Horowitz: Why the political class needs Ukraine to end discussion about COVID



There’s a reason why Putin and Ukraine evidently cured COVID. They no longer want us discussing COVID because the daily revelations about the safety and efficacy of the shots – along with all the other lies about the pandemic – will create a frenzy of poignant and consequential questions from the public directed at elected officials. It’s precisely for that reason that we must not allow them to move on. They dragged us into COVID against our will; now it is our job not to allow them to distract us from it until justice is served.

COVID is not really over. In fact, it’s raging through all the countries in east Asia that seemed to escape it ... until they engaged in mass vaccination and are now suffering from their worst waves. It’s just that the gas has run out of the tank on all the fascistic policies – from lockdowns and mass testing/tracing to masks and vaccines. They figured they could mask the waning (and then negative) efficacy of the shots by promoting boosters, but now the boosters are turning negative in spectacular fashion because those people have depleted immune systems. Hence, the needle and mask Twitter banners had to be replaced with Ukrainian flags.

Hong Kong is a perfect example of why COVID cannot remain in the news. “Hong Kong hospitals can’t keep up with the deaths amid an Omicron surge,” reads the headline of a recent New York Times piece. “Dead bodies are piling up on gurneys in hospital hallways as Hong Kong’s health system is overloaded by its biggest Covid-19 outbreak of the pandemic,” claims the Gray Lady. Unlike Africa, which breezed by the other variants including Omicron, far East Asia is getting hit hard ... after having been mass-vaccinated:

South Korea currently has more cases per capita than the USA has ever recorded... I guess "tack & trace" plus masks stopped working?pic.twitter.com/vzPZBDTLBH
— PLC (@PLC) 1646074380

What gives? Hong Kong, of course, did everything “right.”

Cases in Hong Kong are now up 125,000% since Vox credited their mask wearing with controlling COVID and said \u201cnot wearing masks in Hong Kong is like not wearing pants\u201d\n\nWonder if we\u2019ll get any updates on why it stopped workingpic.twitter.com/t1cUtD33vD
— Ian Miller (@Ian Miller) 1645647200

But what is becoming abundantly clear is that not only are the vaccines following in the path of lockdowns and masks in terms of efficacy, they are going negative. The latest U.K. Health Security Agency report shows that the triple-vaxxed now have the highest case rates in almost every age group.

As you can see, the triple-jabbed are more than three times as likely to test positive for COVID than the injection-free population. The Daily Sceptic has conducted an in-depth analysis of the U.K. report and found that “while the death rate in the unvaccinated has been in a strong trend downwards since the start of the year, the death rate in the vaccinated has been trending upwards.” Again, why should this be occurring with the mildest variant if not for some form of pathogenic priming and original antigenic sin from a botched shot?

These numbers harmonize with Israel’s experience of vaccinating seniors more than any other country, yet experiencing far more excess deaths for seniors recently than during any other time of the pandemic. Here is the excess death data for those 65+ as presented by Euromono:

They are on the down slope because, perhaps, they finally achieved immunity, but isn’t this what the vaccine was supposed to prevent?

Then there is the news this week about the massive New York State study of vaccine efficacy for children. Previous studies from last year hinted at negative efficacy after 6-8 months, but this study found negative 41% efficacy for children 5-11 after just 6-7 weeks!

Remember, this is for a population that never needed a vaccine to begin with. It also comes at a time when "the CDC has admitted it is withholding large portions of COVID data from the public because it fears the information could be misinterpreted,” according to the New York Times.

In other words, the scam finally met the end of the road. And this doesn’t even begin to explore the more serious issue of injuries and long-term problems from the shots. Between the military data, Israeli survey data, German medical insurance claims, and American life insurance claims, the data is coalescing around a shocking number of injuries that show VAERS reporting was lowballing the degree of injury. Recent reports about the vaccine potentially harming DNA repair and creating bone marrow suppression, and revelations of Moderna having patented a gene sequence several years ago that is now believed to be the driving force behind making the SARS-CoV-2 spike more pathogenic, certainly make any future news cycle focus on COVID less than auspicious for the powers that be.

Perhaps this is why there is such an obsessive clamor to emotionally indulge and exhaust the public with constant virtue-signaling about Russia and Ukraine without any constructive policies in our interests. They’d rather discuss enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine so they can distract the public from growing demands for a no-fly zone over our bodies.

