New international study says coronavirus lockdowns not more effective than voluntary measures, not needed to slow the spread



A new international study examining the effectiveness of state-mandated coronavirus lockdowns compared to other voluntary pandemic safety measures found that the lockdowns were no better at stopping the spread of coronavirus than less restrictive measures, like social distancing or reducing travel.

The peer-reviewed study, which Newsweek reported was published on Jan. 5 in the Wiley Online Library, examined how the virus spread in 10 countries in early 2020.

The study examined virus cases in countries that used "non-pharmaceutical interventions" — the academic term for lockdown policies — to those that did not. Researchers examined cases from England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States, which all imposed lockdowns in early 2020, to two countries that decided to use less intrusive, voluntary social-distancing measures — South Korea and Sweden. The aim of the study was to examine whether policies that closed businesses and forced people to stay in their homes were as effective as less restrictive policies to contain the spread of the virus.

To calculate this, the authors of the study used a mathematical model that subtracted "the sum of non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) effects and epidemic dynamics in countries that did not enact more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (mrNPIs) from the sum of NPI effects and epidemic dynamics in countries that did."

According to their analysis, "there is no evidence that more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions ('lockdowns') contributed substantially to bending the curve of new cases" in countries that imposed lockdowns.

While lockdown policies may provide some benefits that voluntary measures do not, the study found that these benefits are not significantly better, and the harms imposed by lockdowns, "including hunger, opioid-related overdoses, missed vaccinations, increase in non-COVID diseases from missed health services, domestic abuse, mental health and suicidality, as well as a host of economic consequences with health implications."

While the study found "no evidence of large anti-contagion effects from mandatory stay-at-home and business closure policies," the researchers did note some important limitations to the underlying data and methods used in their research. The authors acknowledged that cross-country comparisons are difficult because nations have different rules, cultures, and relationships between the government and the citizenry. Additionally, some countries are better at providing coronavirus data than others. The study also relied on confirmed case counts for its analysis, which can be "a noisy measure of disease transmission."

Given these limitations, the researchers could not conclusively declare that lock down policies had no benefits whatsoever. "However, even if they exist, these benefits may not match the numerous harms of these aggressive measures. More targeted public health interventions that more effectively reduce transmission may be important for future epidemic control without the harms of highly restrictive measures," the study concluded.

Lockdown policies in the United States are highly controversial, with advocates pointing to studies that claim they have saved millions of lives and detractors arguing experience shows places with less restrictive policies fared no worse than areas that were locked down.

Last June, Reuters reported a study published by researchers at Imperial College London that compared estimated coronavirus deaths in several European countries to the actual number of deaths recorded, claiming that some 3.1 million deaths were averted because of the imposition of lockdowns.

However, critics have accused early coronavirus models of overestimating the projected casualties of the virus. They point to states like Florida, which did not impose draconian lockdown policies and yet has fewer coronavirus deaths than states like New York that did lock down. In states with severe coronavirus restrictions like California, local business leaders have begun speaking out about the need to end lockdown policies, questioning their effectiveness.

Nationally, the Center Square reports that state-mandated lockdown policies have closed 19% of businesses, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics based on private-sector data collected from July 20 to Sept. 30, 2020. Businesses in the state of Michigan have suffered most, with the BLS reporting 32% of the businesses there had to close at least temporarily because of government restrictions. Michigan was followed in business closures by Pennsylvania (30%); Washington (27%); Vermont, Hawaii, and New York (26%).

In the United States there have been 22,965,957 total cases and 383,351 total deaths reported to the CDC.

Horowitz: Constitutional sanctuary movement begins to grow



"Let us remember that if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom. It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers in the event." ~Sam Adams, Oct. 14, 1771

All politics is local. That is a principle patriots will have to use and maximize to its fullest extent in the coming weeks. As the federal government and many state governments violate the Constitution with COVID fascism and, likely soon, by clamping down on protected political speech, local law enforcement and elected officials will have to step up to the plate and defend our constitutional rights.

Trump won 83% of the counties, in addition to roughly half the states. There is no reason why each one should not become a constitutional sanctuary. If the local sheriff, county commissioners, county executive, school board officials, and prosecutor are all in favor of declaring the county a sanctuary from civil liberties violations, then "there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth, for civil and religious liberty," as Sam Adams predicted when embarking in the struggle for independence.

The constitutional sanctuary movement that started with the Second Amendment is gradually moving into COVID fascism and hopefully will be used to push back against any tyranny at the federal level in the coming months.

On Monday night, the Monument Board of Trustees declared Monument, Colorado, to be a sanctuary from restrictions on businesses. This small town in El Paso County voted 7-0 on "A resolution reasserting the rights of the Town of Monument and its residents and condemning the unconstitutional limitations imposed upon their freedoms by the governor of Colorado."

Specifically, the resolution announced the town will "not abide by any executive orders limiting attendance of and free speech at public meetings within the town." The trustees called upon each individual business owner to assess his own risk level and willingness to butt heads with the state government.

This is a good start, but county and town governments need to make it clear that they will unite and resist unconstitutional orders against state authorities. We must stop saying things are unconstitutional and then treat them as if they are constitutional. Either "life, liberty, and property" have meaning or not.

