The Great VIRAL Debate: Dr Anderson’s Opening Statement
Dr Piers Robinson is our Chair. Off-Guardian is your host. The proposition to be debated is:
SARS-COV-2 merits suppression measures in order to combat the virus rather than the herd/community immunity approach
Dr Anderson delivers his opening statement in support of the proposition:
I ask readers to reflect a little on health systems and the ideas behind them, and not just react to particular measures. To simply react to the crisis as ‘lockdown vs no lockdown’, and complain how it affects individual liberties, misses that.
The 2020 pandemic has shown us massive failures in western neoliberal health systems – privatised, heavily commercialised, lacking in preventive capacity – and this deserve analysis.
I suggest we learn from the experience of independent countries, those well organised on principles of humanism and social solidarity, e.g. China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria. Their actions during the pandemic have some important lessons.
It is important to go beyond the fantasies that the current epidemics were not serious public health threats, which demand a social response. Cynical responses which cry ‘the data is all wrong, scientists should not be believed, public health systems want to poison us all’ both miss the neoliberal failures and prevent us from engaging in social responses.
1. On the broad debate:
I have read some of the material that my colleague Denis Rancourt has written on this subject. I disagree strongly with his idea that all viruses are part of a regular winter cocktail, with little difference between them.
Demonstrable, collective medical science is important, and differs in character from political debate, which is mostly constructivist and argumentative.
Differences between diseases are important. Some affect the young and others the old. Many epidemiologists say, “if you’ve seen one pandemic, you’ve seen … one pandemic” (Osterholm; Horton).
That is, “COVID-19 doesn’t behave like flu, which doesn’t behave like Ebola” (Spinney). We know now that COVID19 is not only linked to respiratory illness but also vascular and neurological illness.
It simply entrenches ignorance to say: ‘we can ignore all contemporary public health data’ (because of the chronic uncertainties), and ‘we can ignore medical science consensus’ (in favour of our chosen dissidents). We should engage with the best available evidence.
The consequences of denying the pandemic, as do a western liberal minority, are that people assist the neoliberal privatising project and self-exclude from meaningful engagement in many real issues: how to manage particular quarantine regimes, social security, medical regimes, etc.
Pandemic deniers run parallel slogans to those of neoliberals like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump: ‘no worse than a flu’, ‘natural herd immunity’, ‘the cure is worse than the disease’.
This denialism is not really a ‘left’ position because it begins by rejecting preventive health measures (e.g. quarantine and vaccines, at the centre of all public health systems) and its justifications generally capitulate to individualism (‘my liberties above all’).
2. On the proposition:
Does SARS-CoV-2 merit suppression measures in order to combat the virus rather than the herd/community immunity approach?
I say yes, the 2020 pandemic was a serious health crisis which required prompt protective measures to contain the spread and mitigate the illness and death. This should be understood in principle, first, before moving to criticise the various quarantine and hygiene measures taken by particular governments. It is always important to not conflate principles with particular political actions.
Protection of populations could not be achieved by simply allowing the disease to run its course and hope that some sort of natural immunity might result. That would have allowed many millions to die.
I will briefly address the science on the danger of the virus and why ‘herd immunity’ is only really viable with the help of a vaccine. We can debate the science on excess mortality, vaccines, face masks, lockdown casualties, and so on, later.
Epidemiologists calculated a range of Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) estimates, a few months into the pandemic. They suggested IFRs between 0.2% and 1.3%, but the consensual area is between 0.5% to 1% (Verity et al; Basu; CDC; Bhattacharya; Mallapaty). That is, about 5 to 10 times the seasonal flu, not inconsistent with the more than one million COVID19 deaths reported from 200+ countries and territories in seven to eight months of epidemic, compared to an average of 400,000 annual deaths from flu globally, in recent years (Paget). No responsible health official can afford to just cherry pick the most optimistic estimates.
On acquired immunity, measurements of antibodies to COVID19 in some of the hardest hit European cities and New York show 10% or less, plus some higher levels T-cell reactivity (Jones and Helmreich; Pitt; Woodley). That is far too low for any sort of ‘natural’ herd immunity which, given COVID19’s highly contagious nature, has been suggested to require 85%. Observed natural levels of antibodies or T-cell reactivity do not yet come close to that (Pitt; Doshi). This is where the 300+ vaccine candidates try to do better. Let’s see how good they are.
3. Neoliberal failures and independent responses
This is my characterisation of the approach taken by neoliberal countries (UK, USA, Sweden, Brazil):- they stripped their public health capacity, decades before this crisis;- they developed societies of privilege and exclusion, fuelling distrust and resentment;- they delayed for many weeks state responses to the epidemics, allowing contagion to spread;- they imposed quarantine controls very late, using police and not health officials;- they generated both contagion and prolonged ‘lockdowns’ – the worst of all worlds.
What did the more independent countries (China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria) do?- they built and extended public health systems;- they extended universal guarantees and made more inclusive systems;- they promptly imposed protective quarantine measures, led by health personnel;- they generated shorter ‘lockdowns’ which, with testing and tracing, could be more focused.
Why should we not reflect on why Cuba and Syria (e.g.) imposed quarantine measures before they had a single infection, while the UK and the USA waited 7-8 weeks? The first two contained their epidemics, the latter two did not.
Find out more about our two eminent debaters here
Read Dr Rancourt’s opposing opening statement here
References
Basu, Anirban (2020) ‘Estimating The Infection Fatality Rate Among Symptomatic COVID19 Cases In The United States’, Health Affairs, 7 May, online.
