The first case of a definitive reinfection was reported today
Before we look at whether a cold gives us protection let’s point out we don’t know how well a SARS 2 infection gives us protection.
A 33 year old man in Hong Kong was tested positive nearly five months after his first infection, and with a slightly different variant of the virus, so it’s very likely this was a second infection rather than a resurgence of the first. It hints that Covid may be a bit like the common cold, and our immunity may be partial and temporary which is not good news for the herd immunity idea and the vaccine plan, but it’s only one case. On the plus side, he had a three day fever, cough and sickness in March, but is asymptomatic this time, suggesting that maybe there is enough residual immunity to help him beat the second infection.
There have been other reports of people getting reinfected but none of the previous cases had genetic testing of both infections to show they were different. But 13% of 4,000 doctors who were surveyed in May (even at that early stage) believed that at least one of their patients had been reinfected, so it is not that rare.
UPDATE: Already today two other cases of reinfection have also turned up in Belgium and the Netherlands. More coming soon…
Predictably, vaccine makers are rushing to say that these are not unexpected and probably don’t matter, but other researchers are more concerned. Vaccines are less likely to work for long if our immune systems can’t achieve it with a natural infection.
How about Herd Immunity?
Keep in mind we don’t know if the second-timer in Hong Kong was infectious this time. His immunity may have helped him feel better, (or it could be that his Vitamin D level was higher in summer) but he may still be able to infect others. This makes all the difference. If people can still reinfect vulnerable family members their immunity is not protecting the herd. Some people are hoping that Herd Immunity may be reached at 20% infected but an asymptomatic infection is not the same as immunity. Asymptomatic people shed just as much virus as symptomatic people. (Seungjae Lee et al) The whole point of herd immunity is the kind of immunity that stops the spread of the virus.
After mild Covid-19 infections antibodies seem to fade fairly quickly, with a half life of 73 days. But could that protection be hiding in T cells, rather than antibodies?
Our immune system — like the armed forces
T cells are the deep controllers of white blood cells, and in one of their many roles, they activate the B cells that make the antibodies. Normally we test for antibodies to see if people have immunity because that’s the cheapest way to tell if the whole army of immune cells knows what to look for. A fully fledged antibody response is a mature, armed-and-ready response. It is usually assumed that if we don’t have antibodies we don’t have protection.
T-cells activate B-Cells, which make antibodies. | Image adapted from Mikael Häggström.
A flurry of studies have dug deeper and are finding that it’s possible to have T-cells specific to virus without having any detectable antibodies to it. Antibodies are like small sentinels and look outs, sweeping our mucosal surfaces and blood for threats. They offer fast protection, ready to raise the alarm. T-cells, perhaps are the Colonels and Generals as well as the SAS. They can get activated within hours. Albeit, hours can matter with exponential invaders.
Can common colds and T-cell memories give us protection? Maybe.
One fifth of all our colds are coronaviruses. People are estimated to get a coronavirus cold on average every two to three years. Protective antibodies wane between colds, but cellular (T cell) immunity “could remain”. People appear to get less severe infections after the initial rounds.
Sette and Crotty reviewed five studies on T-cells that showed that between 10 and 50% of people who have never been exposed to Coronavirus nonetheless carry T-cells that recognise parts of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.
It’s possible that T-cell recognition is useful and gives us a head start, but the authors warn that it might be good, irrelevant or even a bad thing. If the antibodies are aimed at the wrong parts of the virus they may send the immune system out on a dead end path. That’s the ‘original antigenic sin’. Think of a distracted army aiming for the wrong target. It’s also possible that the antibodies themselves are a pest, clogging up the works, or worse — even helping the dang virus get inside immune cells themselves (known as ADE) thus making the infection worse. (It is known to happen in Dengue, Zika, Ebola and with some Coronaviruses).
It is frequently assumed that pre-existing T cell memory against SARS-CoV-2 might be either beneficial or irrelevant. However, there is also the possibility that pre-existing immunity might actually be detrimental, through mechanisms such as ‘original antigenic sin’ (the propensity to elicit potentially inferior immune responses owing to pre-existing immune memory to a related pathogen), or through antibody-mediated disease enhancement. [ADE] While there is no direct evidence to support these outcomes, they must be considered. A detrimental effect linked to pre-existing immunity is eminently testable and would be revealed by the same COVID-19 cohort and vaccine studies proposed above. — Sette and Crotty.
It is a war out there.
We already knew around 45% of the population don’t seem to get any symptoms to Covid-19, so they are protected (from symptoms at least, though half show signs of lung damage). That may be because of their T-Cells, but it may not. Asymptomatic infections may occur because the initial viral load was low (masks help), or because they had a lower expression of ACE2, or higher Vitamin D levels, or high NK (Natural Killer cell) activity. It may be better cytokine production. And it may be something else entirely.
T-cells are mostly targeting the side of the spike, not the active end
Stick with me. We can learn a lot from Braun et al. They looked at which parts of the virus the T cells were reacting to, which matters. As we already know survivors seem to have more antibodies against the spike – not against the nucleocapsid shell.