To that end, all of the officials in Bargara County, Michigan, a rural area in the Upper Peninsula, united in a letter declaring Governor Whitmer's orders unconstitutional. The letter, which was posted on County Sheriff Joe Brogan's Facebook page, noted how the people have not endured such tyranny since the settlement of this continent. "Our citizens' rights to assemble, to freely practice their religion, to travel, to keep their property, businesses, and jobs, even to dress as they please have all been swept aside, and to what end?" declared the letter, which was signed by the county commissioners, prosecutor, clerk, and treasurer.

The sheriff notes that every state and local official swears an oath to the Constitution. If these measures are not unconstitutional, especially after 10 months of utter failure to even move the needle on taming the spread of the virus, then that document quite clearly has no meaning. "We hereby put the state of Michigan on NOTICE that we have no intention of participating in the unconstitutional destruction of our citizens' economic security and Liberty," continued the letter. "We further declare our intention to take no action whatsoever in furtherance of this terribly misguided agenda."

Another Upper Peninsula county, Delta, passed a resolution supporting the right of businesses to open their establishments. There are a number of cities and counties across the country now considering these resolutions in addition to the nearly one-third of counties that have already declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries. SanctuaryCounties.com is keeping track of these developments.

What ultimately needs to happen is that, pursuant to the doctrine of lesser magistrates, communities work together with all their local officials to actively defend – both legally and morally – business owners who are attacked by state or potentially federal officials. Republicans control 31 state legislatures. They have an obligation to pass sanctuary resolutions statewide. In many of those states they have supermajorities to override the veto of a Democrat or RINO governor.

Every county, state, and federal official swears an oath to uphold the Constitution — the same oath taken by federal judges — no more, no less. In justifying why federal courts should have concurrent (not exclusive, as some erroneously think) jurisdiction over constitutional interpretation instead of upholding even unconstitutional laws passed by the legislature, Justice John Marshall pointed to this very oath. "How immoral to impose it on them if they were to be used as the instruments, and the knowing instruments, for violating what they swear to support!" declared an indignant Marshall in his famous Marbury opinion.

In defense of judicial review, Marshall rhetorically asked, "Why does a judge swear to discharge his duties agreeably to the Constitution of the United States if that Constitution forms no rule for his government? If it is closed upon him and cannot be inspected by him?"

Well, as state officials swear the same oath and wield even more robust power directly affecting the lives of citizens than judges do, don't they have the same obligation to use their powers to counter illegal executive edicts that impose the most unconstitutional social changes imaginable? Changes to our law and society that violate the foundation of natural law and nature's God, to whom that oath is directed?

If California and New York were able to offer sanctuary to the most vile criminal aliens – and even criminalize the enforcement of duly passed immigration law – then most certainly red counties and states can and must be sanctuaries for American businessmen, schoolchildren, and the Bill of Rights from the clutches of evil and illegal executive power.

Horowitz: How Republicans can get rid of Trump for good



It's become obvious over the past week that Republicans are uncontrollably desperate to rid themselves of Trump and disentangle their voters from his unflinching grip. They have been trying to do this for five years, but now they are willing to try anything and everything to accomplish their long-held goal. Unfortunately for them, they are ignoring the one way to actually get rid of Trump, opting instead for a tactic that will destroy themselves more directly than anything they have done until now.

The reason why voters are attached to Trump has nothing to do with Trump per se. It is rooted in what predated Trump. In fact, the very people who hate Trump the most today are the ones responsible for his rise.

The GOP has gone for three decades without representing any of the values or concerns of half the country. The more Republicans conspired with the left to destroy this country, the more radical the left became. The left has won so many fiscal and social fights without firing a shot that naturally it is proceeding immediately to the next step. In turn, the base voters became increasingly desperate for some sort of check and balance on the left's increasingly successful transformation of this country. Trump co-opted the sentiment of the time in 2015, and GOP voters jumped aboard. If you throw Ted Cruz into the mix, over 70% of primary voters chose two candidates abhorred by the entire party ruling class.

The mistake all these Republicans made is that rather than putting Trump out of business by offering voters a better and more effective version of that alternative vision they were looking for, they opted to make Trump a martyr. Rather than attacking the left even more skillfully than Trump, they reminded the voters that they couldn't care less for their concerns and only attacked the one man they perceived as at least speaking to their concerns.

Which brings us to this pivotal week. Republicans think they can get rid of Trump by impeaching and convicting him with a stipulation barring him from running for office again. But what that will do is terminate their own time in office, because they will lose 90% of their voters. They don't realize that, ironically, Trump served as a cover for them. You read that right. Trump's presence kept the base happier and at bay and, much to the chagrin of people like me, actually kept conservatives from primarying Republicans. In fact, Trump actually endorsed so many RINOs against conservative challengers that without his presence in the arena, base voters would have taken out their frustrations on those congressional Republicans. Now, Republicans are redirecting all the anger among the base that is represented by Trump and detonating it on themselves.

You know how they can get rid of Trump without committing suicide? They can ride out the next 10 days in silence and then use every lever of power to filibuster every legislation and every budget bill under the Biden administration.

They can pass election reform in all the states they control.

They can combat the sexual licentiousness movement at every turn.

They can declare the red states sanctuaries from COVID fascism, First Amendment violations, and federal overreach.

They can terminate all lockdowns and mask mandates in red states.

They can take all the states where they have supermajority control and turn those states into conservative versions of California.

They can tell the federal courts to butt out of state affairs now that they have shown themselves to be frauds by allowing blue states to violate the Constitution and election law.

They can immediately pass self-defense legislation, toughen sentences on violent criminals, and decriminalize over-zealous laws against peaceful citizens.

