Something to consider about the interference question in the U.S. is that in most of the country in 2020, coronavirus cases didn't get recorded at high levels until that summer or fall. In those states, how could coronavirus have been stifling the influenza viruses? And what about the states, like the Northwest and upper New England, that never recorded a large surge of covid deaths?
As a somewhat random sample, I just went to Utah's influenza surveillance page at https://epi.health.utah.gov/influenza-reports/ The seasonal summaries end with 2018-2019. It's possible the post-2019 summaries are elsewhere, but it is curious. Also, this 1/31/2020 article in the Deseret News is interesting, on the flu vs. covid front:
The reporter wrote: "Influenza, to date, remains more infectious and more deadly than the novel coronavirus strains that popped up recently in China, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
The Utah article is interesting. It confirms that flu activity was "severe" and "widespread" in Utah, still rising and the flu season "began earlier" than other years. It also says this is the case in "nearly all" U.S. states.
I happen to believe this widespread and severe ILI activity includes many cases of "early Covid."
The article also notes that 173 million doses of flu vaccine had been administered by late January 2020 - which is more than 50 percent of the U.S. population. So obviously the flu vaccine didn't "protect" Americans in this flu season (just like it doesn't in any flu season).
Of course, early in the story we have an authority saying, "It's not too late to get your flu shot" and the vaccine "will protect you." I think, by law, every newspaper article has to include this statement of fact (sarcasm). If a public health official didn't say this, he'd probably be fired.
Jun 10, 2023·edited Jun 10, 2023Liked by Jessica Hockett
For every person that tested for SARS-CoV-2, did they test them for the flu? Which types? There are anecdotes(when do enough of these become data?) where people who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 received no further screening for Influenza at all. Some of theses were officially declared "COVID presumptive positive." So we have a couple scenarios I see; 1) they didn't test them, if you don't test for it you won't find it. 2) like H1N1(pdm09) was it possible there were subtypes or Flu types that were tested for, that weren't present, while another that was infecting the patient went undetected in PCR or whatever screening used? Interesting stuff!
A friend in VA is a nurse. Her hospital has been running broad viral and bacterial panels on all appropriate patients since she started working in spring 2020.
Spring 2020 is when RVP and other testing took a nose dive in many places. If she has a screenshot of the number and kind of tests being given then, it would be helpful. In general, I’ve found that individual recollections about what was being done in a particular place often don’t match what the data show. There could be many reasons for that, none of which have to do with the individual’s recollection.
We need to have s round table and compare notes. I 2014, FDA and CDC started reporting "Influenza Disease" aka "P&I" (Pneumonia and Influenza) instead of the pre-2014 "Influenza" (lab-verified influenza). The media dutifully report "Influenza Disease" as "The Flu" leading to 10x more deaths attributed to Influenza. The evidence is found in my articles at jameslyonsweiler.com ... "Influenz disease" included flu, RSV, bacterial pneumonia, fungal infections, and coronavirus respiratory illness w/o molecular test evidence either way. Along comes "COVID-19" w False-Positive prone pcr tests, and therein the systematic diagnostic substitution is largely explained. Influenza disappeared because the default diagnosis for resp illness even with NEGATIVE covid19 test results became COVID19. https://jameslyonsweiler.com/2020/09/11/censored-is-cdc-borrowing-pneumonia-deaths-from-flu%E2%80%8B-for-from-covid-19/ I have a major report on the biased diagnosis on ipaknowledge.org
-- On the role of Influenza-B-Yamagata in the period circa 2018 to 2023 --
The near-"disappearance" of one specific type of Influenza (B-Yamagata) in testing predates the Corona-Panic of 2020 by some time, and a few are wondering what clues might be embedded in the disappearance to the bigger "disappearance of Influenza" question, and maybe some keys to the whole unnecessary catastrophe that was Corona-Panic of the early 2020s.
Influenza-B-Yamagata traditionally had a late-season peak. Then in early 2019, it did not have anywhere near its usual number of positives, and again the same in early 2020,. These two absences of B-Yamagata in their expected seasonal appearances were before the Corona-Panic's many social disruptions, the "interventions," the travel-restrictions and capacity-restrictions, all the various medical-system disruptions resulting from the Panic, and it even predates the supposed "Covid19" viral interference phenomenon, at least along the orthodox timeline of "the spread."
What explains the major fall in Influenza-B-Yamagata? There seem to be three possible explanations: (1.) The testing authorities stopped testing, en masse, for B-Yamagata, arbitrarily, sometime in mid or late 2018. Why they would do this is not easy to understand, and whether this happened should be able to be confirmed or disconfirmed; (2.) Influenza-B-Yamagata was blocked in (by) early 2019 and again in early 2020 (before the Panic) because of viral-interference by the spread of coronaviruses; coronaviruses were seldom tested for at the time; (3.) Some other virus blocked B-Yamagata, the other interfering-virus not related to any coronaviruses.
If (2.) is correct, then the general Virus-Panic-of-2020 narrative gets an interesting jolt.
I believe that your current theory is the relatively radical position that "there never was any 'pandemic'." The B-Yamagata piece of the puzzle may fit the no-pandemic-in-2020 theory, in that there were "normal virus things" going on in 2018 and 2019 and into 2020, all before anyone began to rally 'round the banners of the Panic. Coronas were seeded worldwide, largely blocking B-Yamagata after two or so seasons of doing its work; and then, when the Panic demanded a hunt for "the coronavirus," the Panic-loyal authorities could get positives, with their highly imprecise tests, as they wanted. The Panic-Monster was steadily fed. But the Panic even on its most technically-firm-seeming basis, was just totally wrong and picking up the remnants of earlier seeding events.
I'm newer to the Yamagata disappearance (read about it in an article a couple weeks ago). Ideas about strains having a fight and crowding each other out aren't super convincing to me. I think too much faith is put in tests and testing/surveillance programs, which are subject to all manner of changes from year to year (or within the season). For example, North Carolina data show that the number of "sentinel" sites reporting ILI was steady for several years before nearly tripling in the 2018-2019 season. Why did that happen? I don't know yet, but I do know that a change like that makes a difference in the data collected -- and certainly affects the ability to compare YOY/trends.
My position that there was no global viral pandemic may be "radical" - but I'm not alone. Denis Rancourt and others say the same thing.
I mention Jessica's article in my current article, which presents some of the evidence of widespread ILI before official Covid was supposed to be in America.
CDC and state health agency data prove that cases of “influenza-like-illness (ILI) were widespread and severe across almost the entire U.S. in the months before “official” Covid. If nothing else, the evidence is overwhelming that more Americans became “sick” and experienced Covid-like symptoms than in the 10 previous flu seasons. Is it possible some large percentage of these sick people actually had Covid? I say yes.
If I’m right and the experts somehow completely missed the copious evidence of “early spread,” the implications are seismic. For example, it seems likely that iatrogenic deaths - and not this virus - explains the vast majority of “Covid deaths” that started happening in April 2020.