Braun et al used 68 blood samples taken before the epidemic.They exposed their stored blood to the novel virus for 16 hours and found that 24 of the 68 samples proved to have T-cells that reacted in some way to the Coronavirus that they had never come across before. So 35% had some immune recognition. These are probably left over units from past battles with two of the common cold coronaviruses. We even know which two coronavirus common colds, namely 229E and OC43, are the top candidates because they have a few short amino acid sequences that are identical to sequences on the spikes on Covid viruses.
To figure out what the Tcells were aiming at, the researchers split the spike into S1 and S2 zones. But most of the T cells were reacting to the S2 part, and only 6% of the total sample carried T-cells that recognised the S1 part — which is probably the most important part as it contains the RBD (Receptor Binding Domain) at the active end of the spike — that’s the zinger hot spot that sticks to our ACE2 receptors.
This quiet line in Braun et al seemed important:
” Most COVID-19 patients with critical disease exhibited no reactivity to S-I “
Could it be that sickest patients were extra sick because they are not targeting the S1 area? Perhaps their immune systems were aiming at the wrong part of the spike? It’s not clear that T cells against the S2 area will help. This may be the antigenic sin Sette referred to, though Sette reviewed the Braun et al paper but did not comment on the S1 and S2 ratio.
The Braun et al paper was hard work to decipher. This diagram from Meirson et al helped explain what was going on. (My explanation of what this means is below).
Figure 1. Structural comparison of SARS-CoV-2 S protein conformational states. (A) Surface diagram of SARS-CoV-2 homotrimeric structure in the unbound- closed and open conformations. (B) Structural illustration of S protein, including functional domains (NTD, N-terminal domain; RBD, receptor-binding domain; CTD2, C-terminal domain 2; CTD, C-terminal domain 3; and proteolytic cleavage sites (S1/S2, S2’). (C) S trimer with one RBD in the open conformation and (D) RBD-ACE2 complex shown as a cartoon. (E) Superposed structures depicting the conformational changes between the unbound-open (left) to the ACE2-bound state. (Meirson et al, 2020)
Deciphering the spike picture above:
A/ Shows the spike in an open and closed form. The RBD means Receptor Binding Domain. That is the key spot that sticks to the ACE2 receptor. Obviously we don’t want that to happen. The “key” that clamps onto our cells is a way to open the door.
B/ Shows the genetic map. One spike is made of three repeats of this code string. The RBD is on the first part of the coding string (which the researchers call S1). Looking at picture D, we see that the N terminal end starts near the virus membrane then reaches out along the spike to the important RBD. Then the string folds back on itself so that the C terminal ends up close to the starting point. The middle of the string sticks out on spike.
C/ One of the spike sections hinges open.
D/ The skeleton of the long string molecules, plus the ACE2 molecule the spike sticks too. Everything in biology is done in strings — that’s how they are read from the code.
E/ Some pretty tricky engineering changes happen as the spike bites the ACE2 receptor.
The spike proteins are quite different in the different coronaviruses, but there are a few common sections and some people have antibodies to parts on what is called the C-terminal. The question that matters — are these T-Cells that recognise this part of the spike useful in preventing a bad disease. Do they neutralize the virus, or just clog up our antibody tests?
Here’s another image below, a bit like the one above. The skinny part of the spike is connected to the virus. The fat part is seeking out your ACE2 cells and wants to clamp on them. The two orange parts are probably the most important targets of antibodies.
N terminal, C Terminal, SARS CoV2, graphic, spike, Covid. Rahman et al
The big questions
Can T-cells protect us from a bad Covid infection? Are they the reason about 45% of people appear not to get any symptoms at all? But if these T cells are useful why do so many medical workers catch Covid? Why are the ranges of T cell responses here so wide? There is the puzzle that children suffer worse colds, yet get better protection from Covid, though have at least as much virus in their noses and throats.
Will people with reinfections of Covid shed less virus than the first time?
ABSTRACT Braun et al 2020
The biological role of pre-existing SARS-CoV-2 S-cross-reactive CD4+ T cells in 34% of HD remains unclear for now. However, these cells may represent the key to understanding the vastly divergent manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 disease courses, and particularly the suspected 179 high rate of asymptomatic infections in children and young adults assuming that these S-crossreactive CD4+ T cells have a protective role in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Since children and young adults have on average more frequent social contacts than the elderly, one might expect a higher transmission rate and HCoV prevalence in the former. This assumption would need to be investigated in future longitudinal studies assessing the presence of pre-existing SARS-CoV2-cross-reactive CD4+ T cells and their impact on the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infcetion and age-realted clinical outcomes of COVID-19. SARS-CoV neutralizing antibodies are associated with convalescence, and they have been detected 12 months after disease. However, the durability of neutralizing antibody responses 188 against SARS-CoV-2 currently remains unknown. Antibodies against HCoV can wane within 18 months after infection, although HCoV re-infection is accompanied by low-level and shortlived virus shedding with only mild symptoms of short duration pointing towards residual immunity…
ABBREVIATIONS
- PMBC: peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) is any peripheral blood cell having a round nucleus. These cells consist of lymphocytes (T cells, B cells, NK cells) and monocytes.