They can serve as beacons of freedom and asylum for patriots disenchanted with the debased culture and an irremediably broken federal government.

Were they to do these things — were they to unite all of their state and federal leaders behind fighting for such an agenda in word and deed — Trump would not only be outshined by other candidates, he would lose his non-electoral appeal and sway over the base. Indeed, Trump would lose more clout than he would were he to be removed by the Senate, without becoming a martyr to his voters.

So why wouldn't Republicans pursue this more auspicious path? Because the one thing they hate more than Trump is conservative values. They hate his voters more than the man himself. They would rather go to political hell while martyring Trump in the eyes of his voters than ascend to political heaven along with his voters while eliminating their supposed nemesis.

Unfortunately for them, there already is one Democrat Party, and there is no market for a second one. They will be the ones on the outside looking in.

Horowitz: Minnesota AG Keith Ellison threatens black business owner with farm labor for opening restaurant



Joe Biden once said that Republicans want to put black people "back in chains," but it appears that it is the leftist "Branch Covidian" cultists who are actually threatening to place a black single mom business owner back in chains for the "crime" of earning a living.

During the greatest crime wave in a generation, Larvita McFarquhar is the worst type of criminal in the estimation of the socialists. A single mom, rather than going on welfare, McFarquhar opened Havens Garden, in Lynd, Minnesota, a family-oriented restaurant with an attached gymnasium for kids to have a good time. She had the audacity to keep her business opened after the governor unconstitutionally declared property rights dead in the state.

Rather than offering to compensate her for the lost business, on Dec. 18, Ramsey County District Court Judge Sara Grewing found her guilty of civil contempt and fined McFarquhar $250 per day her establishment remains opened.

Evidently, Judge Grewing is a big stickler for the "law" — but only when it comes in the form of arbitrary executive edicts against business owners. Last year, Judge Grewing gave a serial sex predator who raped an unconscious woman just two and a half years in prison. On Aug. 3, she single-handedly nullified state election law by ruling that Minnesota's absentee ballots no longer require the signature of a witness who is a registered voter or a notary public and requiring the board of elections to accept mail-ins that come in after Election Day. And as she threatens business owners with prison time because of COVID, she has also demanded that the Department of Corrections officials show her a plan for protecting prisoners from COVID.

Are you starting to get a sense of which "laws" and which "criminals" she is concerned with?

Well, now that Attorney General Keith Ellison sees Larvita has a spine of steel and is willing to stand for God-given rights, he is upping the ante. Last week, Ellison's office filed a motion for further contempt sanctions with the Second Circuit court to propose jail time for her. Was she burning buildings or lynching motorists like BLM rioters? Nope. Her crime? "Defendant has continued to offer on-premises consumption of food or beverages to the public since receiving the Court's Civil Contempt Order on December 18, 2020."

What is the punishment they are pushing for? Take a look at the motion:

So now, in this country, you are not allowed to earn a living, and your punishment for doing so is slave labor. With China now celebrating the New Year with packed crowds, there is more freedom in China than in Minnesota. We have become a wealthier version of North Korea with a printing press of cash, except that cash just goes to big business or to households that didn't lose a penny from the shutdown. McFarquar didn't receive a penny of compensation.

Ellison's motion also threatens to confiscate the money she raised from her crowdsourcing page to pay for her lawyer's fees. Larvita gave an emotional response on a Facebook live filmed inside her establishment noting that she was "at a loss of words" as to how this can happen in America.

What few people have noticed is that, even if with some convoluted rationale the government had the power to categorically shut down businesses, at worst, it would be covered by the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause, which would mean she is entitled to "just compensation." Instead, in the new America, she has to pay to put herself out of business.

These government workers from the health department are able to earn their paychecks by denying other people their paychecks. We were all supposed to be "in this together," yet so many government workers and white-collar jobs can be done online while brick and mortar businesses get crushed. Again, even if the government was justified, this is exactly what the just compensation requirement expressed in the Fifth Amendment was written to address. As the Supreme Court said in Armstrong v. United States(1960), "The Fifth Amendment's [Takings Clause] . . . was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole."

The Democrat Party was always the party of the plantation. Unfortunately for us, outside Florida and South Dakota, we don't have a party today that stands as strongly against slavery and tyranny as Lincoln did when he founded the GOP. Are we going to allow Biden and his mini-mes in the states to place us all back in chains?

Horowitz: Comprehensive analysis of 50 states shows greater spread with mask mandates



For months, we've been lectured to by the political elites that cases of coronavirus are spreading too quickly and that we must wear masks to stop the spread. The obvious fault with their act of desperation is that they can no longer mask the fact that most parts of the country have already been fully masked for months — long before the ubiquitous spread this fall.

Researchers at RationalGround.com, a clearinghouse of COVID-19 data trends run by a grassroots group of data analysts, computer scientists, and actuaries, did an analysis of all 50 states divided by those that had mask mandates and those that did not. Justin Hart, co-founder of the website, posted the results in a Twitter thread and shared with me the data analysis:

BREAKING! Do mask mandates work? Our analysis below.We looked at cases on days where mask mandates were in place v… https://t.co/nWbM4P0s1Y
— Justin Hart (@Justin Hart)1608488744.0

They studied the number of cases over a 229-day period from May 1 through Dec. 15 and divided the results of the two study groups by days with mask mandates and days without mask mandates. The non-mandate data group includes both states that never had a mandate and those that did at some point, but data set included only the days they did not have a mask mandate.