Bhattacharya, Jay (2020) ‘We Must Question The COVID-19 Status Quo (w/Dr. Jay Bhattacharya)’, ZDoggMD, YouTube, 14 September, online:
CDC (2020) ‘COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios’, US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 May, online.
Doshi, Peter (2020) ‘Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity?’, BMJ, 17 September, online.
Horton, Richard (2020) The COVID-19 Catastrophe, Polity, Cambridge MA Jones, David and Stefan Helmreich (2020) ‘A history of herd immunity’, The Lancet, 19 September, online.
Mallapaty, Smriti (2020) ‘How deadly is the coronavirus? Scientists are close to an answer’, Nature, 16 June, online.
Paget, James et al (2019) ‘Global mortality associated with seasonal influenza epidemics: New burden estimates and predictors from the GLaMOR Project’, J Glob Health. 2019 Dec; 9(2): 020421., online.
Osterholm, MT (2012) ‘Final column: pandemic preparedness after H1N1: remember if you’ve seen one pandemic, you’ve seen one pandemic’, in Gigi Kwik Gronvall (2012) Preparing for Bioterrorism, Center for Biosecurity of UPMC, Maryland, online:
Click to access Preparing%20for%20Bioterrorism_Gigi%20Kwik%20Gronvall_December%202012.pdf
Pitt, Sarah (2020) ‘What will happen if we can’t produce a coronavirus vaccine? And is herd immunity the answer?’, The Conversation, 15 August, online.
Spinney, Laura (2020) ‘The Rules of Contagion by Adam Kucharski review – outbreaks of all kinds’, The Guardian, 25 March, online.
Verity, Robert et al (2020) ‘Estimates of the severity of coronavirus disease 2019: a model-based analysis’, Lancet, 30 March, online.
Woodley, Matt (2020) ‘More evidence suggests no long-term COVID-19 immunity’, News GP, 13 July.
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
Why didn’t the good doctor mention the demographic statistics of those that are at most risk to die or become severly ill from SARS-CoV2 ? Because to do so demolish the house of cards of locking down cities and forcing people to wear masks. Additionally introducing ridiculous separation distance in a church while in a supermarket there are NONE !!!
Pandemic deniers
slogans
Boris Johnson and Donald Trump
[eyeroll x 3 – this crap is from an academic?]
No mention that:
A very painful opening statement, it completely skirts the discussion on lockdown effects, presents outdated data etc. Here is a better read https://www.amazon.ca/COVID-2020-World-Petri-DIsh-ebook/dp/B08FGB2W19/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1XPDWIPUQHV27&dchild=1&keywords=covid+2020&qid=1602608144&sprefix=covid+2020%2Caps%2C213&sr=8-1
After analysing thousands papers by academics and journalists worldwide, I came to basically the same conclusions as Dr Anderson on the subject of Syria and I admired him for that. But now I find myself totally in opposition on the subject on the so-called pandemic. How ironic! On this subject I consider him to be brainwashed! May I suggest to the dear doctor to restart his research on finding gold standard scientific proof of the very existence of this Covic 19 virus or any virus and proceed from there, because after a very long search I have been unable to find a gold standard scientific proof of their existence.
Never fear chaps and chapesses, I’m sure he will trot out the 3 word adulation to the manipulators behind all this soon enough – Build Back Better – while genuflecting to the most holy Bill Gates, the ArchBankers, and the sainted Elites who will live in (nuclear powered) Heaven while we scratch in the dirt with our (wind & solar powered) blackouts
Interesting how their new “Build Back Better” slogan inherently suggests destruction…nice. Their dark lord approves…
To all doctors of medicine: Just shut up and do your job. When we get sick, heal us. Advise and scold all you want. How dare you mandate fines and jail and suspension of all that is human in us? We had canonical law in the Middle Ages. Now we have medical law. You wear your silly mask and dance backwards, Doc. Go ahead. We want to get on with our lives, however short they may be.
This cold epidemic has unleashed every sick control freak in the world. God help us!
You could have picked Taiwan, a democracy which has done the best out of all the countries, but I see you preferred to just support communism.
Robinson (I refrain from referring to him as a ‘Doctor’ since Doctors take an oath to do no harm) is either willfully arrogant as he bathes in the glow of his own stupidity or has a nefarious interest in propping up a narrative that has collapsed under the weight of its own lies. Either is unforgivable at this stage of what is clearly an agenda that has already killed and harmed millions.
We now have enough worldwide evidence-based data to clearly see that his stated numbers for IFR, worldwide annual flu deaths and total Covid deaths are simply lies. (Refer to attached video).
One must ask why he is choosing to essentially support what many now see as the greatest crime against humanity in the history of humanity? The word psychopath immediately springs to mind.
What a joke. What a pathetic reply. It’s founded on a non-existent premise, namely, that there is scientific proof of a novel corona virus with a unique and extra-lethal or debilitating consequences.
“We know now that COVID19 is not only linked to respiratory illness but also vascular and neurological illness.” Do we? Asserting this without scientific foundation is fraudulent.
“It simply entrenches ignorance to say: ‘we can ignore all contemporary public health data’ (because of the chronic uncertainties), and ‘we can ignore medical science consensus’ (in favour of our chosen dissidents). We should engage with the best available evidence.” Entrenched ignorance is asserting we should follow the ‘best available science’ and then ignore it or not demand it as it comes out.
This guy is as much a fraud as the hoax itself.