- CCC: Common cold coronavirus.
- HD: Healthy Donor (unexposed to Covid).
- RHD: Reactive Healthy Donor (subset of HD with T-Cells that react).
- RBD: Receptor Binding Domain. (The part of the spike that docks with human ACE2 receptors).
- Epitope – the small spot on a molecule that elicits an immune response or that antibodies specifically aim at.
- SARS-2: My lazy shorthand for SARS-Cov-2, which was boringly long and detailed. Obviously after SARS-1 comes SARS-2.
- ADE: Antibody mediated enhancement (where antibodies make infections worse).
REFERENCES
Braun et al (2020) Presence of SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells in COVID-19 patients and healthy 2 donors, Nature, July 29, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2598-9
Meirson et al (2020) Structural basis of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induced by ACE2, bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.24.113175.
Rahman et al (2020) Epitope-based chimeric peptide vaccine design against S, M and E proteins of SARS-CoV-2, the etiologic agent of COVID-19 pandemic: an in silico approach, July 27, 2020, https://peerj.com/articles/9572/
Sette and Crotty (2020) Pre-existing immunity to SARS-Co-2: the knowns and unknowns, Nature Reviews, Immunology. Vol 20, p 457. Plus the correction.
It certainly does not look like a quickly made vaccine for all will work with the changing of this virus.
It did not cover what damages that the first infection may be permanent due to having this s3cond one which then could compound more damages to organs or lungs or blood.
Thank You!
Your far more informative and valuable than our media.
In Canada, our Prime Minister has already paid for 80 million shots and two major drug companies to be the first dosages of a vaccine. He really loves to blow through wasting debt money.
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https://hcqtrial.com/
This is disturbing.
On the face of the evidence Australia has been poorly served by our government health bureaucracy. They WANT to create and extend the Covid-19 crisis to get more MONEY.
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Countries that have higher humidity will have a malaria problem. Large parts of the population will be taking HCQ or equivalent. These countries are on the low Covid uptake list. Westernized countries that have mosquito reduction programs will not be so fortunate.
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Visitors to regions infected with malaria eg Europeans going to Nigeria will have to be on anti-malarials before going. It’s unlikely they will spread Covid-19.
The simplest thing to do to open up international flights is to insist that fliers be on HCQ + zinc two weeks before getting on the flight.
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https://research.monash.edu/en/projects/national-covid-19-clinical-evidence-taskforce-2
They have $100k funding.
They want more!
No money, no look at HCQ etc.
Vic State @ work via Monash Uni
Socialists always run out of other people’s money.
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Yet another reason why I won’t be taking any vaccine that was made in a hurry.
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““Bombshell evidence that COVID RNA base pairs are identical to chromosome 8 human DNA. Runtime 21:15”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2020/08/20/w-o-o-d-20-august-2020/#comment-132398
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More like an empty shell than a bombshell.
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Thanks Another Ian,
What this means-
A test claimed to detect and identify COVID RNA, (note ‘COVID’ not ‘Covid19’) will show positive to human chromosome 8.
The test will indicate something common in humans not a specific coronavirus.
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Q. If T cells are so useful why do so many health workers get covid ?
A. virus overload probably
meanwhile, in england last week, covid deaths fell to 135. some days with zero.
and the hysteria from the press and govt has not abated.
the hysteria amongst the general population has gone. I have 100% law abiding born again Christian
relatives imploring me to visit my cancer ridden brother. but its against the roolz
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One thing that has bothered me is why choirs can have an 80% and up infection rate but spouses infection rate seems to be low. Maybe the spouses are being infected, not being measured but being asymptotic. And in the case of the choirs they tested every person even if they do not appear sick. With 45% being asymptotic as mentioned in the article we would get:
30% Both showin symptoms
20% Both being asymptotic
50% One person showing symptoms and the other being asymptotic.
If half the couples showing symptoms came down at the same time then the observed infection rate for spouse to spouse would be =(half of 30%)/(50% + half of 30%) = 23%. This 23% number is in the ball park for the observed spouse to spouse infection rate. So instead of the spouse infection rate being under 30%, they are really being infected but their asymptotic.
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I would say to keep an eye on the J&J vaccine. It attached the spike proteins to an adenovirus. So any result that will trigger a corona virus immune response should be a targeted one for the spike proteins. The monkey trial were very small, but had extraordinary results.
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(my bolding here)
As an aside here, has anyone noticed how there have been quite literally zero protesting comments from the friends of the animals regarding animal testing of vaccines on this search for a Wuhan CCP virus vaccine.
Tony.
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I didn’t notice that Tony because there have been.
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oh… here is precisely one example https://www.adnews.com.au/campaigns/peta-calls-on-the-government-to-end-cruel-tests-on-animals
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should I keep going?
https://speakingofresearch.com/2020/04/28/irresponsible-behavior-by-animal-rights-activists-in-the-midst-of-a-global-health-crisis/
If there is one thing to learn with a blog post is to never use absolutes in your arguments.
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Absolument!