Horowitz: 6 important COVID data points that destroy the prevailing narrative



“When you get vaccinated, you not only protect your own health, that of the family, but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community. And in other words, you become a dead end to the virus.” ~Dr. Fauci, Face the Nation, May 16, 2021

“Negative efficacy.” Get used to that term, because every day more data suggests we are already in the vaccination twilight zone of all pain and no gain – just as with the lockdowns.

It is tearing humanity apart. COVID fascism is the most serious human rights threat we’ve faced in our lifetimes, and the latest science and data demonstrate that it’s all built upon a false premise. While people tuned out the news over the holiday week, many have missed the growing incontrovertible evidence that not only is there risk and zero benefit to taking any of the COVID shots, but there is actually negative efficacy against the virus. In other words, not only does it put you on the hook for known and unknown short-term and long-term injury without stopping COVID, it now actually makes you more vulnerable to COVID.

As you read these latest points, just remember that this is the injection for which police in Europe are now using dogs and batons against those protesting it. All these human rights abuses for a shot that, especially with the new variant, has become moot.

1) 96% of all Omicron cases in Germany among vaccinated: The respected Robert Koch Institute reported last week that among the 4,206 Germans infected with Omicron for whom their vaccination status was known, 95.58% were fully vaccinated. More than a quarter of them had booster shots. Given that the overall background rate for vaccination in Germany is 70%, this means that the shots now have a -87% effectiveness rate against Omicron.

Data from Robert Koch Institute shows only 4% of Omicron cases coming from the 30% of the country which is unvaccinated.\n\nIn other words, not being vaccinated has 87% efficacy against infection in Germany, using the same calculation that vaccine advocates have employed. https://twitter.com/Tim_Roehn/status/1476575806969335812\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/rYLHnVNYOH
— PLC (@PLC) 1640926860

2) Omicron among vaccinated outpacing unvaccinated by 28% in Ontario: The government in Ontario posts continuous data on case rates by vaccination status. The fact that the vaccinated have rapidly overtaken the unvaccinated in new infections demonstrates a clear negative effect of the shots against Omicron.

Vaccinated 28% ahead of unvaccinated now in Ontario.pic.twitter.com/cm7PHWculu
— Covid19Crusher (@Covid19Crusher) 1640881781

3) In Denmark, 89.7% of all Omicron cases were among fully vaccinated: As of Dec. 31, just 8.5% of all cases in Denmark were unvaccinated, according to the Statens Serum Institut. Overall, 77.9% of Denmark is fully vaccinated, and Omicron seems to hit younger people for whom there is a greater unvaccinated pool, which indicates clear negative efficacy. Even for non-Omicron variants, the un-injected composed only 23.7% of the cases.

4) Just 25% of the Omicron hospitalizations in the U.K. are unvaccinated: Not only are the vaccinated more likely to contract Omicron, but they are likely more at risk to be hospitalized. While American hospitals put out unverifiable information about “nearly everyone seriously ill with COVID being unvaccinated,” the U.K. continues to put out quality continuous data that shows the opposite. According to the U.K.’s Health Security Agency’s latest “Omicron daily overview,” just 25% of those in the hospital with suspected Omicron cases are unvaccinated.


Although that is roughly in line with the percentage of unvaccinated overall in the U.K., we know that Omicron cases are overwhelmingly among younger people who have a greater share of the unvaccinated. Dr. Abdi Mahamud, the WHO’s incident manager for COVID, said last week that Omicron has not hit most of the elderly yet.

According to the latest U.K. vaccine surveillance report (p. 21), between 32% and 40% of the age groups under 40 are unvaccinated. Which means that, with a 25% hospitalization rate, the unvaccinated are very possibly underrepresented in the Omicron hospitalized population, which again indicates negative efficacy to the shots.

5) 33 of 34 hospitalizations in Delhi hospital were vaccinated: The Indian Express reported that 33 of the 34 people hospitalized for Omicron in Delhi’s Lok Nayak hospital were fully vaccinated. Two of them received the booster shot. While some of them were international travelers, it’s important to remember that India has a much lower vaccination rate than the West. This is another small indication that not only might one be more likely to get Omicron after having gotten the shots, but possibly could be more vulnerable to hospitalizations, very likely due to some form of antibody dependent disease enhancement (ADE).

