The 'new strain' of COVID propaganda: 'Nothing more than baseless, menacing propaganda'

[Stone]

The 'new strain' of COVID propaganda
The unaccountable elite justify their failures to “stop the spread,” while continuing an unabated power grab.

Politicians and “public health experts” around the world are using faulty models on a new variant of the novel coronavirus in order to cover for their failures in stopping its spread, while simultaneously leveraging the issue to demand renewed lockdowns and other punishing restrictions. Not much is known about the so-called “new strain” of the virus, but that hasn’t stopped the ruling class from using it to their advantage.

The latest narrative, which is being used as a vector for endless amounts of COVID-19 panic and fear mongering, is related to the claim that there is a new mutation of the novel coronavirus spreading, which is claimed to be much more contagious — a claimed 70%(!) increase in transmissibility — than the original dominant variant.

Here’s the problem with that claim: it’s based solely on a single model put together by a team of epidemiologists with a track record of failure. There is no actual evidence that the new variant of the coronavirus is any more or less transmissible or deadly than previous strains.
The 70% projection was first brought to our attention by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who, in a panicked address before his nation, appeared to blame the mutation for his government’s failure to “stop the spread” of the coronavirus through brutal draconian restrictions. He used the “new mutation” excuse to justify both his failures, and his doubling down on “tier 4” lockdowns to try to “stop the spread” of the new variant.

BREAKING: New Covid restrictions could be announced as soon as tomorrow after Boris Johnson was handed alarming new evidence of the virulence of a mutant new strain. PM in a meeting now. Telegraph exclusive by @amylouisejones and @gordonrayner nullExclusive: Alarming new evidence on coronavirus mutation could bring tougher restrictionsThe Prime Minister called an unscheduled meeting of senior ministers on Friday night to discuss how to contain the new varianttelegraph.co.uk

Johnson’s panicked address frightened the heads of state in other countries to such an extent that dozens of nations immediately instituted travel bans on the United Kingdom, with the hopes of attempting to stop this new coronavirus variant.

The U.S. does not have plans for U.K. travel ban as a new Covid-19 strain pushes more than 40 countries to halt arrivals from Britain on.forbes.com/6018HRYg0 December 21st 2020

In the United States, the “new strain” presented a golden opportunity for pro-lockdown politicians and “public health experts” to push for further restrictions in the name of curbing a virus.

MSNBC @MSNBC
“New York is not going to wait for the federal government to protect New Yorkers. We made that mistake back in the spring,” New York Gov. Cuomo on a nationwide restriction on flights coming from the UK as a new strain of Covid-19 impacts the country. nullGov. Cuomo: ‘Gross negligence’ for federal government not to restrict flights from U.K.New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for a nationwide restriction on flights coming from the United Kingdom as a new strain of Covid-19 impacts the country. While working with airlines to impose such a restriction for New York, the governor said it was “gross negligence” for the federal government not …on.msnbc.com December 27th 2020


British media has reported Boris Johnson received his 70% more transmissible statistic from a single source, Erik Volz, an epidemiologist in his mid 30s who is currently a member of Imperial College London’s epidemiology department.

ICYMI: Q&A on the new #COVID19 virus variant with WHO, @CovidGenomicsUK & @sangerinstitute experts

If Imperial College sounds familiar, that’s because the British institution is now infamous for its “plague of the century” epidemiological model for COVID-19, which projected that millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions of people worldwide, would die from the coronavirus in a matter of months. The Imperial model (which, again, was a mere projection of potential outcomes, and it used wildly inaccurate fatality and transmission data) was credited by The New York Times and other major publications with “jarring” the world into action and instituting brutal mitigation and suppression measures.

Neil Ferguson, the leader of Imperial College London’s COVID-19 response team, recently resigned from his top COVID-19 advisory role with the British government, following revelations that he was breaking the lockdown to meet up with his married lover. However, Ferguson reportedly played a pivotal role in convincing Boris Johnson to again reinstitute lockdowns over the holiday season. Ferguson has also been in the news for his new series of baseless claims that the new variant has a “higher propensity to infect children.”

In a presentation last week as part of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, Volz explained how he was in the “early stages” of his thought process on the new mutation, and has admitted that his information, which was transmitted to the world by Boris Johnson, is not particularly useful.

“We’re still basically in the very early stages. We basically have one month of growth,” Volz stated, adding that “the growth rate” in cases of the new variant “does appear to be quite a bit larger,” before again sowing more doubt about his analysis.

Volz continued, warning that “trends you see early on don’t always pan out.”

“It’s really too early to tell, but this is the current state of our knowledge,” Volz adds, in revealing the 70% number of projected increased transmissibility over a compared variant.

Volz and his Neil Ferguson-led team of academics have long remained major proponents of pushing for economic and societal suicide (via lockdowns) in the name of stopping a virus with a 99.9% recovery rate.

In mid September, Volz and his team published a paper claiming that non pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns, helped to stop transmission of the coronavirus. The paper makes clear that his team at Imperial College used cherry-picked data, showing a decline in cases from winter to spring, that did not at all account for the seasonal dynamics of transmissibility. There is no hard evidence to date that non pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns and curfews, work to stop the spread of a coronavirus.

Many in the scientific community have started to push back at the COVID-19 panic brigade’s push for new restrictions in the name of a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.

Dr. Eli David @DrEliDavid
"Senior figure in Israeli Ministry of Health: There is no evidence that the British mutation is 70% more contagious. Boris Johnson needed to say that for political reasons, to explain why Covid is spreading there so rapidly." Heh? December 26th 2020

“We are of the opinion that there is nothing in this British type that is more contagious than what we saw in this 'blue virus' this summer. There is nothing dramatic in this virus and if this variant is somewhat more contagious then it is very small.” December 21st 2020

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the chief medical adviser for the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed, has raised doubts about the evidence-free claims.

"I think, scientifically, to date there is no hard evidence that this virus is actually more transmissible," Slaoui said, adding, "the key point is that there’s no evidence this virus is more pathogenic, creates more problems, more morbidity or mortality than the previous virus." 

More uninformed #COVID19 reporting from @nytimesnytimes.com/2020/12/19/wor… there is ZERO evidence that a new variant is more transmissible. The skeptical scientists are correct - the variant was simply introduced and predominates by virtue of the founder effect.

Boris Johnson Tightens U.K. Lockdown, Citing Fast-Spreading Version of VirusThe variant is up to 70 percent more transmissible than earlier versions, officials said. People in southeast England, including London, were told to stay at home.nytimes.com
December 19th 2020

The “new strain” fiasco is nothing more than baseless, menacing propaganda. It presents an excuse — and a golden dual opportunity — for the unaccountable elite to justify their failures to “stop the spread,” while allowing for their power grab to continue unabated.