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No, you have made that argument many times before.
On the other hand Tony may be justified making a slight exaggeration to make his point.
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You can’t exaggerate more so it is not slight. He might find it amusing to post this opinion in certain Facebook and twitter communities who will be likewise amused to hear that they have been silent for months on this issue.
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And his point is? Is he saying that animal lib like people will drop their objections because they want a vaccine, thereby displaying the shallowness of their morality?
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No look, GI is absolutely right here, and I apologise most excellently and profusely. I forgot to check those high quality mainstream media daily articles he found from almost five Months back now.
I am really sorry, and perhaps GI might direct us to articles at more mainstream news outlets like perhaps the ABC, which is usually awash with this sort of information, you know, the news that lefties all read.
Tony.
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Just hubris Tony. You are not aware of something so you just know it is not happening. No need to check further than your own imagination.
Have you considered that those MS news outlets didn’t report it because (ta dah!) it is not newsworthy. Chew over that. And further consider this; maybe your assumed bias is all about your personal paranoia about reds under the bed.
06
And perhaps GI might also direct you to my twitter site, or my facebook site.
Hint – No to twitter, and for facebook, my last post there was about the Hazelwood closure back in March of 2017, so not sure if that is still open.
Not enough hours in the day to do any social media at all.
I guess that means I’m not woke. (and I think I can live with that)
Tony.
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So you have a poor handle on where people might be commenting as the basis to say they are not.
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I looked at the sites linked by GeeAye below.
The dates are 27 and 28 April 2020. Both object to testing on animals, the first does mention the word vaccine.
Neither site is well known but there it is – GeeAye is in this case (unusually) correct, and should be given that credit.
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There’s also this study that I mentioned previously.
Robust T cell immunity in convalescent individuals with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19
Specifically of interest (caveat of small sample size):
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Evolution. It’s much faster with huge numbers and with the pandemic affecting so many tens of millions, new strains arrive all the time. The mutation is so fast that in Australia they can track the infection in Brisbane to a hotel in Melbourne. Daniel Andrew’s hope that he could blame the community he has locked down has been proven wrong by the evidence he tried to hide, that it all came from his adventure in trying to buy votes and make money for his friends from lockdown on the cheap. And hide the impact of his inexplicable Burn Loot and Murder march. Australian never had slavery.
So we will see mutation working. On the plus side, whether it’s the hot Northern summer or mutation, many areas are reflecting a much lower death rate per capita. And like it’s precursor the 1918 Spanish flu, both more deadly and more benign mutations will occur.
And like the flu, innoculations will have to keep pace as the Northern Winter breeds more mutations. 80% of all people live in the Northern Hemisphere, 20% in the Southern tropics and only 2% in the bottom third of the planet. So every year we wait for the latest variation on the old Spanish flu. Multiple strains as well. I had the innoculation this year, knowing it was a waste. There are no flus around. If you have symptoms, you have Wu Flu.
My great hope is that this flu has occurred in a time where we have the microbiology, the gene mapping, the gene surgery and the nano technology to do something about it. General anti virals too. And the motivation with 7 billion potential hosts and victims on the planet. This battle will never end.
What we want to see is renewed and ongoing massive funding for viral research, not for weapons programs like the Wuhan Institute of Virology run by the Chinese military, but civil.
We want to stop mass infections exploding. WHO was supposed to do that, but obviously not when controlled by the CPC. And in doing so will also stop rapid mutation. That includes the common cold and the flu. And whooping cough and measles and so much more. Strangle these viruses and slowly eliminate them by denying them an exit strategy and new markets.
That is our real hope for the future of life and travel and business in a crowded world. Most of all, rapid 5 minute testing because that alone can stop viruses at the airport and cruise terminal and border. Test or innoculate before you travel. And be tested when you get on a plane. You will have the results when you land.
We escaped 30 years with travel without proof of innoculations. Rapid testing is the hope. And mandatory isolation if positive. As it used to be. We just ignored the lessons of history for three decades. Exactly as with the bushfires. Climate Change is a rubbish and deadly excuse for inaction on our highly flammable bush. And herd immunity is a lousy and deadly excuse for viral inaction at our borders.
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Apparently Rapid tests are available and cheap. Yet I know of no State Government that is using them, here nor overseas.
https://www.rapidtests.org/
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Amazing. Does this work? And if it does, why isn’t this everywhere? Masks are $10-$15 but a fast test which could save lives is $1? There is something wrong if this is true.
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Just one example then. Contact or close proximity sport could continue without long isolation, as it happening now in AFL, tennis, cricket. Two weeks is excessive if it could be reduced to days with testing. Even the Tour de France with daily testing, catching anyone anyone infected. Health workers. Surely an early detection is worth $1 a day? Hospitality workers. Travel, interstate and international.
Rapid cheap detection could stop the infection the moment it is detectable, before it doubles every two days and maximum effect of early treatment. Speed of detection is the key to elimination, spread prevention, movement of people, safety. $1 a day even, a tiny price for an incredible benefit.
