible due to the admissions in the filed document that the ‘lockdown for the unvaccinated’ didn’t really work, as the data simply doesn’t exist to prove that to be. If there was a time for judges and legal minds to work properly, it is now.

Second, the fear-mongering has shifted to higher gears again, after 2-3 weeks of shouting ‘Ukraine! Russia! Putin! Hitler!’ from the rooftops. This perceived ‘return’ of all matters Covid-19 to the upper reaches of the media swamp indicates that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict may draw to a close very soon, which is also something that is quite well understandable by the impending mud season, which I wrote about two weeks ago, and which begs the question:

What will we be served to distract the people in April?

From what we can see in Covidistan, it’ll be the same old wine (cue Kit Knightley).

Third, we may see the formation of a seemingly new ‘catch-all’ gathering of all those who self-perceive themselves as ‘good citizens’ vs. ‘all those who hate and are anti-science’. This process was very well underway during the past year, but now its formalisation is quickening.

Electoral concerns and party politics play as much a role as the allure offered by a policy of institutionalised pandemic-responses. Perhaps we’ll see ‘the good citizens’ amalgamate all existing parties into one Institutional Anti-Corona Party (much like the original Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party) in an attempt to formalise and forestall any ‘return’ to parliamentary representative government, however imperfect it was before 2020.

One aspect that certainly deserves special notice is the fact that Covidistan’s crop of experts is stupid. They cannot keep their stories aligned, they fight among themselves for media presence, and when asked why their models failed to predict anything, blabber incomprehensible stuff, such as (self-declared) ‘complexity scientist’ and government advisor Niki Popper: for, I kid you now, when asked why his models failed to conform to reality, recently said this:

It is really insanely difficult to estimate how many people are actually susceptible, and they are very many because vaccination doesn’t prevent infection in all eternity, [hence] we now have more susceptible people than we originally thought, based on our reading of scientific papers.

So, if the British SAGE group led by the failure of a modeller Neil Ferguson (Imperial College) fails repeatedly to ‘find’ a model that kinda accurately represents possible realities, Covidistan’s ‘experts’ are actually incapable of not spilling the truth by stating inanities such as the quote above.

It would be comically funny, as in: Monty Python, if this was satire. Alas, it is not, and the sincerity of believe in this charade by the protagonists is perhaps the most troubling aspect. They will not back down, and even if reality yelled at them in broad daylight.

So, Covidistan will continue to stumble along, until they won’t anymore. Remember: things that cannot go on, won’t go on. It’s a question of time.