The results: When comparing states with mandates vs. those without, or periods of times within a state with a mandate vs. without, there is absolutely no evidence the mask mandate worked to slow the spread one iota. In total, in the states that had a mandate in effect, there were 9,605,256 confirmed COVID cases over 5,907 total days, an average of 27 cases per 100,000 per day. When states did nothave a statewide order (which includes the states that never had them and the period of time masking states did not have the mandate in place) there were 5,781,716 cases over 5,772 total days, averaging 17 cases per 100,000 people per day.

The reverse correlation between periods of masking and non-masking is remarkable.

That's right. With mandates in place states say 10 more cases per 100K population. Here's the breakdown by state. M… https://t.co/w9ole5pMi4
— Justin Hart (@Justin Hart)1608488745.0

The 15 states that did not have a statewide mask mandate for the duration of this analysis were Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming.

Importantly, for purposes of this study, the analysts gave the mask mandate states a 14-day grace period from the time of implementation in order to begin counting cases against mask efficacy. This gives time for the existing spread from the original policy to become obsolete, in order to more accurately assess the efficacy of the mandate. Proponents of the mask mandate might suggest that mask mandates were often imposed once cases already spread quickly, so there is a negative bias of increased cases in those areas (or times) that had mandates in place. However, there was no evidence of any reduction in cases or even better outcomes many weeks later. In fact, Ian Miller, one of the researchers at RationalGround.com, found that three counties in Florida (Manatee, Martin, and Nassau) that allowed the mandate to expire after having implemented it had fewer cases per capita than those counties that kept the mandate.

Three counties in Florida allowed mask mandates to expire by 10/23. So I looked at all 67 counties in FL with and w… https://t.co/HINsEYM2el
— IM (@IM)1608489297.0

Nor has the mandate worked in states where it was implemented long before the surge in cases began.

One of the favorite talking points of the pro-mask lobby is that you need to mandate them while cases are low, or i… https://t.co/3s7wjAaLL8
— IM (@IM)1608494819.0

California is the ultimate example of a state that had a mask mandate in place forever — long before its turn for spread hit in earnest.

In today’s California vs. Florida hospitalizations update, the rate here is nearly twice as high in California: 440… https://t.co/jm5Kb35AcV
— IM (@IM)1608407014.0

The simple reality is that there is no legitimate data showing the mandates worked.

My first question when reading this analysis was that perhaps there is a bias in case counts against those areas with mask mandates because, by definition, most areas without them are more conservative and tend to have lower population density. After all, dense areas seem to be associated with more spread, and therefore, those areas must be judged by a different standard.

First, it's important to recognize that over the past few months, as the virus has spread rapidly to the low-population states and counties, the gap between the urban and rural areas has really closed as the virus appears to be giving everyone equal treatment. Also, included in the top-line number of 17 cases per 100,000 in the non-mask states are also the larger states that did eventually adopt a mandate, but had prior days without the mandate in which the cases were counted among the non-mandate data set. Thus, the study is more apples-to-apples than simply taking places that never had a mandate vs. those that always did over the entire study period.

More fundamentally, this study analyzed Florida by county data and shows no correlation between mask mandates and fewer cases, even adjusting for population density. Gov. Ron DeSantis has notoriously declined to issue a statewide mandate in the Sunshine State; however, of the 67 total counties in Florida, 22 have implemented an executive mask order at some point during the study period. Two of them (Miami-Dade and Osceola) were in effect for the entire period, while the other 20 began in the spring, summer, or fall.

@justin_hart Justin asked if I could add these. Apparently the research was extensive to Florida as well. Here is s… https://t.co/Mmww2mddJM
— Kyle Lamb (@Kyle Lamb)1608492337.0

What are the results?

When counties didhave a mandate in effect, there were 667,239 cases over 3,137 days with an average of 23 cases per 100,000 per day. When counties did nothave a countywide order, there were 438,687 cases over 12,139 days with an average of 22 cases per 100,000 per day.

Did population density play a role?

When you isolate only the top 12 most populous counties in the state (>500,000), eight of them had effective mask orders implemented at some point during the study period, and four never had a countywide order (Brevard, Lee, Polk, and Volusia). When the eight didhave an order in effect, there were 24 cases per 100,000 a day. On the other hand, during the days when mandates were not in place (which is never in four counties, and some weeks in seven of the other eight except for Miami-Dade), there were 17 cases per 100,000 per day.

We can turn the numbers upside down and inside out, but no matter how we examine them, there is no evidence of masks correlating with reduced spread. If anything, the opposite is true. And it sure as heck is not because of a lack of compliance.

Another objection: "Well maybe people aren't really wearing masks!" We have you covered there. Here's an interactiv… https://t.co/dqd6Sje07M
— Justin Hart (@Justin Hart)1608488748.0

It's self-evident that the virus does what it does naturally and follows a very mechanical pattern regardless of state policies.

@IanShepherdson Here’s New Mexico, Colorado & Utah which all followed the exact same curve regardless of when they… https://t.co/Rtl53B3E57
— IM (@IM)1608312193.0
Another objection: "Well, we can never know for certain HOW MUCH WORSE it could have been without masks." First, th… https://t.co/wXRr40EjqM
— Justin Hart (@Justin Hart)1608488748.0
The Mid-Atlantic region also has a tremendous collective mindset, where people of all backgrounds, rich and poor al… https://t.co/pXXPro752e
— IM (@IM)1608403991.0
Is there a Facebook group where the exact same pop. adjusted amount of people in Pennsylvania and Delaware got toge… https://t.co/fdp7cGqsHL
— IM (@IM)1608401984.0

The burden is on those who want to violate the Constitution with such a draconian mandate for the rest of our lives to present affirmative evidence that their religious symbol works. The phony "fact checkers" will always find ways to show that we can't prove beyond a shadow of doubt that masks will never work. But while they force us to prove 100% that they don't work, mandaters don't have to prove any efficacy at all, even as 2-year-olds are forced to have their faces covered on planes.