All VIP critics of the powers that be, including, of course, academics, have an amazing ability to swallow and wallow in the propaganda that the power elite manufacture and curate just for them. It is truly amazing how VIP critics come into the argument at the second or third-level lie and not the fundamental lie – the claim that there exists a virus, SARS-CoV-2. I find it fascinating but the power elite know from centuries, if not millennia, of experience that VIP critics will always come in at the second-level or third-level lie depending on how big the Psychological Operation is. It’s basic, right? When a story is told to us is full of anomalies and obvious lies we need to question all aspects of the story. We do not accept any part of the story as axiomatic. All aspects need to be studied. In the case of psyops they… Read more »
“all academics to a greater or lesser degree are gatekeepers” That’s true of every line of work in that there are rules you must observe if you want to keep your job. Of course – this is only reasonable. But in most jobs, it’s an honest up-front thing e.g. you’re there to build a house and have to follow the rules of deferentially and politeness and the instructions of the one who orders it etc. All this is straightforward. But in the case of academics, “the job” consists in a supposed “free intellectual enquiry”. There is no such thing. Academics, whether they acknowledge it or not, are major executives of the system. And the rulers are watching them very closely. Some lines of dissent are permissible – indeed necessary to maintain the illusion of a democracy. But precisely because these are lines of supposed dissent – and therefore potentially damaging to… Read more »
Yes, George, it’s all illusion and much of the time controlled opposition is curating the dissent.
Dr. Robinson begins his dissertation with four obvious straw man arguments.
These are supported by a series of unsupported epidemiological “data”.
I don’t really need to assess the counter argument (but will for educational purposes).
Sorry..Dr. Anderson in support of the proposition.
He is talking out of his sphincta. Pitty Dr Anderson was one of the few that went against the Nato narrative war on Syria. It is not 10 times the rate of the seasonal flu. I suggest he refer to New England Journal of Med’s article written and authored by none only the kabbalist par extra ordinaire Dottore Fauci. His words not mine . Paraphrasing . ” In the end we will note that the novelle Covid virus will have an IFR rate similar to the seasonal flu 0.1percent VA FANCULLO enough of the BS . Post Scriptum: Note how the WHO have just publicly stated that Lockdowns are not necessary This has all happened since CDC USA news conference October the first where the Doctor basically gave the journo’s the finger and told them to due their jobs properly and cited 6 peer r/v papers on T cell immunity… Read more »
Hundreds of Doctors and medical professionals wrote a letter to Daniel Andrews at the start of September pleading with him to ease the restrictions and pointing out the devastating impact these authoritarian measures were having on so many people. Andrews not only refused to meet the doctors, but point blank ignored the letter. He couldn’t care less how many die as a consequence of his actions. He is doing the bidding of his Masters. Unofficial report that 535 people committed suicide in Victoria between March and September since the draconian lockdowns. Anderson may have done excellent work in regards to Syria, but he is one of a long list of supposed anti establishment ‘leftists’ who have become bootlickers and ardent fans of this police state fascism. And his vicious attacks and smearing of anyone opposed to the covid narrative shows him up for the nasty peice of work that he… Read more »
https://notpublicaddress.wordpress.com/2020/10/10/what-debate/
This guy has no argument.
None of these details are needed, none make any difference. Evil is evil. Evil people will do evil until they’re stopped.
Seems a bit odd to have a debate between a medical doctor and someone with a PHD in hegemony but whatever.
Tim is good on many subjects but not medicine, there has not been a huge pandemic and that is the fact of the matter. There has though been a pandemic of lies, propaganda and nonsense peddled to justify mind control.
“That would have allowed many millions to die”. Die of what? Where is your evidence for such an outlandish statement. This is not good Dr. You need to quote evidence for such sweeping statements.
“……has been suggested to require 85%” Again please quote your evidence. Sweden seems to be doing fine. This is a ridiculously unreal number and you should know better:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200623111329.htm
The point of the discussion revolves around the extensive nature of the lockdowns. Normal practice is to isolate those who are vulnerable and infected – not the 95%+ who are healthy and unaffected. I understand that this is standard public health practice.
And… pointing to totalitarian governments and their methods of control actually argues against yourself. Had you thought that perhaps why they are unaffected now is because this is not the pandemic it is trumped up to be? If this is the case then clearly there is a dark agenda here, particularly in the Anglo/American empire which appears to have been in a death spiral ever since mid 2019.
Examine the timeline starting with the respiratory illnesses attributed to e-cigarettes in America only, in August 2019. Then we have the Repo crisis in September 2019 followed by Event 201 – all coincidences? We know that the ruling elite have published their plans well in advance through their WEF and UN Agenda 2030 supported by the WHO, World Bank and IMF to name just a few institutions of the globalist cabal.
“They suggested IFRs between 0.2% and 1.3%, but the consensual area is between 0.5% to 1% (Verity et al; Basu; CDC; Bhattacharya; Mallapaty). That is, about 5 to 10 times the seasonal flu,”
If it is about 5 to 10 times more deadly than the seasonal flu then why is the 42,000 in the UK of Covid RELATED deaths less than the 50,000 to 58,000 extra excess deaths caused by the Flue in 2017/2018 in the UK as widely reported.
Should there not be 210,000 to 420,000 Covid deaths.