6) Vaccinated exponentially more likely to get re-infected with COVID: A new preprint study from Bangladesh found that among 404 people re-infected with COVID, having been vaccinated made someone 2.45 times more likely to get re-infected with a mild infection, 16.1 times more likely to get a moderate infection, and 3.9 times more likely to be re-infected severely, relative to someone with prior infection who was not vaccinated. Although overall re-infections were rare, vaccination was a greater risk factor of re-infection that co-morbidities!


Hence, the findings of this first-in-its-kind study harmonize with what a Public Health England survey found in October; namely, that the vaccines seem to erase a degree of N (nucleocapsid) antibodies generated by prior infection in favor of narrower S (spike) antibodies. "Recent observations from UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) surveillance data that N antibody levels appear to be lower in individuals who acquire infection following 2 doses of vaccination,” stated the week 42 report from the U.K. (p. 23).

This finding also correlates with what researchers from Mount Sinai in New York and Hospital La Paz in Madrid found last year – that the second dose of the vaccine “determines a contraction of the spike-specific T cell response." In that report, researchers already observed that other research has shown "the second vaccination dose appears to exert a detrimental effect in the overall magnitude of the spike-specific humoral response in COVID-19 recovered individuals."

At this point, how is there any benefit, much less a net benefit, from the shots? There are currently 21,000 deaths reported to VAERS, along with 110,000 hospitalizations and over 1 million total adverse events. Most deaths and injuries are never reported to VAERS. Now that the efficacy is, at best, a wash and at worst negative, why are we not discussing the short-term and long-term liabilities of the shots?

Remember, the VAERS numbers don’t even begin to quantify the long-term concerns, such as cancer and auto-immune diseases. A heavily redacted analysis of the Pfizer shot (p. 16) from the Australian Therapeutic Goods Agency (TGA) flatly conceded, “Neither genotoxicity nor carcinogenicity studies were performed.”

Consider the fact that the CEO of Indiana-based life insurance company OneAmerica, which has been around since 1877, revealed last week that the death rate among 18- to 64-year-old Hoosiers is up 40% from pre-pandemic levels. That is four times above what risk assessors consider catastrophic. Yes, some of this has been due to the virus, but given the age group, OneAmerica CEO Scott Davidson said that most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths. Brian Tabor, the president of the Indiana Hospital Association, who spoke at the same news conference as Davidson, said that Indiana hospitals are flooded with patients “with many different conditions.” Any wonder what those ailments are if not COVID itself?

Indeed, those who say the injections are a “medical miracle” are correct, just not in the way they meant it.

Horowitz: The new idolatrous utterance: ‘It would have been much worse without the shots.’



It’s become the new holy sacrament. Anyone who gets another shot, after he or she inevitably gets COVID because the shot failed, utters a verse from the COVID cultist “bible” almost verbatim, the same as the next newly infected, boosted deacon of Covidstan’s official church.

Three Democrat politicians put out almost the same statement following their diagnoses with COVID in order to distract from the failures of their three shots:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted: “Thankfully, I am only experiencing mild symptoms & am grateful for the protection provided against serious illness that comes from being vaccinated & boosted.”

In a press release, Cory Booker said: “I’m beyond grateful to have received two doses of vaccine and, more recently, a booster — I’m certain that without them I would be doing much worse.”

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), after contracting COVID from a trip in Ukraine, tweeted the following: “I’m thankful to be fully vaccinated and boosted and experiencing only mild symptoms (the vaccine is safe and effective).”

This seems to have become the standard oath of sacrament among boosted politicians getting the virus.

More finds...looks like this propaganda campaign kicked off around mid-August with a test market focus-group at the Mayoral level. Marketing data must have shown good traction so was elevated to the Congressional/Senate level?pic.twitter.com/iguRQDCGwJ
— Chris "Early Treatment" Martenson, PhD (@Chris "Early Treatment" Martenson, PhD) 1640013014

Isn’t it funny how COVID now has a 100% critical illness rate, so that anyone who gets it mildly can always tout the shots as effective? Safe and effective? When was the last time you heard of someone getting the pathogen shortly after having three shots against it? This is not normal.