30
The world has way too much focus on hospital treatment being the only option for COVID 19 and the vaccine. The response to COVID, like a lot of other diseases, should be multi- faceted. An emphasis on preventative health, including simple things like sunlight, Vitamin D, zinc levels, preventing diabetes etc. Stop obstructing the zinc ionophores (HCQ, Ivermectin etc) to allow treatment pre- hospital. As soon as hospital is the only option it’s way too late. Serum treatment from previously infected people. Then, once there is a safe, well evaluated vaccine people should have the option of getting the jab, not compulsory. Get rid of the lockdowns slowly and the masks- they only delay the inevitable and are only going to create worse problems of mental health etc. The only viable outcome has to be herd immunity where T-cells can deal with low viral load infection situations, which we then probably dont hear about. Stop the alarmism media. There is also a level of “incuriosity” regarding all these other options (rather than a vaccine) by the medical fraternity which is quite disturbing.
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As was mentioned before, governments love a silver bullet solution even if it turns out it doesn’t work effectively because they can’t be bothered to look at more than one solution.
20
I have to take issue with this comment:
“Asymptomatic people shed just as much virus as symptomatic people.”
Sorry what? Someone coughing continuously is clearly going to be shedding far more of the virus than someone breathing normally. I don’t have to be an epidemiological expert to understand that.
Also, with respect to the two-time infected chap, mild symptoms the first time and asymptomatic the second. Excuse me if I don’t go into full panic mode over this piece of news.
As a counter point to the current case load alarmism, I notice the media raving about the increased cases in the Spanish second wave. Yep, cases are up again, and despite being fairly high a couple weeks ago, they are barely seeing any deaths this time:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/
Perhaps only a smallish proportion of the population were likely to die from the virus and already have, or it is a more benign strain now, or treatment is effective now, or … lots of possible explanations, but clearly the CFR is vastly diminished this time around. Given where the case numbers were 2-4 weeks ago, the deaths ‘should have’ been a lot higher now.
I would really appreciate it if people stopped moving the goalposts on this epidemic in order to maximise the fear factor.
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There is a lot we don’t know, it maybe a designer virus, so the precautionary principle is required.
‘Even if the finding settles the question of whether people can be reinfected with the pandemic virus, it raises many additional questions: How often does this happen? Do people have milder infections, or no symptoms at all, the second time around? Can they still infect others? If natural infection does not always confer solid protection, will that be true for vaccines as well?’
Science Mag
35
Bulldust, There was meant to be a link to study but it was faulty html. Apologies. Have fixed. If you can find a study that can compare the rate of transmission from asymptomatic and symptomatic that would be useful. But we know from superspreading events at Choirs and Churches that people don’t need to cough to shed. Singing, shouting, loud talking is also effective.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2769235
” In this cohort study of symptomatic and asymptomatic patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection who were isolated in a community treatment center in Cheonan, Republic of Korea, the Ct values in asymptomatic patients were similar to those in symptomatic patients. Isolation of asymptomatic patients may be necessary to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2.”
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Spanish second wave, from the front line doctor.
https://youtu.be/SwlkumcRf6w
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MP: The death rate is very low in the Spanish second wave — probably because it is mostly in young people and seasonal fruit pickers etc. The older and at risk population are presumably masking up or staying home. Most people in Spain probably have high Vitamin D levels. Other nations cut Spain off from tourism because of the second wave. I doubt it is working out well for the economy.
While it seems useful. This doesn’t necessarily work out that well in the long run. If the people catching it now can catch it again in 6 months, the at-risk people will still be at risk. Obviously, nations should be using HCQ, Ivermectin, Vitamin D, and masking up. But if they don’t do that, we are hoping second infections will be less severe, and hoping that second infections will not shed the virus as long. We are hoping these asymptomatic infections are not causing lung damage or heart inflammation. Is anyone scanning for that in Spain? Can Vitamin D prevent those hidden outcomes?
PS: I gave up trying to get past the ads or whatever on youtube. I found this Breitbart version https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/08/23/there-is-no-emergency-spanish-doctor-blows-the-whistle-on-wu-flu/
But there is not much more there than theatrical tricks. Medical info within is about the same as what we can see on a Worldometer graph.
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I like that doctor. Sounds like a very pragmatic individual.
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So you can’t discredit anything that hospital doctor (not state medical bureaucrat) said? Thanks Jo.
21
If someone doesn’t make a scientific argument, how can I discredit it, other than to point out he only had theatre?
Even MP who put the link up agrees this was just theatrics.
Skeptics usually want some kind of evidence?
10
Yes the adds, but that is how they sustain themselves and the 5 seconds before I skip is nothing. I love the fact they are taking the money from the MSM.
You got the same out of it as I got “Theatrics”, the media thought they had a doctor that would follow their narrative, push the fear, but no they got one with a realistic opinion, so they ganged up and silenced a professional. Pretty much the normal now isn’t it.
The hcq and ivermectin, studies everywhere and its not used, why would that be, after all we are told to listen to the health professionals.
I read Breitbart every other day, I can’t link to anyone’s Facebook or Twitter feeds as I still have some standards all be it low.