Unless IFR does not translate into deaths meaning more infectious but less deadly than Flu. Unless you think the lockdown saved those lives or the earlier report of 50,000 to 58,000 was also another scary LIE
That whole story about Syria, China and Venezuela having humanistic governments is a sick joke. Now that the regime change plot has failed can we drop the fairy-tales about the Syrian government please? Have people forgotten that Syria collaborated with the US “extraordinary rendition” kidnap and torture program?? Have people forgotten that the Syrian government tortured completely innocent people in order to suck up to the Evil empire during the War on Terror? Mahar Arar is a Canadian citizen sent from the US to Syria via Jordan where he was tortured and imprisoned in a box for almost a year. The Syrians and Canadians admit he never had any connection to al Qaeda. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-canada-failed-citizen-maher-arar/article1103562/ https://web.archive.org/web/20041011061351/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/21/48hours/main594974.shtml Vicious torture is the standard practice of the Syrian security apparatus, visited upon all unlucky enough to find themselves in a Syrian prison. People can be imprisoned and tortured merely because the Mukhabarat think they… Read more »
You’re being silly. Syria would be doing okay without Western and Gulf state meddling. This is about the fake coronavirus, not Syria.
Dr, you are going to have to try much harder than that – this isnt the Guardian, MSNBC et al.
If this were a real debate, why are comments being allowed before the actual end of the debate? Is not the true purpose of a debate to allow each party to sway opinions without input from third parties?
Why do you want to stop comments?
Why are comments being allowed? This place is and will always be an open forum for discussion – no one is forced to scroll down and read the comments
I was expecting more , but then what do you expect from the Branch Covidien Cult.
Scum like this guy never debate anyone in open public forums.
You know with real people sitting in auditoriums where he debates his hair-brained lies in front of an audience that gets to rebut his life-destroying narrative.
Any time you see people like this remind them of how many deaths they are responsible for. Hawk them and hound them- it is the honorable thing to do.
Even the WHO is now against lockdowns. Some quotes from Dr David Nabarro, the WHO’s Special Envoy on Covid-19:
“We in the WHO do not advocate lockdowns as a primary means of controlling this virus.”
“We really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method”
“Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is, making poor people an awful lot poorer”
https://twitter.com/jasoneclarke/status/1314994529955700736
Pity is they ever let the god awful Tedros and his crap about it being worse than terrorism loose on the world.
The real villain is Bill Gates not Tedros. Watch out for a 180 degree WHO turn in the next day or so.
Syria? Syria is a secular society that takes good lessons from genuine socialism (for which reason neoliberal capitalists attack it). All religionists are free and they are united in support of their president and country. But, alas, If their government has jumped on the covid 19 pandemic bandwagon, then there’s a problem there. That would be an example of the Syrian government ‘abandoning its people’. (And the Venezuelan president’s reported interest in China’s social credit system is disturbing and represents, if true, a betrayal of his people.) I haven’t look closely at every country and every country’s response to the announced pandemic. I’ve certainly followed the news, indirectly (no pharma-funded tv for me). Andrew Kaufman stated the matter simply when he pointed out in a number of discussions (with those willing to hear him) that the high degree of coordination between nations in their responses to the announced pandemic indicates… Read more »
Again, kudos to Off Guardian for sticking with the covid stuff. It really is the biggest story in all human history (mostly because of its global scale).
If you like a flutter, take a bet on something like Monkeypox being the next pandemic, because most half sane people are bored shitless with the covid nonsense, because they know from their own experience that very few people are ill or dying.
A fairy tale pandemic and the power of the media to spin it, including just about all of the so-called ‘alternate media’, just about all of whom have been totally infiltrated.
Well put. Infiltrated in some cases (which I’ve blogged about as have others) and simply traitorous in other cases. The infiltration is a whole big subject. It usually comes about via funding. The big funders, namely Open Society, Rockefeller (in various forms), Ford Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation et al, cough up the cash, and, often, go away. The org does its often very good thing until one day, when needed by the establishment that the funders are a part of, there’s a turn in direction. John Stauber wrote a great article about it titled “The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats,” to be found on the wayward CounterPunch website. Then, sometime later, when I went on a search to see what John was up to, I found him in the enemy’s camp. This is not unusual. That, namely betrayal, is the norm in this world… Read more »
People simply refuse to realize that NOTHING is given without strings. The only variant is the length of the string.
Money is a great persuader. Add to that 20-30 yr. mortgage debt and the person is trapped.
Money has been improperly made to mean life, so it’s a very great persuader. Getting off the grid, therefore, is a very good way to survive. Not everyone can do that though. I can’t. Finding your tribe, making arrangements (deals to exchange goods and services for goods and services), growing food etc.., become important when the Corporatocracy / war-making State is literally going after you. If you can buy land, then do so and dig wells (you and others need water) and build root cellars and plant gardens of course. If you have money, throw extra trailers up on your property. (And spend as much of it this way as you can while you can, for they are going to make it impossible for non conformists to spend money, which will become digital and then be out of your hands.) I guess solar panels might good idea, although that’s not… Read more »
Wish i could give this a zero, but the meter goes only down to 1.
“Epidemiologists calculated a range of Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) estimates, a few months into the pandemic. They suggested IFRs between 0.2% and 1.3%, but the consensual area is between 0.5% to 1% (Verity et al; Basu; CDC; Bhattacharya; Mallapaty).” As if the WHO didn’t implicitly admit just days ago that it’s actually 0.14%.
“That is far too low for any sort of ‘natural’ herd immunity which, given COVID19’s highly contagious nature, has been suggested to require 85%.” Totally conflicts with recent articles in Nature (81% immunity) and the British Medical Journal.
And he put forth the notion of “defeating” the virus. Right!