We used to all scoff at the Islamic fundamentalist for believing that if they just waged jihad a little harder, they'd earn their 72 virgins. Well, those people can learn a thing or two about faith from the mask fundamentalists who believe it's never too late for masks to magically stop a virus after months of failure.

Horowitz: New analysis shows infection from asymptomatic cases incredibly low — even within households



Prior to this year, few people have ever used the term "asymptomatic," and many never heard of it, but today, it governs our lives. Despite Dr. Fauci and other experts saying from day one that asymptomatic spread "has never been the driver of outbreaks," we have upended our lives for nine months under the premise that any one of us — regardless of whether we have symptoms — could be a silent killer who needs to be isolated, monitored, and masked. Yet, as the months wear on, evidence continues to mount that asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers contribute less to the spread than previously thought, not more.

A new meta-analysis published in JAMA by researchers in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and the Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, found that the secondary attack rate from symptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2 is nearly 26 times greater than from asymptomatic carriers. The analysis pooled together 54 studies with a total of 77,758 participants. These studies collectively observed the chances of one infected person in a home with multiple occupants infecting others in the household.

Not surprisingly, the authors found that the household attack rate for SARS-CoV-2 was relatively high compared to other pandemic coronaviruses like SARS and MERS. Overall, they estimated the household secondary attack rate was 16.6%. However, they found a massive gap between primary transmitters who were symptomatic and those who were asymptomatic. Those with symptoms wound up transmitting the virus to household members 18% of the time, while those who were asymptomatic transmitted to just 0.7% of household contacts.

Also, in line with the findings of other studies, "Critically severe index case symptoms was associated with higher infectiousness in 6 studies of 9 in which this was examined." Meaning, the more severely ill you are, the more contagious you can be.

It's truly hard to overstate the significance of this finding relative to the perception of the public based on the lies we've been told concerning asymptomatic spread. To begin with, the death rate for those under 70, according to Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis, is 0.05%. That means that your chance of dying from the virus after meeting with people who have no symptoms is 0.00035%, or 1 in 285,714, if you are under 70! That is essentially most of America's workforce. They are upending their lives because someone without symptoms might give them a virus that is rarely deadly for them.

So we know that asymptomatic spread only accounts for 0.7% (Madewell et al) of infections and that odds to die with… https://t.co/F8Y2Hf7g2p
— Ben Marten (@Ben Marten)1608024545.0

Also, keep in mind that this low rate of secondary attack among asymptomatic carriers of the virus is taken from household transmission, which is much more prevalent than attack rates in stores or businesses. This means that your chances of being infected and dying from someone who is asymptomatic by simply passing them in a restaurant or store (much less outdoors) is so infinitesimal, it's well below the risk we assume in taking every step in life.

Yet the politicians refuse to pry themselves loose from this fixation on stores and restaurants as if they are responsible for transmission, especially when patrons are showing no visible symptoms. It's not just the purveyors of panic pornography who will never let go of the myth of mass asymptomatic spread. There is an entire testing-industrial complex behind the fixation with testing people for asymptomatic infection that is too big to fail with the state health bureaucracies.

My former colleague, Jordan Schachtel, researched the cost of these tests and found that, at 2 million tests performed per day, the current median cost for COVID testing in America is "approximately $254 million dollars per day, $7.6 billion per month, and $91.4 billion per year." That doesn't include all the sundry costs engendered by the testing that benefit the broader health care-government complex, such as the cost of specimen collection and amplification, extra doctor's visits, and endless opportunities to milk the federal trough, which continues to dump billions of dollars into the testing regime.

What is so disconcerting about the politicians refusing the rethink their stance on asymptomatic spread is that this will not end with the vaccine. So long as we continue testing with 40 layers of amplification, it's very likely that we can still detect trace levels of the virus, even in people who already recovered or have been vaccinated. This is likely true of most viruses, but because we've never tested 2 million people a day with super-sensitive tests, we never focused on the "reinfection" of those with vaccinations.

Thus, until we restore constitutional rights and a modicum of non-flat-earth scientific acumen, business owners will continue to be threatened with jail time, all for a lie.

Horowitz: MN gov paroles child-killer while threatening single mom with prison for opening restaurant



King George has nothing on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Had Walz been around in the early 1760s, it wouldn't have taken the colonists 13 years to declare independence.

There is no subtlety to Walz's tyranny, and his evils are clearly no longer sufferable. His regime is now threatening to imprison business owners who have no options to feed their families other than keeping their businesses open. At the same time, he is releasing violent criminals, including child murderers, as violent crime consumes the Twin Cities region.

Larvita McFarquhar is America embodied. An African-American single mom with four children to support, Larvita never asked for handouts. She opened Haven's Garden, in Lynd, Minnesota, a family-oriented restaurant with an attached gymnasium for kids to have a good time. She is the ultimate entrepreneur and family woman, but in Walz's Sodom and Gomorrah, she is now a criminal. She had the audacity to pursue the rights spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and kept her business open at great expense with full compliance with all the unscientific distancing restrictions.