For me the answer to this lies in the Australian flu surveillance data, where PCR testing was being performed up to 44,000 tests a week and showed near-zero influenza A or B. Australia is one of the few countries that routinely tests for flu and had very little COVID in 2020.
There are only two possible explanations.
(1) There was a concerted effort to replace the PCR primers for influenza tests, which likely come only from two or three labs (e.g. Roche, Aptima) such that they no longer reported flu.
(2) Flu disappeared from Australia for two years. The disappearance happened on the 13th March 2020 when the border was closed to China.
I have to favour (2) because the ILI deaths went down in 2020.
Yes, I have mulled Australia from various angles and agree with you that the answers have to be consistent with what happened there - which started in March 2020. Are you aware of the partnership between AUS and US researchers around and just before that time?
Isn't the first graph showing that testing for influenza went sky high approximately the first week of 2020? But "positive" flu results were very low, almost non-existent. Were more people suddenly going to the doctor to get flu tests in early January? Why?
Not really but they had said it's the start of the flu season, although the previous year graph started 1st April. So maybe a Freudian slip. In Australia the seasons start on the dot. 1st Dec = Summer, 1st March = Autumn etc. So it would make sense that they start 1st April (rather than mid-March). Mid March was a bit weird
Setting aside the possibility of PCR corruption for 44k tests to show zero positives is very suspicious. It assumes perfect specificity and assumes the eradication of competing pathogens that might trip a false positive. From what I've read in the literature specificity of PCR tests is demonstrated on very low number of samples and is done in reference conditions.
I also want to know why they were collecting (and presumably "running") so many specimens before their flu season starts.
Given the January 2020 revisions to WHO flu testing guidelines - and the presumed "need" for validating multiplex tests - I'm wondering under what auspices, exactly, these specimens were collected https://twitter.com/EWoodhouse7/status/1637626370166497280?s=20
Your question doesn't quite make sense to me so I'll try and answer with a clarification.
All tests have a false positive rate by nature. PCR is highly specific and highly sensitive under most circumstances. The specificity drops with a rise in the Ct. For an influenza PCR there will be a nominal specificity and sensitivity report for the assay at a defined Ct, which is historical (assessed at the time that assay was authorised for use). It is not possible to reassess this rate in normal use without a gold standard comparator (specificity is always measured against another standard).
What you can say is what the maximum false positive rate is, assuming there were zero cases but x% testing positive and under the circumstances provided. In this case that value is defined in the reports because the positive test rate was less than 0.5%, so the false positive rate must be equal or less than this.
"In the year to date, 0.3% (n=188) of samples detected in sentinel laboratories were positive for influenza. Of the positive samples, 99.5% (n=187) were influenza A (of which 95.2% (n=178) were influenza A (unsubtyped), 3.7% (n=7) were A(H3N2), and 1.1% (n=2) were A(H1N1)), and 0.5% (n=1) were influenza B."
This doesn't answer the question or address the issue of zero positive tests (not 0% or near 0% POSITIVITY - zero positive tests) coming back week after week out of thousands of tests given.
"The flu" was simply rebranded and repurposed to produce a more frightening viral event in order to sell a product and jump start the Biosecurity program.
They told everyone straight to their face what they were going to do and they did it. And yes it was and is a conspiracy in the legally binding sense of the term.
On Oct. 28-29, 2019 The Milken Institute hosted “The Future of Health Summit”, where a panel of “health experts” gathered to discuss the “scientific and technological prospects of an effective universal influenza vaccine.”
The focal point of this panel discussion was, “the need for more funding for research, better collaboration between the private and government sectors, advances in technology in flu research and the goal of a universal flu vaccine.”
Two overall themes emerged from this meeting. The first idea highlighted the desire for a new way of producing vaccines. Anthony Fauci lamented that bringing in a new type of vaccine, like an mRNA vaccine, would take at least a decade “if everything goes perfectly.”
Rick Bright suggested the problem of long-term development could be sidestepped if, “there were an urgent call for an entity of excitement that is completely disruptive and is not beholden to bureaucratic strings and processes.”
The second issue featured the “need” for something new and more frightening to emerge as the flu no longer created enough fear in the population at large to warrant such a “universal vaccine.”
In that meeting Rick Bright stated, “But it is not too crazy to think that an outbreak of a novel avian virus could occur in China somewhere. We could get the RNA sequence from that to a number of regional centers if not local, if not even in your home at some point, and print those vaccines on a patch of self-administer.”
WHERE DID THE FLU GO?
...
The historical trend of the ‘flu’ tapering ceased in Week 10 (March 7th, 2020) as the ‘flu positive’ numbers dropped off a cliff.
Week 10 (21.5%) to Week 11 (15.3%) saw a precipitous fall of 6.2%. Week 11 (15.3%) to Week 12 (6.9%) ‘flu positives’ dropped an astonishing 8.4% in a single week.
By the time we reach Week 13 of 2020 (Table 8) ‘flu positives’ dropped to 2.1%. By Week 14 the ‘flu’ becomes virtually non-existent at a 0.8% rate of positivity.
While fewer tests (22,324) were conducted in Week 14 of 2020 compared to earlier weeks, they still represent the 2nd highest overall Week 14 tests in all CDC records. Yet, only 0.8% ‘flu positives’ were registered for Week 14 compared to the preceding 7 year average of 12.5% for that same week.
Quite simply there was no historical analog for this event. For all practical (and statistical) purposes the flu no longer existed.
Anyone who works with data knows such sudden jolts are alarm bells. In the real world, this usually indicates some problem with data-gathering and/or accounting methodologies as nature’s data always hugs its bell curves.
Given the bizarre circumstances of this unparalleled statistical outlier, multiple questions demand an answer.
How did flu rates go from all-time highs in Weeks 5, 6, and 7 of 2020 to all-time lows in Weeks 13 and Weeks 14 of the same year?
Well you know how much I respect your work Jessica but with all due respect where you would deepen your analyses on all of these matters, of which the 'disappearing flu' is but a part, is to go back and track the historical trajectory of how we got here.
If you go back only to the HIV/AIDS fraud of the 1980's and afterwards and then track the entire path of the Pharma/Biosecurity system, its financiers and players, to its present day operation, you'll get a clear picture of what happened in 2019/2020 and how they pulled it off.
If you go back a century further and trace the political economy of the medical cartel you will see the template for how "Covid" was rolled out and note the foundation for all of this.
The historical trends that led up to this operation are not unique at all.
I know all about it. You’re underestimating me again. :)
This is about showing what actually happened, accounting for as many variables and counterclaims as possible.
No one person can show or study everything. That’s one reason there are so many books on a historical event.
Nothing you’ve said contradicts anything I’ve said. And I’ve only written one post a prologue, if you will. I’m far from the only person who has been looking into this carefully.
You may disagree with my approach or methods, but let’s try to avoid anything that seems like scolding or straight-up insult.