Every time people like Joe Rogan or Dennis Prager, who didn’t get the shots but used early treatments, assert that they had milder cases because of their choice of therapeutics, they get attacked for not choosing the sacred therapeutic. Yet when the elected officials all coalesce behind the messaging of “it would have been worse” after getting COVID following the third shot, the media accepts that as “science.” I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the homes of these senators to see which therapeutics they are availing themselves of. I doubt they will leave their fate to chance – a diminishing chance that the vaccine works.

These cultist politicians are trying to distract from the broader point. Namely, that it appears those who get the shots are much more likely to get COVID, particularly Omicron, than those who did not get the shots. At least the pagans during the biblical era bowed down to things that simply didn’t respond. In this case, their idol responds, all right. According to data from Denmark, the vaccinated are more than twice as likely to get Omicron as the non-vaccinated. Just 8.5% of Omicron cases are among the unvaccinated, less than half their share of the population. With other variants, it’s approximately on par with their share of the population. What is so shocking is that even those who have gotten the boosters within the past month or two, and are in the bullseye of “vaccine efficacy” before it wanes, are still getting the virus in great numbers.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, after testing positive for COVID despite (or perhaps because of) being triple-vaccinated, doubled down by saying Omicron is a reason to get vaccinated! “With the Omicron variant becoming increasingly dominant, I want to again urge Marylanders who haven’t yet to go out and get your booster shot as soon as possible,” said “Lockdown” Larry Hogan in a statement that in itself announced his positive test after having been “boosted.”

We now have entire college campuses that are microcosms of the COVID utopia the public health officials can only dream of. Everyone is vaccinated, most are boosted, and everyone must wear a mask in public. Yet there are huge outbreaks, to the point that Harvard and Cornell have switched to online learning for next semester. What about vaccines passports? Well, cruises full of people who could only sign up with a passport are now coming back full of COVID-positive people. What about states with the highest vaccination rates? Some of them have the highest case rates!

In the USA right now, states with more residents vaccinated are seeing higher rates of infection. \n\nDoes this prove that vaccines have negative efficacy? Nope, it proves that covid waves are driven by regional seasonality, not by human intervention.pic.twitter.com/bOGIzw7Z5j
— PLC (@PLC) 1639814280

As for the question of symptom severity, aside from the fact that this is irrelevant to protecting other people, South Africa is the perfect control group against the theory that Omicron is mild because of the vaccinated. Denmark is ultra-vaccinated, while South Africa only has about a quarter of its population vaccinated. Both countries have experienced a wild Omicron outbreak, yet hospitalizations are low from this variant in both. The hospitalization rate decreased 91% in South Africa. The case fatality rate is estimated to be 19 times lower than during the last Delta wave. Thus, there is no way one can suggest that this variant is only mild for the vaccinated. The White House is warning of a dark, deadly winter from Omicron for those who are unvaccinated. Well, you can hold South Africa’s beer! The country is now getting rid of most restrictions and contact tracing with a recognition that “they are not likely to be successful.”

In other words, they recognize that human interventions have made no difference in this pandemic. The one human intervention that likely would have worked is early treatment. But to this day – no matter how desperate an image they show in public – they will never turn to what actually works. They would rather lead us to hell than follow to heaven.

Horowitz: The problematic variant is the CURRENT Pfizer-Delta variant, not Omicron



Consider the fact that more people have died under the current COVID variant with mass vaccination than in 2020 before vaccination, yet the medical and government establishment is worried about a potential new variant predominating that appears to be mild. At the same time, establishment leaders are suggesting the vaccine won’t work for it, yet are demanding we get more of the same vaccine that has already failed for the current, more deadly variant. How’s that for science?

There is simply no evidence that this new variant is worse than the current one, and most initial signals indicate it’s less virulent. According to CNBC, Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the South African physician who first identified the Omicron variant, says patients who’ve been diagnosed with the new strain show only “mild symptoms.” “No one here in South Africa is known to have been hospitalized with the Omicron variant, nor is anyone here believed to have fallen seriously ill with it,” said Coetzee, who is the head of the South African Medical Association.

Sethomo Lelatisitswe, the Botswanan assistant health minister, told Parliament this week that of the 15 known cases in his country – the first one to detect Omicron – just three had mild symptoms, while the rest had none. Eleven of the cases were vaccinated, while those unvaccinated did not show symptoms, and none of them needed oxygen support.

Of the 59 cases identified in Europe, all of them were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, just like the case discovered in California. Incidentally, nearly all of the cases seem to be among the vaccinated. Even Japan appears to have eased its travel restrictions after seeing that this variant appears to be mild.