The twisted irony is that Walz is all in on the de-incarceration agenda. Just last month, he stated that "incarceration is a failure of the system." But what he really meant was only incarceration for dangerous criminals should be shunned. On Wednesday afternoon, Nathan Hansen, Larvita's attorney, posted on Twitter that "Assistant Minnesota Attorney General Kaitrin C. Vohs filed court documents to have Ms. McFarquhar potentially imprisoned to force her compliance with Governor Tim Walz's executive order."

With so many criminals being released for violating real laws, you know, like not to steal, carjack, or murder, wouldn't "Mr. Anti-incarceration" himself not want lovely people like Ms. McFarquhar to be imprisoned for living a free life? Don't count on it.

What I find interesting is that people are now being criminalized for supporting their families with their own God-given, constitutionally protected property rights. Larvita has no other way to support her family. Despite our government spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, Larvita told me in an interview on my podcast that she has not received a penny of federal help, a complaint I've heard from nearly all small business owners. What choice does she have?

I can't tell you how many times I've heard virtue-signaling from political elites in recent years that drug traffickers aren't so bad because they have no other way to support themselves. In fact, last year, the Ninth Circuit ruled that cities cannot clean out homeless encampments even when they are blocking public walkways because it violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The Ninth Circuit essentially ruled that you can't criminalize something that, in their estimation, is unavoidable in order to live.

As a result, just as the state may not criminalize the state of being "homeless in public places," the state may not "criminalize conduct that is an unavoidable consequence of being homeless — namely sitting, lying, or sleeping on the streets," concluded the court in Martin v. City of Boise. The Supreme Court refused to overturn this extremely novel opinion.

So you mean to tell me there is now an inalienable right to camp out on public streets because it's supposedly unavoidable, but there is no right to earn a living with one's legitimately owned business, even though it is conduct that is an unavoidable necessity of feeding one's family? Courts are now ruling there is a right to homeless encampment and a right to Medicaid, but no right to property, as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.

Now hold this thought as we move to another Tim Walz news story of the week.

On Tuesday, Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, as part of the state's Board of Pardons, voted to immediately commute the life sentence of Myon Burrell after he served 18 years for the murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards in 2002. He intended to kill someone else in a gang fight that day, but a stray bullet hit Edwards in the heart while she was in her home doing schoolwork. Burrell's cousin and jailmate testified in 2002 that he confessed to the killing, and Timothy Oliver, the intended victim of the shooting, testified that Burrell pulled the trigger. But, of course, Burrell and his lawyer maintain that he is an innocent man.

Why did Walz release him? The "science" of teenage killers!

"We cannot turn a blind eye to the developments in science and law as we look at this case," said Walz. "We can't shackle our children in 2020," added Walz. "We need to grow as our science grows."

You see, it's all in the science. The science says we can't incarcerate teenage killers. The science says we must declare war on cops and incarceration, which leads to utter terror, fear, and carjackings in Minneapolis. The science says that same-sex couples can biologically impregnate each other. The science says that diners have to dine outside in the zero-degree weather in Minnesota, but outdoor hockey designed to be played in the cold must be canceled. And the science says that business owners are a threat to the public.

Are you starting to see a pattern here?

There is so much crime in Ramsey and Hennepin Counties that they are forced to call in police from surrounding areas. Carjackings in Minneapolis were up 537% this November over last year. According to Neighborhood Scout, "With a crime rate of 42 per one thousand residents, St. Paul has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 24."

What's their response? Ramsey County's prison population shrank by 43% from 2010 to 2019, and that was before the coronavirus jailbreak. Hennepin County has lifted bail requirements for 20 felony-level crimes. Attorney General Keith Ellison, who wants to lock up business owners, joined Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman in that announcement just two weeks ago in which Freeman bragged about the Hennepin County jail population being reduced by over 40% just in the past few months. He said that "we don't want to clog up our jails with persons who are not a threat, so that we have the space and the money to hold violent offenders."

Former Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner told KSTP a few months ago it is not "all that unusual" to have someone with multiple felony convictions who has barely served time behind bars. "We have, in Minnesota, one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country," said Gaertner in response to a story of a seven-time violent convict not serving time. "Right now, we are fourth from the bottom and we put very few Minnesota citizens in prisons compared to the rest of the country."

Yet Ellison's office is now dragging Larvita into Ramsey County court from halfway across the state because she, not the carjackers and the gangs in the Twin Cities, is the problem. She is the one who needs to be in jail because of the same virus that is used an excuse to release carjackers and drug traffickers.

This country is simply not big enough for people like us and people with the worldview of Walz and Ellison.

The preamble of the Minnesota constitution states that the document was established by the people "grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty, and desiring to perpetuate its blessings and secure the same to ourselves and our posterity." At its core, that means using the power to lock up violent criminals while getting out of the way of individual liberty. The opening line of the state constitution states, "Government is instituted for the security, benefit and protection of the people, in whom all political power is inherent, together with the right to alter, modify or reform government whenever required by the public good."

If the governor doesn't submit to the right to liberty, security, and protection, then he must remember the "right to alter, modify, and reform," held by the same sovereign citizens.

Horowitz: The Constitution is immune to coronavirus power-grabs



In a matter of 244 years, we have gone from the understanding that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" to "shut up, mask up, and obey your governors."