I've read most all of your work and it is of great value as I've mentioned. I've rarely if ever seen historical context or analyses that places what happened in the larger geopolitical, financial or biosecurity picture so may conclusion is not taken lightly.
"Covid-19" is not a stand alone operation and the 'disappearance of the flu' was simply a necessary opening step of this pre-planned event used to create the illusion of "cases" of a "novel" disease.
Take it for what it is worth or not- I'll leave it at that.
I'm in 100% agreement that the broader historical context matters greatly. This was not a fluke or isolated event whatsoever. It's very difficult to delve into the topics of "global pandemics," epidemics, and disease surveillance without seeing many concerning patterns and myths.
Maybe I would even go further than you in that I'm skeptical a sudden global viral pandemic has ever occurred, based on actual mortality data from the time periods/events in question.
Great info and topic. Do you have good info on the number of "flu tests given" in the 2019-2020 flu season? I think, probably from your research, these numbers were far higher than previous flu seasons. My question: Why were so many more people going to the doctor and getting flu tests in the winter of 2019-2020? My hypothesis is that some percentage of people going to the doctor were sick from "early" Covid. In my opinion, the historically-high number of flu tests given is powerful evidence supporting this hypothesis.
As a pediatrician on the front lines, viral interference is clearly the culprit: Covid outcompeted the flu and rsv. I see personally see how quickly we shift from one virus to another in a matter of weeks prior to Covid. The main evidence for this is that it fell off prior to social distancing, and once it became endemic, flu and rsv reappeared. In my small clinic, it fell off before any masking or social distancing It’s hubris and dangerous to think human actions can thwart a virus. It will encourage people in the future to try and avoid something they have no control over. Viral interference is fascinating and should be studied in more detail.
Jun 10, 2023·edited Jun 10, 2023Liked by Jessica Hockett
Thanks for the laugh.
I suggest you read, "How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor: One of America's Leading Pediatricians Puts Parents Back in Control of Their Children's Health" by Dr. Robert Mendelsohn
A few snippets.
WHY PEDIATRICIANS ARE DANGEROUS
"The confidence inspired by the demeanor of pediatricians is, in my experience, undeserved. It tends to mask the elements of pediatric practice that are threatening to your child. Let me recite briefly some of the reasons why I believe pediatricians are dangerous and then get into the most serious of them later, in greater detail.
The pediatrician serves as the recruiter for the medical profession. He indoctrinates your child from birth into a lifelong dependence on medical intervention. It begins with a succession of needless "well-baby check ups" and immunizations and then moves on to routine annual physical examinations and endless treatment of minor ailments that would cure themselves if they were left alone.”
"Avoid your doctor whenever you can."
“For some, the temptation to display their knowledge and thus win the gratitude of parents, even when the treatment is superfluous and even potentially damaging, can be overwhelming. This indefensible medical behavior is a real threat to your child.”
Those interested in articles that present evidence of "early spread" might be interested in this piece. In this article, I do a thought exercise and ask why no public health officials or President Trump Science Advisors were pushing for more "archived" blood to be tested for antibodies ... before the lockdowns. Also, why weren't the two tranches of Red Cross blood that were belatedly tested not tested much sooner?
If future historians come close to telling the true, human story of Covid, it will be in large part because of the heroic work of an anonymous writer known as “Transcriber B” on Substack. My Q & A with this unsung hero explains why she’s doing what she’s doing and identifies some of the most heart-wrenching transcripts she’s preserved for posterity.
Changing the name for a normal human process to COVID actually doesn’t interrupt the fact that “flu” was still happening all over the place. It is a normal process of our bodies going through detoxification.
For decades, many countries have invested in building up their systems to detect and respond to influenza. Because COVID-19 is also a respiratory pathogen, those systems can, and should, and are being adapted for COVID-19.
Why have they done that, do you think? To what end? I already alluded to some of the reasons in my post :)
Who (and WHO) stands to win and who stands to lose if the flu disappearance is contrived, and didn’t occur for the reasons the CDC and other agencies have asserted or implied?
Did flu “have” to disappear in order for the pandemic declaration to be or seem justified?
I'll be agnostic as to what these tests are testing for, but as a layman, it appears they correlate loosely with immunological responses. If that would be the case for both the new tests for Sars-CoV-2 (especially at absurd cycle counts) and for conventional tests for influenza, then those concerned that substantial coincidence of both positives would hurt credibility would have a strong incentive to dampen positivity rates for conventional flu tests. I'm not telling you anything you haven't hypothesized, but you asked my opinion.
Of note is that WHO put out new testing guidelines for influenza at the very end of January 2020. I'm not sure how long it takes for new protocols to go into effect. (The above Tedros quote I supplied was from March of the same year.)
It looks like they update relatively frequently. Right on the first page it says:
"List of revisions of this document:
6th revision: January 2020 (current revision)
5th revision: November 2018
4th revision: July 2017
3rd revision: December 2016
2nd revision: May 2015
1st revision: March 2014 Version 1: November 2012"
So the fact that there was an update itself is not a smoking gun. But if, for example, it was done when it was done so as to be adopted in time for flu season in the Southern Hemisphere, that might be meaningful. It comes down to how long after an update it's put into practice. I'm out of my depth in terms of interpreting the document itself in terms of the ramifications for testing.
Yep, I'd found it via Wayback and saw the revision dates after I replied to you. Thanks.
Your thinking is my thinking: Updates happen, but the timing can't be ignored. Plus, I'd like to see those other updates.
It still supports what contended in my post. Flu surveillance is run/influenced/controlled by a global entity which has a stated, longstanding interest in tracking and pushing panic over "the next pandemic." Claims that it's a wild conspiracy theory to assert countries acted in a coordinated fashion ignore the well-documented fact that coordination is what this "programme" is about.
People wrongly assume that the data over time is "constant" and that the collection methods don't vary or get disrupted in ways that matter for interpreting the data. But they very clearly do - and the timings can't be hand-waved.
Jessica, thank you for again focussing on one of the great nonsensical and non-investigated puzzlers of our Covid era: How in the heck did the flu - in a matter of four weeks - simply disappear?
I think my intuition like yours - grounded in mega skepticism of “official" explanations - tells skeptics that manipulation of the flu tests (and Covid PCR tests) will lead us to the ultimate answers.
He who controls the tests controls the virus narratives … and ends up controlling the world population.
I not only think the PCR tests were manipulated to create a faux pandemic, the Covid antibody tests also haven’t received nearly enough scrutiny.
In short, I think the “authorized” Covid antibody tests (especially in the early months of the pandemic) were undercounting real Covid prevalence. Conversely, the so-called “junk” tests that were not “authorized” were probably giving us a much more accurate picture of how many people had been previously infected by the novel coronavirus.
My next big article will try to show/prove that ILI WAS much-greater in the U.S. in the winter and fall of 2019-2020 than the previous 10 “flu seasons.” Millions of “extra” Americans (beyond the 10-year-norm) were coming down with ILI symptoms and getting more flu tests.