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Jo, I use Add Blocker Plus :
https://adblockplus.org/
It works well for me . I allow the adds run on sites where they don’t annoy me as they help fund the site but if sites choose to run aggressive and annoying adds then for those sites I turn addblocker on . There are some sites that run annoying adds and prevent you from viewing the site with the add blocker on so I just don’t bother with those sites .
Also available for Firefox is an add-on called Enhancer for YouTube which is also useful .
I don’t have any problem with adds on You Tube these days .
00
MP, Delcon, you miss my point, imagine if we were at a book club discussing a book and one commenter kept saying “I think DJKSdhdj*shj45437”. It’s a style of conversation that contributes no actual argument or point. Everyone in the room has to stop and watch a video on their phone in order to reply.
If I get 20 comments a day linking to a 5 minute youtube (and other 20 emails like that) that’s 200 minutes or 3+ hours of my day just so I can reply. Can people see how this can’t work, and if it were a book club, would be considered lazy and not well mannered?
Furthermore, if the book club becomes too diluted with people who find theatrical unscientific commentators appealing, who post lazy links, or who respond “me too”, can you see how it becomes a less useful club for those who are looking to unpack the truth, rather than those seeking to reinforce whatever vision they hope is correct?
I repeat. If you see a youtube, and you can’t be bothered writing 30 seconds of words to explain why it’s worth watching, it’s not worth watching.
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A disease so deadly 75% needed to be tested to know they are sick.
Liked the bit about the Nightclubs being forced to shut at 1am, cause you know the virus comes out at 1:10.
No word on the testing rate, but its obvious the increase in cases is due to increased testing and this is exactly the same world wide, elevate the fear.
They are testing farm workers in Canada and the US and have found 100% of farm workers on some farms tested positive, of course this has shut down the farms as like here they can be charged with manslaughter. Supply chain. Food banks in the US have lines miles long.
Are we seeing the beginning of a starvation event, but who cares.
40
Jo,
The “Clearing the Fog” study of HCQ in Pakistan had its results published last Friday.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT04491994?term=HCQ&recrs=de&type=Intr&cond=COVID-19&draw=2&rank=6
Even the control group received Zinc supplements and Vitamin D, which I guess is understandable if you’re trying to test how much difference the HCQ makes. Anyhow, the published result seems to be absolutely no detectable difference in disease progression compared to the standard care control group.
This is surprising given the soundness of the theory behind how it should work, and one has to question why this is so different to what Zelenko and his German co-author published a month ago, where they said “the odds of hospitalization of treated patients were 84% less than in the untreated group.” The absence of hospitalisation implies the absence of disease progression (so this is not comparing apples to oranges, more like mandarins and oranges). How did 84% reduction become 0% reduction when it crossed the Atlantic? That’s a helluva airport tax.
One has to wonder if this unexpected figure is due to so many subjects being withdrawn from the control group. Four of them were removed because they developed a fever lasting longer than 3 days, which I’d think would be a normal COVID19 event that should be counted rather than setting them aside. Only 1 in the intervention group had that happen. Considering the intervention group was 2.3x the size¹ of control, surely we could say only 1/9th as many¹ fevers occurred with HCQ than without? That’s an 89% reduction which is very close to Zelenko’s 84%. Further, although the “PCR negativity on day 7 and 14 after admission” was also gathered that result has not been published. Can’t help but think the fog has not been cleared much at all by this study with the strange way the data has been processed.
Pakistan began importing HCQ from India for use on Covid19 back in April, and as recently as mid June India reaffirmed its decision to prescribe HCQ in mild cases of Covid19 but not severe cases. The doctors of the world must have huge amounts of data about this which have not been published.
There is another decent one in Spain which finished mid-June but has not been published yet.
On a related note, the COVID-19 Australia Epidemiology Report 23 was published yesterday. No new references to chloroquine have been added to it since last month. We’re still girt by ‘C’.
_____
¹ = Serp-compatible language has been used here.
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German specialist on autopsy results
subtitled
https://youtu.be/SwlkumcRf6w
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German autopsy specialist on the 100 autopsies he preformed on China Flu deaths
https://youtu.be/LfeN68Zp-TY
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Only watched the first two minutes.
Can’t see any reason to doubt what he says and it reinforces the suspicion that this is the world’s first computer driven politically inspired pandemic.
The “data” on deaths is unreliable because of the point he makes and on top of that the significant number of variable factors that exist in each country have been totally ignored.
That is not Science, or statistics; it’s politics.
Thanks for putting that up MP.
KK
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[SNIP Duplicate. Lone youtube links are like litter… ]
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“[SNIP Duplicate. Lone youtube links are like litter… ]”
[SNIP Duplicate. Lone youtube links are like Twitter… ]
Fixed it
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Further evidence that “nobody knows” as of yet, how this virus mutates, is controlled, or ever will be.
Continuing, or recurring, lockdowns, are not an answer to a changing virus nor are targeted immunizations that fight the last known version of the virus.
Theoretically, we are all dead at some point. From what, remains to be seen.
Methinks people ought to gain some level of perspective on this.
There is no universal immunization. There might never be one.