Amid the reams of debate written on the data, science, math, and policies undergirding the unprecedented governmental response to coronavirus, there is shockingly very little discussion about the legality of crushing the most foundational rights imaginable. Can executive officials merely tout "COVID" in a sentence at a press conference and rule over our lives in any way they want for as long as they want? This is the discussion that was needed eight months ago, but there's no time like the present to embark on it.

Imagine if Joe Biden delivered a prime-time speech at a press conference and announced that because of the emergent times in which we live, allowing Trump to remain president was simply not an option and that for our safety he rigged the election to ensure Trump's defeat. Obviously, we would all be shocked by such a statement and would all move to counter his hypothetical play.

Well, this has actually happened, but with much more severe consequences than even stealing an election. What is worse than election fraud is governing fraud. What's worse than someone illegally obtaining office is for someone to use that office to crush civil liberties and life itself, even if legitimately elected. Yet, for eight months, governors and mayors have been able to publicly announce a press conference and rule over our lives via press statements or tweets without any pushback.

The normally mild-mannered Justice Alito warned last month at the Federalist Society convention (which, of course, had to be remote) that "we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged" and that these executive orders have produced "previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty."

Alito noted, as I did in May, that the smallpox vaccine case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), which is being used by lower court judges to greenlight coronavirus fascism, affected "a local measure that targeted a problem of limited scope." On the other hand, "it did not involve sweeping restrictions imposed across the country for an extended emergency."

He warned of a crisis of executive power-grabs indefinitely. "All sorts of things can be called an emergency or disaster of major proportions," Alito reminded the audience. "Simply slapping on that label cannot provide the ground for abrogating our most fundamental rights. And whenever fundamental rights are restricted, the Supreme Court and other courts cannot close their eyes."

In a constitutional republic, elections aren't even that important. There are limits on what an elected official can do. Thus, the collateral damage from a stolen election, if one believes this election was stolen, is not even that impactful, assuming we are following the rule of law on every other issue. Even when you legitimately win an election, you don't get to rule over the lives, liberty, property, and even bodily integrity of the mouths and noses of those you defeat. We've had this systemic governing fraud all year, and few Republicans or even self-described conservatives have rigorously fought back the way anyone would if someone openly admitted to stealing the election.

It's important that, just like an abused wife, the American people understand that this is not OK. It's not OK for a husband to abuse a wife even if he feels he has valid grievances with her or that it's for her own good. The first step to evacuating someone from that relationship is to make them realize they are indeed being abused.

Likewise, Americans must understand this not part of the contract document we signed with government. Certain things are off-limits. Take a look at this chart from the Workplace Mental Health Institute showing 15 signs of an abusive relationship and ask yourself how many of them don't apply to our current relationship with government vis-à-vis this virus.

Stops you from seeing friends and won't let you go out without permission? Check

Tells you what to wear, monitors your communications? Big-time!

Won't let you work? Like never before!

Controls what you watch, read, say, and won't allow you to question anything? Censorship galore!

Punishes you for not keeping those rules and tell you it's for your own good? That's the whole point!

Calls you names and blames you for everything? That's the name of the game!

In fact, I can't think of a single warning sign that doesn't perfectly describe the relationship of government and its elite allies with the American people. This chart should serve as a gut-punch and a wake-up call to evacuate from this "new normal" before it's too late.

We've all forgotten that aside from habeas corpus during a rebellion, no other fundamental right can be abrogated even during a time of emergency. As it states in Art. 44 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights: "That the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and of this State, apply, as well in time of war, as in time of peace; and any departure therefrom, or violation thereof, under the plea of necessity, or any other plea, is subversive of good Government, and tends to anarchy and despotism."

In other words, the following usurpations are null and void:

  • Open-ended curfews
  • Shutting down or restricting businesses and private schools
  • Restricting even small personal gatherings
  • Forced quarantine even of people who don't have the virus or using faulty or no due process to push quarantine
  • Treating an uncovered mouth and nose like nudity
  • Interstate travel bans

Republicans will have the trifecta of control in 24 state governments this year. In 31 states, they will hold both chambers of the legislature. Where is the effort to push a declaration of rights reaffirming these principles?

Likewise, at the federal level, Republicans are close to passing another "stimulus" to bail out the states from the deleterious effects of their unconstitutional lockdowns. But before throwing more money at them, why not attach a set of conditions to that money to protect civil liberties?

Why not empower the DOJ to better enforce U.S. Code Title 18, Sec 242, which prohibits any elected official from using "law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom" to deprive any person of "any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution"?

Where are the Republican Senate candidates in Georgia? Have you heard them speak truth to power on this issue? Where is the political party that represents the people during the greatest period of authoritarian rule since the settlement of this continent?

Let us never forget the warning of C.S. Lewis: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Horowitz: Coronavirus hospitalizations down to lowest levels of pandemic. So where is our exit strategy?

The media might keep it a secret, but the hospitals have quietly emptied out their beds of COVID-19 patients, as large swaths of the country appear to have hit a de facto herd immunity threshold. Meanwhile, no matter how much good news we see, those who treat us as subjects continue to create false panic, extend draconian and ineffective restrictions on liberty, and refuse to put out an exit strategy. They are rapidly turning this lockdown into our domestic Afghanistan.