And then, suddenly - after the lockdowns designed to prevent virus spread - these “positive influenza” results literally vanish. Based on my research, I think real Covid peaked in late December 2019, January and February 2020. The virus -as evidenced by the number of people going to the doctor with ILI symptoms - had already begun to fade out (on its own) by March 15, 2020.
I think any person who worked at a doc-in-the-box, emergency room or doctors' office who is honest would confirm this. I actually have quotes and emails from doctors and doctors'-office employees saying this. Public health agencies at the state level, local level and federal level must also know this and have covered this up IMO.
Anyway, thanks for your important contributions, which have not ignored this nonsensical puzzler. This thread of investigation MIGHT help us expose the entire fraud.
The 2019-2020 season was unremarkable in every respect, until media and govt started pushing panic over "the Wu flu". Remember, no excess mortality until government interventions, which included the advent of mass testing.
I think you and I differ in that you think SARS-CoV-2 was something to write home about before it was officially named. Meaning, that symptoms people experienced were unique. There are a number of times in my life -- and are sure to be many more -- when I was "the sickest I've ever been" with "yikes, what was that?" Unless it kills you, or presents additive risk to the population or a group therein, it doesn't matter. It's all just part of the ILI soup.
I strongly disagree that the 2019-2020 season was "unremarkable in every respect." I've been procrastinating on finishing my article, which will show with copious evidence that ILI was "widespread" and "severe" across America BEFORE official Covid. I'll show this with contemporaneous weekly "ILI reports" from states and the CDC, and from data that shows how many flu tests were being given. I can also throw in hundreds of reader anecdotes from people talking about how many people were sick in their towns as well as from the number of school closings across America (far more than in recent years). These ILI weekly reports (and numerous press reports) also show that the ILI spike began far earlier than normal (in November 2019) and continued all the way into early March. Past "flu seasons" had outbreaks with conspicuous spikes that lasted about four or five weeks (like the terrible flu season of 2017-2018). In the flu season of 2019-2020, ILI was far above the "baseline" norm for at least 22 weeks.
So the question is, if someone happens to believe all these Americans WERE sick .... did they ALL have only ILI? Or is it possible some percentage of them had Covid? I think 20 to 30 percent of these sick people who went to the doctor and got a flu test probably had Covid. That's the estimate of two spouse doctors in Maryland that shared this view with the Maryland Department of Public Health. It's the view of my doctor in Troy, Alabama as well.
And I'm not counting the millions of people who never went to the doctor and got a flu test or all the tens of millions of people who might have had asymptomatic or mild cases.
I hope my soon-to-be-puslished "ILI" article informs this debate. As far as I'm concerned, the fact many more millions of Americans were "sick" from "something" has not gotten nearly enough attention.
Also, those ILI numbers and estimates keep getting revised by the CDC, which is another story/scandal/cover-up.
I agree all-cause mortality data is the bottom line. What my ILI research shows is that ILI was widespread and severe beginning in November 2019 across America. But there was NOT a conspicuous spike of deaths. This tells me this virus (if it was "early" Covid) was NOT lethal. Many more people WERE getting sick with ILI symptoms, just very few were dying.
As you know, ILI = fever of 100 degrees plus cough and/or sore throat.
ILI ED visits as an indicator of severity per se is debatable, in my view, because it is subject to a range of influences on healthcare-seeking behavior.
To be clear, if the PCR (and antibody tests) WERE manipulated to produce some intended result/effect, the influenza tests could also be manipulated by the same people, right? I mean, these are not people and organizations the intelligent public should trust.
I think I'm the only "Covid writer" who suspects the antibody tests were also manipulated - at least the "authorized" tests being used by the CDC and government. There's a big discrepancy between positive antibody results from the "authorized" labs and the small, independent clinics and labs and "in-house" antibody results.
The latter results - which show greater early prevalence positive percentages - were maligned and discredited as "junk tests." I don't think they were necessarily junk tests. I think officials might have manipulated the tests to conceal evidence of early spread.
For example, the CDC's belated "Red Cross" antibody study shows 2 percent positives in three western states (suggesting these people had been infected at least by November 2019). My guess is that the real prevalence was probably higher than 2 percent.
Something to consider about the interference question in the U.S. is that in most of the country in 2020, coronavirus cases didn't get recorded at high levels until that summer or fall. In those states, how could coronavirus have been stifling the influenza viruses? And what about the states, like the Northwest and upper New England, that never recorded a large surge of covid deaths?
Exactly right :)
As a somewhat random sample, I just went to Utah's influenza surveillance page at https://epi.health.utah.gov/influenza-reports/ The seasonal summaries end with 2018-2019. It's possible the post-2019 summaries are elsewhere, but it is curious. Also, this 1/31/2020 article in the Deseret News is interesting, on the flu vs. covid front:
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/1/31/21115837/influenza-flu-coronavirus-greatest-threat-illness-kids-this-year
The reporter wrote: "Influenza, to date, remains more infectious and more deadly than the novel coronavirus strains that popped up recently in China, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
FOIA
The Utah article is interesting. It confirms that flu activity was "severe" and "widespread" in Utah, still rising and the flu season "began earlier" than other years. It also says this is the case in "nearly all" U.S. states.
I happen to believe this widespread and severe ILI activity includes many cases of "early Covid."
The article also notes that 173 million doses of flu vaccine had been administered by late January 2020 - which is more than 50 percent of the U.S. population. So obviously the flu vaccine didn't "protect" Americans in this flu season (just like it doesn't in any flu season).
Of course, early in the story we have an authority saying, "It's not too late to get your flu shot" and the vaccine "will protect you." I think, by law, every newspaper article has to include this statement of fact (sarcasm). If a public health official didn't say this, he'd probably be fired.
For every person that tested for SARS-CoV-2, did they test them for the flu? Which types? There are anecdotes(when do enough of these become data?) where people who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 received no further screening for Influenza at all. Some of theses were officially declared "COVID presumptive positive." So we have a couple scenarios I see; 1) they didn't test them, if you don't test for it you won't find it. 2) like H1N1(pdm09) was it possible there were subtypes or Flu types that were tested for, that weren't present, while another that was infecting the patient went undetected in PCR or whatever screening used? Interesting stuff!
Yep, I’ll get to that. :)
A friend in VA is a nurse. Her hospital has been running broad viral and bacterial panels on all appropriate patients since she started working in spring 2020.
Spring 2020 is when RVP and other testing took a nose dive in many places. If she has a screenshot of the number and kind of tests being given then, it would be helpful. In general, I’ve found that individual recollections about what was being done in a particular place often don’t match what the data show. There could be many reasons for that, none of which have to do with the individual’s recollection.