There may very well be useful treatments, ie. HCQ, Ivermectin, etc. Why not focus on those?
One might want to consider what society will look like for the survivors as well as what benefits the infected.
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Some perspective
https://youtu.be/FU3OibcindQ
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There is no perspective in “FU3OibcindQ”.
MP, can you please post words? Are there medical arguments or facts there? Youtube is too slow. I’m posting medical papers. Have you read the post?.
If the youtuber has not made a single argument worth 30 seconds of your time to type out, it’s clearly not worth watching.
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He states his perspective from the very start, with data that is available everywhere. He does not use fear to sell his perspective.
I did not require a preamble to watch it, adds do not concern me, if you don’t watch it, it worries me not.
[Email coming your way. MP – jo]
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France
Subtitled
https://youtu.be/0ulA8u05Z-Q
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you could just put all these into one post with some better annotation. The new Pat.
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Was going to do that, but I read that to many links put it into moderation.
Can’t replace Pat. I liked his links, he let the article/link make its own case without an op ed.
Miss that on here now.
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Where’s Pat? I miss those posts too.
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I miss Pat too, and hope he is OK.
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One more thing, I tried to understand your reply on the PCR tests the other day, amplification and all that, so I went looking on YOU TUBE. Pretty much how you put it, but the visuals of both tests PCR and Lamp explains much.
40 mins, well worth the 10 seconds of adds, if you skip ahead.
https://youtu.be/s_usIkrVQwE
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I can’t recall. Where you the one questioning PCR based on no knowledge or the one completely dissing it based on complete misunderstanding?
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No not I and I don’t think there was malice in the question. You gave a good reply but I could not get my head around the amplification and others.
But as you tend to do, you made me curious so I looked around.
That Vid appears to cover what you explained and it must of cost the lad a pretty penny to make, which is why I don’t begrudge them the adds, so they can make more informative vids.
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I’m glad you looked. I’m concerned by many comments about PCR (as an example but there are other aspects of covid like this) where it is just gainsay from somewhere they heard something. Then when some basic facts are presented they fight to the death to defend the thing that they heard somewhere. Some people get invested in their own facts and can’t back down.
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Ive posted this before
By focussing your consciousness on the thymus gland whilst ironing the vowel sound Ehm (sounds like emmm0, you can stimulate the production of t cells
This together with taking vitamin D supplements is something we all can do easily.
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Looking at the complex of ACE2 binding to the virus, E, I know it’s not scientific but has
anyone else noticed the head of the beautiful woman in yellow in the ACE2 configuration where her
head gets an orange hat from the virus. On top of that hat is a gargoyle blue-green face. There appears to be a medieval play going on here, somewhat more than just a chemical reaction. Just goes to show; a femme fatale always turns up somewhere.
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Yes.
There may even be a Killer T seahorse on the right.
🙂
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The issue of immunity has always fascinated me. It seems we get to know more and more about immune systems rather slowly since they only seem to come into fashion when either a) a vicious infection gets to do the rounds, or b) your own personal immune system behaves in less than seemingly helpful ways where hay fever and other allergies may be the tips of very large icebergs.
One of the principal difficulties with SARS-CoV-2 has, IMO, been the problems with testing both for the presence of the virus, and the person’s apparent ability to be immune to it when antibodies are not necessarily the only thing that stops infection. Without very reliable testing regimes we really cannot begin to understand how resistance to infection works for those who do resist without vaccine etc. I am unsure as to why our health systems have not got on top of the testing problems faster than they have achieved with this virus but I would guess our expertise has gone from producing excellence in a few places to producing mediocrity in any number of places.
Do we need to concentrate on getting back to and ensuring that every nation has a centre of health excellence that talks to every other nation’s centre of health excellence, and ensure that these centres are not controlled by a faceless bureaucracy like the UN?
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Yes, yes and yes.
KK
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…why do so many medical workers catch Covid?
Viral load, maybe?
There is a great difference between a scout mission, a special forces irrumption and a full-fledged invasion. A minimal response would be enough for the first two, but in the third case…
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Great article Jo. Very educational – or “Ed-juh-kay-shun-el” as Sir Les Paterson would say (with lots of spit).
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WOW.
It’s going to take me a while to go through all that.
I was going to comment on Antibody Mediated Enhancement as a potential problem, but I saw on scanning the article that it was addressed.
Personally, with my recent bad reaction to vaccines, and the likelihood that whatever one is rushed thru for COVID-19 will be problematic, it seems I’d be taking as big a risk with the vaccine as with the virus.
If Bill Gates can’t protect his software from computer viruses, I don’t trust him to protect me from a biological threat that is phenomenally more complex. And if it’s from someone else, I think they need to show it’s safe before anyone gets it.
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Just another thought…
“Vaccines are being developed at an unprecedented speed and are already in clinical trials, without preclinical testing for safety and efficacy. Yet, safety evaluation of candidate vaccines must not be overlooked.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0321-6
How much faith do YOU have in “the science,” given how many mistakes they’ve already made, like with HCQ?
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How can it be a “reinfection” if the cause is a different varient of the covid virus?