It’s now becoming clear, from every state and country that has reached saturation levels of the virus, that the virus burns out roughly around the 20% seroprevalence benchmark, not at the 80% threshold the fearmongers predicted. Whether it’s Sweden, New York, or Arizona, the virus is going to do what it does – meaning it spreads for about six weeks in a given region and then moves on. The only question is whether we will continue to destroy our society, mental health, and economy or achieve herd immunity without adding the man-made death toll. Herd immunity is going to happen, whether we aim for it or not.

Still, Dr. Fauci, ever the media showman, refuses to understand the simple math others like Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta, and Stanford Professor John Ioannidis have observed from day one, much less the science behind it. Fauci said the death toll from herd immunity would be "enormous and unacceptable."

"If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people without symptoms," Fauci said during an Instagram live, "a lot of people are going to die."

Now let’s put aside the fact that it’s not like he has an alternative solution anyway, given that countries like Israel and the Philippines had severe and long lockdowns and they were unsustainable, leading to a late spread despite universal mask-wearing. Fauci is assuming that “everyone” must contract the virus. But study after study has shown that an enormous percentage of the population already has partial immunity, which explains why the virus always seems to hit a brick wall in most places after reaching 20% of the population, more or less.

The southern wave, like all waves, is burning out after 6-8 weeks  

Remember the raging spread of the virus in the southern states throughout June and into July? Well, that did not go on forever. According to the CDC’s weekly update on Friday, the number of people in the hospital with laboratory-confirmed cases was lower than it has been since the beginning of the lockdown during the week of March 21, even though we are testing many more people today.

As of August 13, according to the CDC’s surveillance program, those with coronavirus-like illness (CLI) are just 1.8 percent of emergency department visits, which matches the June 6 level before the surge in the South. In early July, it was up to 4.3%.

Those numbers have bottomed out even lower than May levels, even in the South. Coronavirus patients make up fewer than 3 percent of patients in every region of the country. According to the AP, "Florida reported about 3,900 new cases of the coronavirus Sunday, the lowest daily total in nearly two months.” ER visits for COVID-like illness are down 63% since the peak in July.

Arizona has long been past its peak, even though the media continues to act as if the state is on fire. Arizona’s hospital census is the lowest it has been since June 3. And although Mondays are usually light reporting days, the state reported zero deaths yesterday and fewer than 500 new cases.

In Texas, hospitalizations are down 43 percent from the July 22 peak and declining rapidly. Even the border counties, which were hit harder than almost anywhere in the country, have declined after a tough July.

Clearly, the southern states barely got exposed to the virus early on in the spring and have now reached their degree of saturation. Except, contrary to the predictions by panicked commentators of multiple New York-level death traps being replicated all over the country, these states kept the situation under control without anything near New York’s level of death and panic.

As my friend Ian Miller pointed out, on April 13, in New York and New Jersey combined, a population of 28.2 million had 26,606 COVID hospitalizations. Today, Arizona, California, Georgia, Florida, and Texas, with a combined population of 108 million, have 21,971 COVID patients. And remember, we are better now at identifying the full population of COVID cases than we were in March.

Herd immunity will be achieved at roughly 20 percent in most places

What’s becoming clear is that every major population area is going to achieve this 15%-20% threshold whether they like it or not. Even in many unnaturally confined places like ships, prisons, and meatpacking plants, although there are some exceptions, the infection rate seems to be just 25% where one would think 100% would get the virus, given how contagious it is. That could be the power of long-lasting T cell immunity, for much of the population that has already gotten partial immunity from having previously contracted coronavirus colds, unless they are immunocompromised.

Take a look at the contrast between Stockholm and New York City:

One city decided to panic, and one didn’t. One caused enormous numbers of excess deaths from a lockdown. But both of them achieved herd immunity between 15% and 20% infection rate, which clearly does not involve “everyone” getting it, as Fauci has suggested. As we are seeing in states like Arizona, new cases plummeted when the rate of positivity in antibody serology tests began surpassing 10 percent and approaching 15 percent.

So, here we are now: What is the exit strategy from the cult-like nihilism and restrictions for a virus that has likely reached its full transmission threshold in most parts of the country?

Sadly, there is none.

It’s not that 80% of the country has T cell immunity (it’s likely more like 40%-50%), so there will still be people who get the virus here and there, especially with mild or no apparent symptoms. At this rate, this virus might possibly turn into a seasonal coronavirus cold just like the original four coronavirus colds, which some believe to have started out as pandemics. If the mere existence of a cold, which can sometimes be deadly to sick people, is the new pretext for continuing this suicidal national emotional and economic abuse, then it has become our new Afghanistan, dragging on for years without a national interest to justify it or a strategy to exit from it.

Anticipating the coming of a de facto herd immunity threshold even before some questionable vaccine is delivered, some in the media are now scaring people into thinking there is no long-term immunity because antibodies wane over time. However, what they fail to reveal is that the same T cell immunity (even without antibodies) that prevented serious infection the first time around in most people because they already came into contact with other coronavirus pathogens, will most certainly work after having contracted this specific virus.

Even the New York Times wrote an article titled, “Scientists See Signs of Lasting Immunity to Covid-19, Even After Mild Infections thanks to B Cells and T cells.”

“Yes, you do develop immunity to this virus, and good immunity to this virus,” said Dr. Eun-Hyung Lee, an immunologist at Emory University who was not involved in the studies. “That’s the message we want to get out there.”

So why are our government officials immune to good news and why do they continue pre-emptively crushing our liberties without an expiration date? Sadly, there is no herd immunity or vaccine against an epidemic of power and control when its primary symptom is panic driven by herd mentality.