We need to have s round table and compare notes. I 2014, FDA and CDC started reporting "Influenza Disease" aka "P&I" (Pneumonia and Influenza) instead of the pre-2014 "Influenza" (lab-verified influenza). The media dutifully report "Influenza Disease" as "The Flu" leading to 10x more deaths attributed to Influenza. The evidence is found in my articles at jameslyonsweiler.com ... "Influenz disease" included flu, RSV, bacterial pneumonia, fungal infections, and coronavirus respiratory illness w/o molecular test evidence either way. Along comes "COVID-19" w False-Positive prone pcr tests, and therein the systematic diagnostic substitution is largely explained. Influenza disappeared because the default diagnosis for resp illness even with NEGATIVE covid19 test results became COVID19. https://jameslyonsweiler.com/2020/09/11/censored-is-cdc-borrowing-pneumonia-deaths-from-flu%E2%80%8B-for-from-covid-19/ I have a major report on the biased diagnosis on ipaknowledge.org
Hi - please could you link specifically to the "report on the biased diagnosis on ipaknowledge.org"
I can't actually locate it
Please send an email address, I will send the report.
-- On the role of Influenza-B-Yamagata in the period circa 2018 to 2023 --
The near-"disappearance" of one specific type of Influenza (B-Yamagata) in testing predates the Corona-Panic of 2020 by some time, and a few are wondering what clues might be embedded in the disappearance to the bigger "disappearance of Influenza" question, and maybe some keys to the whole unnecessary catastrophe that was Corona-Panic of the early 2020s.
Influenza-B-Yamagata traditionally had a late-season peak. Then in early 2019, it did not have anywhere near its usual number of positives, and again the same in early 2020,. These two absences of B-Yamagata in their expected seasonal appearances were before the Corona-Panic's many social disruptions, the "interventions," the travel-restrictions and capacity-restrictions, all the various medical-system disruptions resulting from the Panic, and it even predates the supposed "Covid19" viral interference phenomenon, at least along the orthodox timeline of "the spread."
What explains the major fall in Influenza-B-Yamagata? There seem to be three possible explanations: (1.) The testing authorities stopped testing, en masse, for B-Yamagata, arbitrarily, sometime in mid or late 2018. Why they would do this is not easy to understand, and whether this happened should be able to be confirmed or disconfirmed; (2.) Influenza-B-Yamagata was blocked in (by) early 2019 and again in early 2020 (before the Panic) because of viral-interference by the spread of coronaviruses; coronaviruses were seldom tested for at the time; (3.) Some other virus blocked B-Yamagata, the other interfering-virus not related to any coronaviruses.
If (2.) is correct, then the general Virus-Panic-of-2020 narrative gets an interesting jolt.
I believe that your current theory is the relatively radical position that "there never was any 'pandemic'." The B-Yamagata piece of the puzzle may fit the no-pandemic-in-2020 theory, in that there were "normal virus things" going on in 2018 and 2019 and into 2020, all before anyone began to rally 'round the banners of the Panic. Coronas were seeded worldwide, largely blocking B-Yamagata after two or so seasons of doing its work; and then, when the Panic demanded a hunt for "the coronavirus," the Panic-loyal authorities could get positives, with their highly imprecise tests, as they wanted. The Panic-Monster was steadily fed. But the Panic even on its most technically-firm-seeming basis, was just totally wrong and picking up the remnants of earlier seeding events.
Gets blocked how? At what level?
I'm newer to the Yamagata disappearance (read about it in an article a couple weeks ago). Ideas about strains having a fight and crowding each other out aren't super convincing to me. I think too much faith is put in tests and testing/surveillance programs, which are subject to all manner of changes from year to year (or within the season). For example, North Carolina data show that the number of "sentinel" sites reporting ILI was steady for several years before nearly tripling in the 2018-2019 season. Why did that happen? I don't know yet, but I do know that a change like that makes a difference in the data collected -- and certainly affects the ability to compare YOY/trends.
My position that there was no global viral pandemic may be "radical" - but I'm not alone. Denis Rancourt and others say the same thing.
I mention Jessica's article in my current article, which presents some of the evidence of widespread ILI before official Covid was supposed to be in America.
CDC and state health agency data prove that cases of “influenza-like-illness (ILI) were widespread and severe across almost the entire U.S. in the months before “official” Covid. If nothing else, the evidence is overwhelming that more Americans became “sick” and experienced Covid-like symptoms than in the 10 previous flu seasons. Is it possible some large percentage of these sick people actually had Covid? I say yes.
If I’m right and the experts somehow completely missed the copious evidence of “early spread,” the implications are seismic. For example, it seems likely that iatrogenic deaths - and not this virus - explains the vast majority of “Covid deaths” that started happening in April 2020.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/influenza-like-illness-probably-tells?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
For me the answer to this lies in the Australian flu surveillance data, where PCR testing was being performed up to 44,000 tests a week and showed near-zero influenza A or B. Australia is one of the few countries that routinely tests for flu and had very little COVID in 2020.
There are only two possible explanations.
(1) There was a concerted effort to replace the PCR primers for influenza tests, which likely come only from two or three labs (e.g. Roche, Aptima) such that they no longer reported flu.
(2) Flu disappeared from Australia for two years. The disappearance happened on the 13th March 2020 when the border was closed to China.
I have to favour (2) because the ILI deaths went down in 2020.
The flu surveillance data is here https://www.health.gov.au/resources/collections/australian-influenza-surveillance-reports-2021?language=en
Yes, I have mulled Australia from various angles and agree with you that the answers have to be consistent with what happened there - which started in March 2020. Are you aware of the partnership between AUS and US researchers around and just before that time?
No not specifically
First, take a look at the specimens tested curve. https://twitter.com/EWoodhouse7/status/1637626370166497280?s=20
Also, page 6 https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022/10/aisr-fortnightly-report-no-1-6-april-to-19-april-2020.pdf
Isn't the first graph showing that testing for influenza went sky high approximately the first week of 2020? But "positive" flu results were very low, almost non-existent. Were more people suddenly going to the doctor to get flu tests in early January? Why?
So it's not quite zero, but almost zero.
"Since seasonal sentinel hospital surveillance began on 16 March 2020, the total number of people admitted
to hospital with confirmed influenza (n=15) has been below historical trends (Figure 7)"
Figure 7 and 8 show you the small numbers, running at less than 0.5% of tests.
In 2021 they added a "zoomed insert" on the graph so you could see the tiny background numbers, which I suspect are mostly false positives (at <0.1%)
Chart of interest is on page 8
https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022/10/aisr-fortnightly-report-no-17-16-november-to-29-november-2020.pdf
Consistently zero reported to WHO surveillance, week after week, from the end of April 2020 through December 2020.
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNjViM2Y4NjktMjJmMC00Y2NjLWFmOWQtODQ0NjZkNWM1YzNmIiwidCI6ImY2MTBjMGI3LWJkMjQtNGIzOS04MTBiLTNkYzI4MGFmYjU5MCIsImMiOjh9
Chicago - consistently zero, week after week, with 5 out of 24,000+ for the entire season https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/cdph/H1N1_swine_flu/FluUpdate/FluUpdate_Week17_05072021.pdf
False positive rate would apply each week/fortnight (or rather each day).