And, Tim, where’s the virus? Show us the virus and don’t just lie about it or point us to others who have lied about isolating it. Andrew Kaufman is onto you fakers in this regard.
You can’t actually ‘see’ a coronavirus but then you can’t see any sort of virus, they’re too small. We do have tools to see them but its not very interesting to look at — the picture I’ve seen of infected lung tissue just has cells with dots in them. On the subject ot tools this story makes interesting reading:- https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/genetic-science-coronavirus-outbreak-iowa/ We take for granted that things exist that we can’t see with our eyes. For example, you are using a computer to correspond with offGuardian. Unless the computer is really old the silicon circuitry that makes the thing go — that’s the silicon inside the chips — is made from circuit features that are much smaller than the wavelength of light. That means that even if you had a really powerful microscope you wouldn’t be able to see them. The processes that allows us to design and fabricate these parts… Read more »
Acknowledged. I don’t believe in the ‘concept’ of viruses. Exosomes are identical and that’s a concept that I can get behind, which isn’t to say that I think we know everything about exosomes, and much else.
Yes indeed, there is no proof that Sars-cov-2 coronavirus exists and very likely there never will be.
“I say yes, the 2020 pandemic was a serious health crisis which required prompt protective measures to contain the spread and mitigate the illness and death. This should be understood in principle, first…” Pro lockup parties pushing the hoax themselves, when you’re looking at official websites, acknowledge that there was and is no pandemic. What we should do, in my opinion, is exercise honesty and admit that there is no pandemic. Tim’s whole defense of the proposition (lockup was justified) has this tone of perversity to it. As Kit Knightly said to James Corbett, we need to ignore what tv is telling us and pay attention to the official numbers and statements, because there’s a disconnect. It’s the easiest thing in the world to link to statements by Tony Fauci about any number of things – official numbers of deaths from covid 19, HCQ, independence of the boards overseeing safety… Read more »
Meanwhile in vaccine-land, phase III trials aren’t scheduled to complete until late 2022, so the plan seems to be some kind of early release, after interim trials whose primary endpoint is a mere elimination of symptoms (elimination of mild symptoms is acceptable) in a specified percentage of around 50 infected people. So not only will normal safety testing be skipped, there will be no requirement at all for the vaccines to work for reducing positive PCR tests, mortality, hospitalisations, Long COVID or anything else that people are being told to worry about! https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/09/23/covid-19-vaccine-protocols-reveal-that-trials-are-designed-to-succeed/#4a43de1c5247
“I say yes, the 2020 pandemic was a serious health crisis”
And there you have it. It WAS a serious health crisis!
However, the question addresses the present.
Any glance at a graph shows that the virus is seasonal and has followed a typical coronavirus curve. It was already spreading throughout the population before the mockdown and the fact that they are having to do 45 cycles of the PCR test to get their epidemic of positive “cases” basically sums up the whole current “suppression measures” scam.
I would also argue that government policy, that deliberately put the most vulnerable in harm’s way while witholding health care from the general population and which is systematically destroying the economy, has caused an infinitely more serious crisis.
Hospitals were empty. There was no crisis.
Thanks.
It shoots an even bigger hole in Anderson’s argument!
I thought the EXACT SAME DAMN THING – he said “was”.
There was never a crisis. Over 350 million people a year get one of the infectious heptatitis strains, about 1 billion get flu, 228 get malaria, not one has caused a lockdown, remember the so called crisis called by Tedros as 8,000 people, almost no one had died and it transpires it was only called a novel corona by Dr Preson in Germany based on gossip in a social media post written by an opthamologist in China, since when did anyone in that area of medicine know anything about respiratory diseases.
My point was in WAS, not in crisis!
I suggest we learn from the experience of independent countries, those well organised on principles of humanism and social solidarity, e.g. China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria. Their actions during the pandemic have some important lesson.
Syria etc. Humanism,solidarity…lol…lost me there. What a load of shite…this site is getting worse for one sided rubbish
Tu Coprophagus Bovinus Excretus
“Protection of populations could not be achieved by simply allowing the disease to run its course and hope that some sort of natural immunity might result. That would have allowed many millions to die.”
One of the things I have been asking all along is for evidence. Many millions? How many millions? Or is this just a statement to shock, like we see every day on the telly?
We have a prime minister telling us the chief medical officer – Chris Whitty – has provided evidence why people can’t go to places of entertainment, football matches, places of education over a virus that peaked in the UK in April.
Give me believable evidence and I’ll give you a star.
In fairness I think you are brave to come onto an enlightened platform trying to convince those of us looking for a way out of this mess.
its a freak show of controlled oppostion .
This is not a debate, its just more controlled opposition, a sham .
There is no new virus and no new disease .
Covid:The Big Lie
Without proof of a threat all measures taken were unlawful. And as they were done knowing there was an absence of a real threat they were all criminal .
https://notpublicaddress.wordpress.com/2020/10/10/what-debate/
True. One cannot assume facts not in evidence as rational basis for any debate and that what exactly debaters did, assumed unverified factS and politically motivated conjectures and fantasies as arguments for their positions. That what lively and useless medieval scholastic debates based on church dogmas were all about namely to old preconceived results with no hope for any deep understanding. Accordingly, facts that COVID exists with new distinct phenology, unique therapy, clinical protocol and specific drug regime and that SC2 virus exists and causes clinical cases of COVID disease or that PCR test has any ability to determine patient infection status to name few are not in evidence so far and hence cannot be assumed in debate as initial positions or axiomatic truths. Hence COVID cult following make sure that no honest COVID debate is ever initiated as they know that facing hard data they have no rational arguments… Read more »
I hope you die of covid. You should be made to dig the graves of all the covid victims you covidiot. Yep, it’s emotionally charged arguments and ad hominem galore when you try to discuss real facts and data with members of the covid cult.