The cruel irony is that the panic over the mildest variant appears to come at a time when there are record hospitalizations among highly vaccinated northern states in the U.S. and much of continental Europe. Why would public health officials focus on a random new variant that would probably portend good news if it predominated Delta, when the current iteration is what is killing so many people?

Clearly, the leaders want to distract from the existing failure of the vaccines against the current variant and sow fear about something new and unknown rather than own up to the fiasco and forge new policies to better treat people for Delta.

In reality, Delta appeared to start more like a bad cold when the U.K. got an earlier wave of it than other countries. Similar to what we are seeing now with Omicron, one would expect more contagious strains to become less virulent, following the laws of micro-evolution and the pathogen’s drive to survive more without incapacitating the host. But something peculiar seemed to happen right around the six-month marker of mass vaccination, when it began to leak. On some level, Delta appeared to get worse. In the U.S. we have had more deaths this year than before the vaccine, and continental Europe appears to be following in that trajectory. Even some Asian countries that barely tasted death from COVID in the previous variant experienced some degree of catastrophe this go-around. What gives?

New research from INSERM — the prestigious national research center of France — as well as Aix Marseille University might shed light on the mystery of Delta, demonstrating why Delta is a much bigger problem than Omicron and why the vaccines are the problem, not the solution. Using molecular modeling, researchers found that there is increased risk for antibody dependent disease enhancement (ADE) from vaccine-generated antibodies with the Delta variant more than with the original one. Typically, there are neutralizing antibodies and enhancing antibodies. The former kill the virus while the latter bind to the virus but sometimes run the risk of a Trojan horse effect, where they serve as a conduit for the virus to more easily flow into the cells and make the virus more aggressive. As it relates to the original Wuhan strain, they found no problem of ADE, but for Delta there was a serious concern.

“As the NTD [N-terminal domain] is also targeted by neutralizing antibodies, our data suggest that the balance between neutralizing and facilitating antibodies in vaccinated individuals is in favor of neutralization for the original Wuhan/D614G strain,” wrote the French researchers in a letter published in the Journal of Infection. “However, in the case of the Delta variant, neutralizing antibodies have a decreased affinity for the spike protein, whereas facilitating antibodies display a strikingly increased affinity. Thus, ADE may be a concern for people receiving vaccines based on the original Wuhan strain spike sequence (either mRNA or viral vectors).”

The authors conclude quite bluntly: “Inasmuch as neutralizing antibodies overwhelm facilitating antibodies, ADE is not a concern. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants may tip the scales in favor of infection enhancement. Our structural and modeling data suggest that it might be indeed the case for Delta variants” (emphasis added).

Thus, the outcome, according to the authors, would look something like this:

Six months ago, we could have dismissed this hypothesis as one of the many speculative scientific theories that thousands of scientists are promulgating about the virus on a daily basis. But the reality of the virus being worse in so many universally vaccinated countries than before anyone was ever vaccinated lends a lot of credence to this theory. If this theory is correct, then Delta wouldn’t have been materially worse than other strains if not for the mass vaccination with leaky Trojan horse antibodies.

Remember, on page 52 of the FDA's "Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for an Unapproved Product Review Memorandum," it states that there appears to be no concern of ADE in the short run (during the original strain), but "risk of vaccine-enhanced disease over time, potentially associated with waning immunity, remains unknown and needs to be evaluated further in ongoing clinical trials and in observational studies that could be conducted following authorization and/or licensure."

Now consider where we are a year later, with most of the world suffering the worst spread ever – tracking closely with the growth of countries’ vaccination curves.