16 March. Rings a bell. Why that date? Is it the same start date every flu season?
Not really but they had said it's the start of the flu season, although the previous year graph started 1st April. So maybe a Freudian slip. In Australia the seasons start on the dot. 1st Dec = Summer, 1st March = Autumn etc. So it would make sense that they start 1st April (rather than mid-March). Mid March was a bit weird
Setting aside the possibility of PCR corruption for 44k tests to show zero positives is very suspicious. It assumes perfect specificity and assumes the eradication of competing pathogens that might trip a false positive. From what I've read in the literature specificity of PCR tests is demonstrated on very low number of samples and is done in reference conditions.
I suspect it's too good to be true.
Just did a quick scan on pubmed. This is typical of the papers demonstrating accuracy of PCR flu tests:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31063477/
They claim 99% specificity. Given this the chance of 44k tests showing zero positives is ZERO. We should see around 440.
Workings:
Positive test rate =
False_positive_rate*(1.0-Infection_prevalence_rate)+(1.0*False_negative_rate)*Infection_prevalence_rate
Assume Infection_prevalence_rate = 0 then Positive test rate =
False_positive_rate = 0.01
Therefore number positives in 44k is Binomial (0.01, 44k) = 440
I also want to know why they were collecting (and presumably "running") so many specimens before their flu season starts.
Given the January 2020 revisions to WHO flu testing guidelines - and the presumed "need" for validating multiplex tests - I'm wondering under what auspices, exactly, these specimens were collected https://twitter.com/EWoodhouse7/status/1637626370166497280?s=20
Does NZ participate in the WHO surveillance program? (I don't see them) https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNjViM2Y4NjktMjJmMC00Y2NjLWFmOWQtODQ0NjZkNWM1YzNmIiwidCI6ImY2MTBjMGI3LWJkMjQtNGIzOS04MTBiLTNkYzI4MGFmYjU5MCIsImMiOjh9
Just to solidify this, there were positive tests, but at a low level consistent with the false positive PCR.
The false positive rate of a PCR test is of course determined by prevalence and the Ct settings of the machines they are run on.
Where is the data source showing the false positives?
Your question doesn't quite make sense to me so I'll try and answer with a clarification.
All tests have a false positive rate by nature. PCR is highly specific and highly sensitive under most circumstances. The specificity drops with a rise in the Ct. For an influenza PCR there will be a nominal specificity and sensitivity report for the assay at a defined Ct, which is historical (assessed at the time that assay was authorised for use). It is not possible to reassess this rate in normal use without a gold standard comparator (specificity is always measured against another standard).
What you can say is what the maximum false positive rate is, assuming there were zero cases but x% testing positive and under the circumstances provided. In this case that value is defined in the reports because the positive test rate was less than 0.5%, so the false positive rate must be equal or less than this.
For instance in this report from mid 2022
https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022/10/aisr-fortnightly-report-no-1-28-march-to-10-april-2022.pdf
The result is described as:
"In the year to date, 0.3% (n=188) of samples detected in sentinel laboratories were positive for influenza. Of the positive samples, 99.5% (n=187) were influenza A (of which 95.2% (n=178) were influenza A (unsubtyped), 3.7% (n=7) were A(H3N2), and 1.1% (n=2) were A(H1N1)), and 0.5% (n=1) were influenza B."
This doesn't answer the question or address the issue of zero positive tests (not 0% or near 0% POSITIVITY - zero positive tests) coming back week after week out of thousands of tests given.
It was 0.3% in 2022. I don't think it was ever quite zero.
The best year for assessing it from the Aus reports is 2021, uncorrupted by the early flu in 2020. For this we get a quoted rate of 0.02%
"Cumulatively in the year to date, of the 160,127 samples tested across sentinel laboratories, 37 (0.02%) have been positive for influenza."
I would say they are either all false positives, or flu isn't very transmissible!
Src: https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022/10/aisr-fortnightly-report-no-16-25-october-to-7-november-2021.pdf
It was zero consistently in 2020.
"The flu" was simply rebranded and repurposed to produce a more frightening viral event in order to sell a product and jump start the Biosecurity program.
They told everyone straight to their face what they were going to do and they did it. And yes it was and is a conspiracy in the legally binding sense of the term.
On Oct. 28-29, 2019 The Milken Institute hosted “The Future of Health Summit”, where a panel of “health experts” gathered to discuss the “scientific and technological prospects of an effective universal influenza vaccine.”
The focal point of this panel discussion was, “the need for more funding for research, better collaboration between the private and government sectors, advances in technology in flu research and the goal of a universal flu vaccine.”
Two overall themes emerged from this meeting. The first idea highlighted the desire for a new way of producing vaccines. Anthony Fauci lamented that bringing in a new type of vaccine, like an mRNA vaccine, would take at least a decade “if everything goes perfectly.”
Rick Bright suggested the problem of long-term development could be sidestepped if, “there were an urgent call for an entity of excitement that is completely disruptive and is not beholden to bureaucratic strings and processes.”
The second issue featured the “need” for something new and more frightening to emerge as the flu no longer created enough fear in the population at large to warrant such a “universal vaccine.”
In that meeting Rick Bright stated, “But it is not too crazy to think that an outbreak of a novel avian virus could occur in China somewhere. We could get the RNA sequence from that to a number of regional centers if not local, if not even in your home at some point, and print those vaccines on a patch of self-administer.”
WHERE DID THE FLU GO?
...
The historical trend of the ‘flu’ tapering ceased in Week 10 (March 7th, 2020) as the ‘flu positive’ numbers dropped off a cliff.
Week 10 (21.5%) to Week 11 (15.3%) saw a precipitous fall of 6.2%. Week 11 (15.3%) to Week 12 (6.9%) ‘flu positives’ dropped an astonishing 8.4% in a single week.
By the time we reach Week 13 of 2020 (Table 8) ‘flu positives’ dropped to 2.1%. By Week 14 the ‘flu’ becomes virtually non-existent at a 0.8% rate of positivity.
While fewer tests (22,324) were conducted in Week 14 of 2020 compared to earlier weeks, they still represent the 2nd highest overall Week 14 tests in all CDC records. Yet, only 0.8% ‘flu positives’ were registered for Week 14 compared to the preceding 7 year average of 12.5% for that same week.
Quite simply there was no historical analog for this event. For all practical (and statistical) purposes the flu no longer existed.
Anyone who works with data knows such sudden jolts are alarm bells. In the real world, this usually indicates some problem with data-gathering and/or accounting methodologies as nature’s data always hugs its bell curves.
Given the bizarre circumstances of this unparalleled statistical outlier, multiple questions demand an answer.
How did flu rates go from all-time highs in Weeks 5, 6, and 7 of 2020 to all-time lows in Weeks 13 and Weeks 14 of the same year?