I’ll dispense with politesse and get right into it. Tim Anderson’s analysis of covid measures in Syria is that of a dingbat far removed from reality and desperately clinging to his predetermined narrative. Writing from afar, Anderson did not have an actual clue how Syria’s measures played out **in reality**. Anderson: “What did the more independent countries (China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria) do?- they built and extended public health systems;- they extended universal guarantees and made more inclusive systems;- they promptly imposed protective quarantine measures, led by health personnel;- they generated shorter ‘lockdowns’ which, with testing and tracing, could be more focused.” Bullshit. There was no “testing and tracing”, Anderson lives in a dreamland bubble. The “lockdown” in Syria was far from a lockdown. Shops closed for maybe a month, then the President decided the cost was too brutal on the people and shops opened anew. Even during that time,… Read more »
Thanks, Eva, for eyewitness conformation of something which I posted as an outsider: That Syria has a sensible policy, neither irresponsible nor panic-stricken, which I attribute to its president being a trained medic as well as a good Leader.
Updated w links to make my point: https://www.facebook.com/EvaBoBeeva/posts/3650182764991691
Your point is well made Eva. It’s tragic that Tim A who wrote so well on the Dirty War on Syria has now succumbed to the really dirty war on society and taken up the cudgel for the war-makers. What you’ve told us about how it feels in Damascus is what’s important, as despite everything thrown at them the people stay close and do not fear – while here in Australia we have been taught to fear and be suspicious and vindictive, while imagining we are doing it all “to save lives” even as we sacrifice our own and those of our children.
Those who think differently risk not just fines and arrest, but being beaten up by their fellow citizens; the rule on mask wearing comes in tonight in Victoria; no more scarves tied round the face. It’s a masquerade, and driven by fear.
xx D
Your comment is like a breath of fresh air, Eva. And Syria sounds like a very enlightened place (with a very enlightened president). Thanks.
Thanks for this trenchant rebuttal. But, really, Eva, can’t you try to be a little more like Anderson and get with the New Abnormal program?
BTW, I repurposed a term from the Fundamentalist Christianity lexicon, and refer to the pro-scamdemic ostensible leftists as the Left Behind.
That’s a very good response.
Watched the UN briefing with you from a few years back. You destroyed that Norwegian journalist.
Personally I would have told him to stop slouching in his chair and walked over and booted him off it. But you were far to measured and reserved as you’ve shown here in responding.
Seriously, there are few people who show similar passion over these issues and glad to see it here.
I am still baffled as to why the hell the stupid WHO and governments decided this was the first virus in history that required any response at all. It’s not black death, we have health systems and in history the only time I can find when they sort of quarantined the healthy was back in the days of black death voodoo. All the modelling and other crap is also voodoo, might as well do a bloody astrology chart for all the sense they make. I said it was bullshit on day one, sorry arseholes who demonised me but my bullshit media worked well again and I was correct.
Too many fallacies to refute. No point, waste of time.
It seems particularly idiotic to suggest that all the lockdowns and restrictions are indicative of an anti-neoliberal approach since they benefited most the neoliberal oligarchs and hurt most the little guy, which might be exacerbated to the extreme if things keep going on like this.
This man has a totally skewed perception of reality.
Maybe his perception of reality is just fine and he’s trying to skew yours…
I can’t add much to what everyone else has said here already. But – “they generated both contagion and prolonged ‘lockdowns’ – the worst of all worlds.” – he includes Sweden here. Prolonged lockdown in Sweden??? He also accepts official data on covid deaths as a given – something which OG and others have been challenging for months. And his choice of language leaves much to be desired. You are not automatically a ‘pandemic denier’ just because you question policies in relation to risk. And his faith in vaccines… I respect his work on Syria but this is poor.
Crikey! Prof.Anderson is really scraping the bottom of the barrel to produce Evidence for the Defense in the case Con-19. Witness List includes these 4 items at the end: Australian Broadcasting Corp, The Guardian, a ‘model’ by (wait for it!) Neil Ferguson, and a black headline questioning herd immunity with the following proviso in small print, ‘if this proves to be true…’
yes – real computer programmers who got to look at Ferguson’s “model” – after an attempted clean up had been made by crack Microsoft engineers (funny how they were called in) – described the coding as an amateurish, unmaintainable mess. Not only did it not actually work, giving erratic results with identical inputs, but that Ferguson wanted to conflate this with the indeterminacy of real life.
Charlatan in big pharma’s pocket. How can anyone continue to make a case that requires support from Ferguson, who judging by his lockdown behavior, didn’t believe it himself.
Yes well the ABC have this tame and lame former doctor spouting bullshit based on 1918 flu and the imbeciles like Tim listen and believe the old former doctor. It was rather funny to me that he talked and talked and talked himself into a panic over a sore throat from talking and talking and talking, he’s still stuck in January 1918 all these months later. Aussies here know who he is.
ZH headline expresses disappointment but who is really disappointed.
Global COVID-19 Cases Surpass Springtime Highs, Deaths Still Lag: Live Updates
so it looks like that governments and medics and corporate bosses have serious killing to do to catch up with COVID headline hysteria as so far new lockdowns failed to produce mass causalities comparable to levels of March and April.