Netherlands, one of the most vaccinated nations on Earth, has had two covid waves after vaccinating 50% of the population and they are now adding even more restrictions.\n\nClearly, mass vaccination doesn't end the pandemic or buy back your freedom.\n\nhttps://www.travelawaits.com/2713644/amsterdam-netherlands-business-curfew/\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/5en67BeR6Y
— PLC (@PLC) 1638467974
Cases in Vietnam are up 44,739% since \u201cexpert\u201d Gavin Yamey said they had done \u201csuperbly at suppressing viral transmission\u201d with masks & other interventions, and 448,295% since their mask mandate started, so get ready for more mask mandates & gaslighting from experts & politicianspic.twitter.com/yj0HvSFC42
— IM (@IM) 1638393745
Cases in Denmark have reached a new high, 3 weeks into vaccine passports for most businesses & major events & with ~90% of adults fully vaccinated\n\nAdvocating for vaccine passports, as experts, politicians & the media are currently doing, requires a willful disregard for realitypic.twitter.com/dQvjZ0JRm7
— IM (@IM) 1638390163
Hospitalizations in Vermont have reached a new high, with 99% of seniors fully vaccinated and ~65% having had a booster shot, but the important thing to remember is that this is all the fault of college football fans in the Southpic.twitter.com/dumAuL85kO
— IM (@IM) 1638383728
Hospitalizations in Michigan are the highest they\u2019ve ever been despite 93% of seniors having had at least one vaccination dose, well exceeding Fauci\u2019s 50% target, but the good news is that it\u2019s not the Governor\u2019s fault because she isn\u2019t Ron DeSantispic.twitter.com/QI2AxfSomq
— IM (@IM) 1638296008
Germany today announced they\u2019re starting a lockdown for the unvaccinated, which is bizarre because I was told by The Atlantic six weeks ago that all of their mask mandates, vaccine passports and mass testing were helping them \u201cbeat COVID\u201d\n\nWonder why everything stopped working!pic.twitter.com/RNiTH5JbOr
— IM (@IM) 1638470925
It\u2019s incredibly impressive how the media seamlessly moved from blaming unvaccinated Southerners for the big increase in cases over the summer to completely ignoring huge increases in countries like Iceland, with 92% of adults fully vaccinated\n\nAmazing how that works, isn\u2019t it?pic.twitter.com/hcEr5ZvPNX
— IM (@IM) 1638229235

And the rest is history.

The lesson here is that it’s not any one variant that is a problem in a vacuum. The only reason for panic is the concern of the ability of mass vaccination with a leaky, narrow-spectrum, non-sterilizing vaccine to expose any mild variant to evolutionary pressure that will make it stronger. The vaccine is the problem, not the solution. Delta should not have been worse than a previous variant and, in fact, should have been less virulent. But it might have gotten worse because of vaccine-mediated viral enhancement caused by suboptimal evolutionary pressure with a leaky, narrow-spectrum vaccine.

Which brings us to Omicron. We now see that this is clearly starting out as very mild, along the lines of the typical principle that in order for a virus to become more transmissible, it ratchets down its virulence. If that is the case, we should be praying for Omicron to box out Delta. As Dr. Coetzee said, "If, as some evidence suggests, Omicron turns out to be a fast-spreading virus with mostly mild symptoms for the majority of the people who catch it, that would be a useful step on the road to herd immunity."

However, if this variant in the coming weeks takes a sudden turn for the worse, we will know clearly that the vaccine unnaturally made it more virulent. Hopefully, Omicron is less prone to ADE than Delta. But either way, the reality of the past year has shown that fighting the virus with the current vaccines is akin to pouring gasoline instead of water on a fire.

Horowitz: More evidence coronavirus is instead of, not in addition to, the flu



What if COVID-19 actually supplants the circulation of the flu and serves as this year's only seasonal flu? What if all the panicking over coronavirus hospitalizations wrongly presupposes COVID-19 cases being added to the typical level of flu hospitalizations, which have now been reduced thanks to the immunobiological factors behind the circulation of SARS-CoV-2? Well, there is now more evidence that this coronavirus is this year's version of the flu, and therefore, hospitals are not in danger of being overwhelmed.

The entire impetus for these unprecedented, draconian response policies was the threat of hospitals being overrun beyond capacity. Now, putting aside whether lockdown policies are even successful in avoiding that outcome, there is no place in this country where our hospitals, especially given the surge in resources, could not handle this epidemic. The only way to suggest that our hospitals would be overrun would be to posit that we will suffer from at least an average flu and pneumonia season this winter together with COVID-19. But as I've noted before, that appears to be a false assumption.

According to the CDC's "Influenza Surveillance Report," there have been just 126 lab-confirmed flu cases in the entire country for the first three weeks of the flu season – from week 40 through week 42 (ending Oct. 17). While it's still very early in the season, at this point last year, there were already 1,975 confirmed positive cases. Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, tallied the five-year average through week 42 and found that the numbers are down roughly 90%.