....
https://healthfreedomdefense.org/where-did-the-flu-go/
I’ll address those key weeks in another post. I know where headed with this :)
Doesn’t mean I know everything, of course, but I tend to not raise questions or assert hypotheses unless I’ve done quite a bit of homework.
Well you know how much I respect your work Jessica but with all due respect where you would deepen your analyses on all of these matters, of which the 'disappearing flu' is but a part, is to go back and track the historical trajectory of how we got here.
If you go back only to the HIV/AIDS fraud of the 1980's and afterwards and then track the entire path of the Pharma/Biosecurity system, its financiers and players, to its present day operation, you'll get a clear picture of what happened in 2019/2020 and how they pulled it off.
If you go back a century further and trace the political economy of the medical cartel you will see the template for how "Covid" was rolled out and note the foundation for all of this.
The historical trends that led up to this operation are not unique at all.
I know all about it. You’re underestimating me again. :)
This is about showing what actually happened, accounting for as many variables and counterclaims as possible.
No one person can show or study everything. That’s one reason there are so many books on a historical event.
Nothing you’ve said contradicts anything I’ve said. And I’ve only written one post a prologue, if you will. I’m far from the only person who has been looking into this carefully.
You may disagree with my approach or methods, but let’s try to avoid anything that seems like scolding or straight-up insult.
Thanks. :)
Neither a scold nor an insult.
I've read most all of your work and it is of great value as I've mentioned. I've rarely if ever seen historical context or analyses that places what happened in the larger geopolitical, financial or biosecurity picture so may conclusion is not taken lightly.
"Covid-19" is not a stand alone operation and the 'disappearance of the flu' was simply a necessary opening step of this pre-planned event used to create the illusion of "cases" of a "novel" disease.
Take it for what it is worth or not- I'll leave it at that.
I'm in 100% agreement that the broader historical context matters greatly. This was not a fluke or isolated event whatsoever. It's very difficult to delve into the topics of "global pandemics," epidemics, and disease surveillance without seeing many concerning patterns and myths.
Maybe I would even go further than you in that I'm skeptical a sudden global viral pandemic has ever occurred, based on actual mortality data from the time periods/events in question.
Great info and topic. Do you have good info on the number of "flu tests given" in the 2019-2020 flu season? I think, probably from your research, these numbers were far higher than previous flu seasons. My question: Why were so many more people going to the doctor and getting flu tests in the winter of 2019-2020? My hypothesis is that some percentage of people going to the doctor were sick from "early" Covid. In my opinion, the historically-high number of flu tests given is powerful evidence supporting this hypothesis.
wjricejunior@gmail.com
As a pediatrician on the front lines, viral interference is clearly the culprit: Covid outcompeted the flu and rsv. I see personally see how quickly we shift from one virus to another in a matter of weeks prior to Covid. The main evidence for this is that it fell off prior to social distancing, and once it became endemic, flu and rsv reappeared. In my small clinic, it fell off before any masking or social distancing It’s hubris and dangerous to think human actions can thwart a virus. It will encourage people in the future to try and avoid something they have no control over. Viral interference is fascinating and should be studied in more detail.
Thanks for the laugh.
I suggest you read, "How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor: One of America's Leading Pediatricians Puts Parents Back in Control of Their Children's Health" by Dr. Robert Mendelsohn
A few snippets.
WHY PEDIATRICIANS ARE DANGEROUS
"The confidence inspired by the demeanor of pediatricians is, in my experience, undeserved. It tends to mask the elements of pediatric practice that are threatening to your child. Let me recite briefly some of the reasons why I believe pediatricians are dangerous and then get into the most serious of them later, in greater detail.
The pediatrician serves as the recruiter for the medical profession. He indoctrinates your child from birth into a lifelong dependence on medical intervention. It begins with a succession of needless "well-baby check ups" and immunizations and then moves on to routine annual physical examinations and endless treatment of minor ailments that would cure themselves if they were left alone.”
"Avoid your doctor whenever you can."
“For some, the temptation to display their knowledge and thus win the gratitude of parents, even when the treatment is superfluous and even potentially damaging, can be overwhelming. This indefensible medical behavior is a real threat to your child.”
You disagree with what?
FYI that account pops up on my feed and others too, with similar engagement. Will send you round in circles.
Reads like a similar account on Twitter
.
So What's The Count ?
How Many Died From The Sniffles ?
And How Many Died
Because They Were Afraid Of The Sniffles ?
.
Those interested in articles that present evidence of "early spread" might be interested in this piece. In this article, I do a thought exercise and ask why no public health officials or President Trump Science Advisors were pushing for more "archived" blood to be tested for antibodies ... before the lockdowns. Also, why weren't the two tranches of Red Cross blood that were belatedly tested not tested much sooner?
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/re-early-spread-what-did-president?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
If future historians come close to telling the true, human story of Covid, it will be in large part because of the heroic work of an anonymous writer known as “Transcriber B” on Substack. My Q & A with this unsung hero explains why she’s doing what she’s doing and identifies some of the most heart-wrenching transcripts she’s preserved for posterity.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/q-and-a-with-transcriber-b
Changing the name for a normal human process to COVID actually doesn’t interrupt the fact that “flu” was still happening all over the place. It is a normal process of our bodies going through detoxification.
Can you point to the reference you are using from which we can see the positives and negatives from the 44000 please? Thanks.
For decades, many countries have invested in building up their systems to detect and respond to influenza. Because COVID-19 is also a respiratory pathogen, those systems can, and should, and are being adapted for COVID-19.
https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020
Why have they done that, do you think? To what end? I already alluded to some of the reasons in my post :)
Who (and WHO) stands to win and who stands to lose if the flu disappearance is contrived, and didn’t occur for the reasons the CDC and other agencies have asserted or implied?
Did flu “have” to disappear in order for the pandemic declaration to be or seem justified?
I'll be agnostic as to what these tests are testing for, but as a layman, it appears they correlate loosely with immunological responses. If that would be the case for both the new tests for Sars-CoV-2 (especially at absurd cycle counts) and for conventional tests for influenza, then those concerned that substantial coincidence of both positives would hurt credibility would have a strong incentive to dampen positivity rates for conventional flu tests. I'm not telling you anything you haven't hypothesized, but you asked my opinion.
Of note is that WHO put out new testing guidelines for influenza at the very end of January 2020. I'm not sure how long it takes for new protocols to go into effect. (The above Tedros quote I supplied was from March of the same year.)
https://www.who.int/influenza/gisrs_laboratory/Protocols_influenza_virus_detection_Jan_2020.pdf
really appreciate this input and these links.
Keep them coming - none of us has all the pieces of the puzzle!
Does WHO usually send out updates on flu testing in January?