Simply disgusting propaganda.
Black comedy: “Deaths Still Lag”.
“Survival” is now deemed “postponed, but looming and imminent, DEATH.”
Headline decades from now: “21 year old dies from covid 60 years later”
Oh, no! As if things weren’t dire and dismal enough, now ZH informs us that the world may be mired in an insurmountable Death Gap!
You mean there’s going to be a “Death Race” soon?
Like the Arms Race…???
ZeroHedge is just shilling for their Big Pharma investments.
I can only hope that, at some point, someone asks Dr Anderson to please comment on the various health agencies’ (such as USA’s CDC) alteration of death certificate reporting protocols. Specifically, he should be asked point blank how reporting deaths “with” COVID is permitted to equate to deaths “by” COVID. Then, as a follow up, asked if these kinds of alterations might skew the statistics.
I would love to hear his response.
It’s worse than that, they list a thing called covid equivalent that require no tests or diagnosis at all. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-deaths.page
Oh God it gets worse. The guilt by association manoeuvre. “Pandemic deniers run parallel slogans to those of neoliberals like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump: ‘no worse than a flu’, ‘natural herd immunity’, ‘the cure is worse than the disease’.” Which makes me grateful when he really cuts the crap and lays this bullshit out in its full fraudulence: “This denialism is not really a ‘left’ position because it begins by rejecting preventive health measures (e.g. quarantine and vaccines, at the centre of all public health systems) and its justifications generally capitulate to individualism (‘my liberties above all’).” Skeptics are selfish bastard Right-wing morons. Check! Smear complete! (Oh, have we had any discussion at all about whether the virus really is as represented? Of course not! Irrelevant!) Still – he has a sense of humour: “It is always important to not conflate principles with particular political actions.” And no COVID… Read more »
I’m probably jumping the gun but the opening of this is so dismal I couldn’t hold myself back from this immediate response: “It is important to go beyond the fantasies that the current epidemics were not serious public health threats, which demand a social response.” Question begging. “Cynical responses which cry ‘the data is all wrong, scientists should not be believed, public health systems want to poison us all’ both miss the neoliberal failures and prevent us from engaging in social responses.” Straw men. In detail: “the data is all wrong” The data was not wrong but, to say the least, questionably interpreted. “scientists should not be believed” “Scientists”? Are they all together in one room? All singing the same song? “public health systems want to poison us all” Infantile projection of the conspiracist bogeyman. Followed by more question begging: “…. miss the neoliberal failures and prevent us from engaging… Read more »
Yes. Really stupid. And predictable. Very bad that OG is putting this forward. What a waste.
I am very sad to say it but Tim Anderson’s is a faulty argument and by no means does he represent the “left-wingers”. I am Marxist-Leninist and can easily see through this charade called “Covid”. Some points to consider: He says that collective action is more efficient in confronting the emergency. It’s nothing new under the sun. The armies that were popular in nature (mobilized masses) and had politically defined position (English Revolution, French Revolution, Vietnam liberation struggle) could and have achieved wonders. The also let their best members climb up the ladder, and gain recognition among their peers. Hegel, my dear Watson. Neoliberalism never set out to solve any problem concerning “public health”, so it couldn’t have failed. He oversees the need of “neoliberalism” to discipline its subjects. This was done by dangling in front of the Westerner’s eyes the “red scare”, then the “terrorism” and now “covid”. It’s… Read more »
I appreciated your comments greatly.
Right from the very first sentence, Anderson is trying to divert from the proposition under discussion. He openly states that he wants to move the debate to comparisons between different health systems.
Most of the rest is straw man fallacies piled on top of one another.
Anyone who has followed the Covid back and forth amongst those on the Left over the past six months will know that Anderson is not someone who has argued in good faith on this issue.
I respect the approach of OffG and Robinson in trying to host/ moderate such a debate, but wonder at the wisdom of inviting someone like Anderson considering his previous form.
Putting aside contrived meaningless labels of control (such as left-center-right), what does Chomsky have to do with honest Socialism? Eugene Debs received prison for his words, Chomsky tenure at a “CIA academy.” Chomsky is anything but a socialist in the spirit of Eugene Victor Debs. Socialism in part is about the equitable apportionment of resources and democratic popular governance. The corporate fascist scamdemic means to do away with any last vestige of hope for Socialism. It is just another “nail in the coffin” for most of humanity and a mechanism of enslavement for a vast majority of the rest. So called “intellect” is no measure of a persons character or their integrity. “When is the debate (discussion) about strategies to fight the SCAMDEMIC?” “This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a… Read more »
The statistics around COVID-19 are a huge blurry haze. The uncertainty as to the number of deaths attributable to the particular virus as well as the number of people actually infected is so great that it makes argument based on these numbers very questionable. This disease manifests itself, typically and on average, as less dangerous than the flu. To maintain that a disease X that is less dangerous to younger people than disease Y is more dangerous to older people than disease Y is a staggering leap of logic which is only made possible by the compartmentalized statistical way of thinking to which we have become accustomed. I would like to see a rational reason why this situation could be so, a hypothesis based on physiological observation. Otherwise it’s just another case, so common in modern medicine, of a crude conclusion which lacks understanding. More importantly, I would like to… Read more »
Pretty much everything Robinson says is BS and most of the people on this site know it. I could deconstruct all of it but it is really not worth the effort. But let me take a few examples. Starting off with “To simply react to the crisis as ‘lockdown vs no lockdown’, and complain how it affects individual liberties, misses that.” Reminds me of “Right, but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” “principles of humanism and social solidarity, e.g. China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria.” While I am totally against USA/NATO imperialism, I also am against these totalitarian forms of government, bearing in mind as well that Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria are currently under extreme neo-colonialist attack. “Humanist” and “social solidarity” sound so warm and fuzzy, as opposed to techno-fascism which is the system in which the current regime in China leads the way. “Demonstrable,… Read more »
Sorry, I misinterpreted the top lines of this posting. My diatribe should have been directed at Dr. Anderson and not Dr. Robinson. I guess “chair” is what we Yanks would call a “moderator.”