Flu testing through the first three weeks of flu season. CDC flu view. https://t.co/Tu1Nm8xN93Five-year average:… https://t.co/7p9NK5iRpP
— Phil Kerpen (@Phil Kerpen)1603466586.0

The disappearance of the flu is not because of a lack of testing. The number of tests being administered is well within the historic average despite the focus and resources being directed toward COVID-19 testing. It's that the positivity rate dropped 90% over the five-year average. In fact, I could not find a year when the positivity rate was anywhere near this low ever since we started mass-testing for the flu.

As I reported earlier this month, data from all over the world shows that the flu disappeared from the Northern Hemisphere when COVID-19 hit in March or April and from the Southern Hemisphere throughout the northern summer. Now, the pattern appears to be holding as we head into the new flu season for the Northern Hemisphere.

Europeans are also beginning to observe this astonishing but promising phenomenon. Stefan Homburg, director of the Institute of Public Economics Leibniz University in Hanover, Germany, tweeted out a chart of World Health Organization (WHO) flu surveillance data showing a similar trend throughout the world:

Gute Nachricht: Seit April 2020 ist die Influenza weltweit vollständig verschwunden, anders als je zuvor.Oder - w… https://t.co/KB8kOxBmpy
— Stefan Homburg (@Stefan Homburg)1603614563.0

As you can see, all strains of the flu disappeared during the spring.

Great Britain's Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently posted data showing that flu and pneumonia deaths were down by nearly one-third this past September, compared to the five-year average. The flu isn't the only ailment that can trigger pneumonia; however, a spokesman for the ONS told the U.K. Daily Telegraph that those who would have died from pneumonia likely died earlier this year in the first wave of COVID-19. This demonstrates that coronavirus tends to kill many of the same people who die every year from flu/pneumonia. Thus, with the death rate of the virus much lower than it was in March and April, yet still seemingly having a biological effect of crowding out the flu, hospitals might actually be better off than in some flu seasons, assuming this trend continues into the core months of what should be a typical flu season.

In an article titled, "Has COVID killed off the flu?" the U.K. Daily Mail cites the WHO statistics first observed by Kyle Lamb of RationalGround.com – that confirmed flu cases across the globe were down 98%. The article cites two virologists who explain a possible theory behind the "crowding out" effect of coronavirus:

Virus expert Professor James Stewart, at the University of Liverpool, says: "Immune system cells come in and help destroy the first infection, and if another virus comes along that same response will fight it off."

Dr Groppelli adds: "Viruses are parasites. Once they enter a cell, they don't want other viruses to compete with. So the virus already in the body will effectively kick the other parasite out."

As such, could it be that over a period of several years, we will see weaker flu seasons, thereby resulting in few excess deaths over time? Remember, many have observed that while Sweden had fewer deaths per capita than other major European countries that had lockdowns, it seemed to have more recorded deaths initially than the other Scandinavian countries. However, among the many likely reasons for that dichotomy is the fact that Sweden had very weak flu seasons over the past two years, and 2019 was an all-around low mortality year.

Why did Sweden do so much "worse" than Norway & Denmark during the Spring? The entire difference may be explained b… https://t.co/XmzNH6oOFh
— PLC (@PLC)1603744186.0


Looking at moving average weekly mortality makes it clear that Sweden had very low death rates for nearly two years… https://t.co/tcHClQvzsr
— PLC (@PLC)1603744531.0

Furthermore, Sweden is now experiencing the lowest all-case mortality month on record. What's becoming clear is that the virus might kill some people several months early but might also kill those who, statistically speaking, should have died in the previous year. Consequently, unlike during the Spanish flu – when the median age of death was 29 and the world still suffered from bad flu seasons throughout the 1920s – we will not see a lot of excess deaths in the long run (except for lockdown deaths).

Already in the spring, a researcher at the University of Cambridge published a working paper showing an eerie correlation between the countries that had weak flu seasons since 2018 and higher COVID death rates – and vice versa. The analysis found, for example, that Belgium, which still has the highest death rate per capita in Europe, had the weakest flu seasons of all the European counties examined in the study. What this all means for hospitals headed into the winter is that an epidemic would only overrun hospitals if it augments rather than supplants existing ailments.

The only question now is how long the best-kept secret about COVID-19 will be covered up by the U.S. media? Perhaps, if Joe Biden wins the election, we will find out all about this and many other nuggets of good news that were too good to share with the public while Trump was president.