I just realized that link no longer works. But I recovered it on the archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20210822212941/https://www.who.int/influenza/gisrs_laboratory/Protocols_influenza_virus_detection_Jan_2020.pdf
It looks like they update relatively frequently. Right on the first page it says:
"List of revisions of this document:
6th revision: January 2020 (current revision)
5th revision: November 2018
4th revision: July 2017
3rd revision: December 2016
2nd revision: May 2015
1st revision: March 2014 Version 1: November 2012"
So the fact that there was an update itself is not a smoking gun. But if, for example, it was done when it was done so as to be adopted in time for flu season in the Southern Hemisphere, that might be meaningful. It comes down to how long after an update it's put into practice. I'm out of my depth in terms of interpreting the document itself in terms of the ramifications for testing.
Yep, I'd found it via Wayback and saw the revision dates after I replied to you. Thanks.
Your thinking is my thinking: Updates happen, but the timing can't be ignored. Plus, I'd like to see those other updates.
It still supports what contended in my post. Flu surveillance is run/influenced/controlled by a global entity which has a stated, longstanding interest in tracking and pushing panic over "the next pandemic." Claims that it's a wild conspiracy theory to assert countries acted in a coordinated fashion ignore the well-documented fact that coordination is what this "programme" is about.
People wrongly assume that the data over time is "constant" and that the collection methods don't vary or get disrupted in ways that matter for interpreting the data. But they very clearly do - and the timings can't be hand-waved.
Caveat emptor.
Posted an update to my post and gave you an h/t
Very cool
Jessica, thank you for again focussing on one of the great nonsensical and non-investigated puzzlers of our Covid era: How in the heck did the flu - in a matter of four weeks - simply disappear?
I think my intuition like yours - grounded in mega skepticism of “official" explanations - tells skeptics that manipulation of the flu tests (and Covid PCR tests) will lead us to the ultimate answers.
He who controls the tests controls the virus narratives … and ends up controlling the world population.
I not only think the PCR tests were manipulated to create a faux pandemic, the Covid antibody tests also haven’t received nearly enough scrutiny.
In short, I think the “authorized” Covid antibody tests (especially in the early months of the pandemic) were undercounting real Covid prevalence. Conversely, the so-called “junk” tests that were not “authorized” were probably giving us a much more accurate picture of how many people had been previously infected by the novel coronavirus.
My next big article will try to show/prove that ILI WAS much-greater in the U.S. in the winter and fall of 2019-2020 than the previous 10 “flu seasons.” Millions of “extra” Americans (beyond the 10-year-norm) were coming down with ILI symptoms and getting more flu tests.
And then, suddenly - after the lockdowns designed to prevent virus spread - these “positive influenza” results literally vanish. Based on my research, I think real Covid peaked in late December 2019, January and February 2020. The virus -as evidenced by the number of people going to the doctor with ILI symptoms - had already begun to fade out (on its own) by March 15, 2020.
I think any person who worked at a doc-in-the-box, emergency room or doctors' office who is honest would confirm this. I actually have quotes and emails from doctors and doctors'-office employees saying this. Public health agencies at the state level, local level and federal level must also know this and have covered this up IMO.
Anyway, thanks for your important contributions, which have not ignored this nonsensical puzzler. This thread of investigation MIGHT help us expose the entire fraud.
The 2019-2020 season was unremarkable in every respect, until media and govt started pushing panic over "the Wu flu". Remember, no excess mortality until government interventions, which included the advent of mass testing.
I think you and I differ in that you think SARS-CoV-2 was something to write home about before it was officially named. Meaning, that symptoms people experienced were unique. There are a number of times in my life -- and are sure to be many more -- when I was "the sickest I've ever been" with "yikes, what was that?" Unless it kills you, or presents additive risk to the population or a group therein, it doesn't matter. It's all just part of the ILI soup.
I strongly disagree that the 2019-2020 season was "unremarkable in every respect." I've been procrastinating on finishing my article, which will show with copious evidence that ILI was "widespread" and "severe" across America BEFORE official Covid. I'll show this with contemporaneous weekly "ILI reports" from states and the CDC, and from data that shows how many flu tests were being given. I can also throw in hundreds of reader anecdotes from people talking about how many people were sick in their towns as well as from the number of school closings across America (far more than in recent years). These ILI weekly reports (and numerous press reports) also show that the ILI spike began far earlier than normal (in November 2019) and continued all the way into early March. Past "flu seasons" had outbreaks with conspicuous spikes that lasted about four or five weeks (like the terrible flu season of 2017-2018). In the flu season of 2019-2020, ILI was far above the "baseline" norm for at least 22 weeks.
So the question is, if someone happens to believe all these Americans WERE sick .... did they ALL have only ILI? Or is it possible some percentage of them had Covid? I think 20 to 30 percent of these sick people who went to the doctor and got a flu test probably had Covid. That's the estimate of two spouse doctors in Maryland that shared this view with the Maryland Department of Public Health. It's the view of my doctor in Troy, Alabama as well.
And I'm not counting the millions of people who never went to the doctor and got a flu test or all the tens of millions of people who might have had asymptomatic or mild cases.
I hope my soon-to-be-puslished "ILI" article informs this debate. As far as I'm concerned, the fact many more millions of Americans were "sick" from "something" has not gotten nearly enough attention.
Also, those ILI numbers and estimates keep getting revised by the CDC, which is another story/scandal/cover-up.
Yep, I know the data well and will get to that.
All-cause mortality is the bottom line, always.
ILI ED visits have a behavioral component that is influenced by media and public health messaging. Observe for NYC, 2009 https://twitter.com/ewoodhouse7/status/1655739235754754050?s=46
I agree all-cause mortality data is the bottom line. What my ILI research shows is that ILI was widespread and severe beginning in November 2019 across America. But there was NOT a conspicuous spike of deaths. This tells me this virus (if it was "early" Covid) was NOT lethal. Many more people WERE getting sick with ILI symptoms, just very few were dying.
As you know, ILI = fever of 100 degrees plus cough and/or sore throat.
ILI ED visits as an indicator of severity per se is debatable, in my view, because it is subject to a range of influences on healthcare-seeking behavior.
To be clear, if the PCR (and antibody tests) WERE manipulated to produce some intended result/effect, the influenza tests could also be manipulated by the same people, right? I mean, these are not people and organizations the intelligent public should trust.
Martin Neil has wisely observed that the same concerns and questions about PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 are applicable to PCR tests for flu.
I think I'm the only "Covid writer" who suspects the antibody tests were also manipulated - at least the "authorized" tests being used by the CDC and government. There's a big discrepancy between positive antibody results from the "authorized" labs and the small, independent clinics and labs and "in-house" antibody results.
The latter results - which show greater early prevalence positive percentages - were maligned and discredited as "junk tests." I don't think they were necessarily junk tests. I think officials might have manipulated the tests to conceal evidence of early spread.
For example, the CDC's belated "Red Cross" antibody study shows 2 percent positives in three western states (suggesting these people had been infected at least by November 2019). My guess is that the real prevalence was probably higher than 2 percent.