Pretty much standard ‘socialist’ thinking. Not to say that is all bad but leftists in general seem to have a hard time understanding the role of ‘deception’ is so many of these events. 9/11 was an example of this where so many leftist gatekeepers (Chomsky for example) take the basic story told by the Government at it’s face. This was/is also true about the numerous smaller ‘false flags’ after 9/11. So many of these are almost certainly false flags or outright hoaxes. I am thinking of Westminster Bridge, Manchester, Paris, Brussels, Nice, Munich all of these events between 2014-2018.So for some reason this kind of standard leftist thinking cannot or will not engage with this aspect. The above article falls into the same trap imho
Interesting point. Few would argue that Chomsky is not absolutely brilliant. So how could he not see that flaws in The Official Story in term of physics alone, while I, as a basically bottom feeding chemist could? I have not trusted a single thing that Chomsky has said or written since then, despite the fact that I was a fan of his prior to it.
As a political commentator Chomsky is a great linguist.
Extremely underrated comment.
Well done, Someone.
NC is a major disappointment on this. Likely to support himself he would cite the unknowability inherent in scientific experimentation, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. All humanity’s problems are psychological.
Good points. It’s sad. I have not read more of anything political (or anything in any subject) than Chomsky. I haven’t even finished all of my Chomsky books! I’ve learned so much from him. Alas…
After Chomsky’s 9/11 crap, I saw absolutely no way not to peg him as a limited hangout. The world is full of brilliant honest people to learn from.
“Why Noam must be a genius. Since he has gotten so many people to believe that he is one. Now if he could only convince them all that he was not a corrupt hack, he would not be be able to walk on water he would be able to float above it.”
Of course he sees the flaws in The Official Story. An educated brain like that couldn’t miss it. He simply lacks the courage to tell everybody about it. Courage isn’t an easy thing, after all, and he is now a pretty old man, probably thinking about leaving his younger family with an untainted legacy and a relatively peaceful future… I’m disappointed in him, but pointing the finger at him and calling him a coward automatically points the finger back at us and asks us why we haven’t done more ourselves. I really can’t say I know what I would have done, or said, in his shoes, but I don’t think I’m one of those heroes you read about in books. We all like to think we have courage, but if it was easy to be courageous we would all be heroes. I’m inclined to just let it go at that,… Read more »
First, his tirade against “9/11 conspiracy theorists” goes back 15 years, so very advanced age wasn’t a factor. Second, as a linguist, no one expected him to come out with a statement about 9/11. He could have simply chosen to stay mum on the issue. I have to repeat that this smacks of him being a limited hangout and his agenda may not be what it appears to be on the surface, as few things are in this area. Third, beyond pointing out proof well beyond a reasonable doubt that 9/11 was a controlled demolition pulled off by the Neocons, headed up by President Cheney, traitorous air force generals, and the State of Israel, and shouting it to the rooftops, what is one to do? I have been contributing from my pension to A&E for 9/11 Truth which just completed a study in conjunction with the engineering department of the… Read more »
Seems to me he very much DID remain mum on the issue, except for a dismissive wave of his hand. At any rate I missed his statement about 9/11 – perhaps you could help me there?
Just type “noam chomsky on 9/11 conspiracy theorists” into your favorite search engine (mine is Duckduckgo fo the moment) and you will get a regular cornucopia of video verbiage on his part. If this is “mum,” I wonder what loquacious would be?
There’s a difference between socialist thinking and thinking that has been made to appeal to socialists. In this case the deadly pandemic scenario is being sold as a socialist issue i.e. we are encouraged to accept the deadly virus picture because it is taken as an indictment of capitalism i.e. an indication of capitalism’s “Achilles’ Heel”. I think it is no such thing. I agree that it is a manufactured crisis – and of course this too has been blocked off from “standard socialist” thinking.
“… we are encouraged to accept the deadly virus picture because it is taken as an indictment of capitalism i.e. an indication of capitalism’s “Achilles’ Heel”.”
And looking in the mirror, we realize that, like everything else that neo-lib/con tries to blame is actually themselves.
The Plandemic is a attack by our most entitled, credentialed and privileged and compensated parasites of our societies. Does not matter whether socialist or capitalist.
Patrick, you ring my withers. I was a fan of Chomsky until his airy dismissal of a fellow academic who found nanothermite in the dust at WTC (Professor of Materials Science) as “someone learning about nanothermite on the internet”. And now you expose Prof.Anderson, for whom I used to carry the torch, as a ‘leftist’ who has ‘a hard time understanding the role of deception’ and takes ‘the story told by the Government at face value’.
What a bundle of contradictions is Man. ““Matter and Impertinency mixed!” — King Lear
Chomsky’s disdain for genuine alternative media makes me shudder. (And his idea of alternative media is a joke. He quotes the worst fakers, like The Nation, and calls them alternative.) Seeing that hit me as though I had found out that my father was a rapist.