Is this not implying that anyone who contracts covid(who has had the seasonal flu,cold in nose covid virus)is reinfected with the common cold?
This pandemic has failed to live up to its advertising.
The Wuhan Flu is misfire as far as pandemics go.
Where is my “Bring out your dead?”
Sweden is most interesting now,especially after all the finger pointing at them when their outbreak first peaked.
Now Brazil,apparently stabilizing,offers a test for the Swedish numbers.
If Brazil pans out to over in 4 months with less than 150 000 dead,I see the Swedish numbers as confirmed.Those being 7000 dead out of 10 million,with no lockdown,no “emergency” for perpetuity.
Meanwhile,our panicked shutdown countries will still be locking down and prolonging our pain for years.
So much for “flattening the curve”.
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John, I think I saw that the new variant in the HK man is only 24 nucleotides different to the last one. In other words, it is to all intents and purposes the same virus, it has the same name. In other viruses we’d expect the immune system to recognise it with antibodies and stop it producing any copies, shedding and spreading and therefore stop infections.
Without antibodies it may take a day or two to reactive the immune system with t-cells. This may produce a smaller infection, but still allow asymptomatic shedding and spreading.
It’s good that he didn’t get sick. But not good that he may be able to infect others who may get very sick.
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Wonderful banter and conversation from quite possibly the best source on youtube and beyond.
“Immune 34: Coronavirus cross-reacting T cells
“4,429 views
“•Aug 25, 2020
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcLVFD-7cxo
“Vincent Racaniello
“63.4K subscribers
“Immune explains a study demonstrating T cells that react with SARS-CoV-2 epitopes in individuals who have never been infected with the virus, implying cross-reactivity with common cold “coronaviruses.
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The depressing part is, if the antibodies are selective for the non active part of the receptor
molecule, how many of the current numerous hopefuls have already failed but don’t know it?
The other part that is depressing in Australia is that our governments and medical bodies seem to be afflicted with tunnel vision. They consider vaccination as the sole way out of this viral conundrum about how and when we open up the economy. This is despite history at failed attempts to find vaccines for corona viruses. In the USA politics even tolerates deaths so long as nothing is done to make Trump more popular. This is sick stuff. When it is highly likely that it will be
antiviral therapeutics that get us out of this mess or make it more controllable, one has to
question why the minds of politicians and medical professionals steering the current response to this epidemic are so closed to therapeutics when they may be our final hope?
This has happened once before, with devastating consequences. That was with Anthropogenic warming.
I have just reread an article in an IPA Review, V69, 2/7/2017, by Brett Hogan titled ‘Warming Up in Rutherglen’. It shows the run around given to Graham Lloyd and Jennifer Marohasy (and Jo Nova) over the years. Abbott to give him his due had organised to investigate homogenisation methodolgy but was dumped beforehand and it never happened. Greg Hunt knocked it on the head and the BOM hid behind the names (reputations?) of NOAA, NASA and the UK MetOffice. These matters extended back over 5years. It shows reputations in these types of matters should count for nothing if no response to questioning is forthcoming. Furthermore, in matters of Climate and COVID-19, the most obvious question has to be : ‘Why are people running our official bodies and the nation obfuscating or in total denial about two matters totally determining the futures of both the nation and the people?’ Why?
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Doc, yes, it is depressing that there are medical interventions that are likely very helpful yet the governments keep letting people die who might be saved.
The corruption of the medical world has similarities to the climate world, but the money is larger, and the corruption is more professional.
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Doc,
Your reference to “anthropogenic global warming” in the last paragraph is a relevant guide to what is possible for the political class to achieve using a baseless conceptualization.
I’m very concerned that CV19 has a similar level of reality about it and is being used against us by opportunists.
As I see it, the structure of Australia’s CV19 response is almost beyond belief and poorly thought out.
Your lead in May be a bit harsh on the medical front line staff;
“The other part that is depressing in Australia is that our governments and medical bodies seem to be afflicted with tunnel vision.”
I suspect that front line medical people has little input to the “medical bodies” which are possibly just fronts for government policy.
Whatever, the whole mess is not doing us any good.
The Shut/LockDown is not only destroying lives and businesses, it is removing any trust in an important group coming through society:
# school students, have lost a year. Online classes? Don’t be stupid, that’s just a political nominal “fix” to take the heat off pollies: it doesn’t work.
# university students, the same.
# young people looking for work. Good luck with that; the economy is destroyed.
All to deal with a non event contagious pandemic that, in Australia, has regularly been outdone by past flu deaths, road accidents and suicides.
True, countries around the world are putting up large numbers of CV19 deaths which “may” be real, but the many variables driving these deaths may have more to do with poor or absent public immunisation programs and sanitation than the lethality of The Virus.
A major decision like lockdown requires a cost benefit analysis, and that has not been done in Australia.
Australia’s mental health has been trashed: just ask Noel Pearson what he thinks of our government.
KK
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#22 Kalm Keith. Thanks for that. It’s not to do with frontline staff. It’s all about the chiefs that
wield the power and make the decisions as to what is made available to those frontlines. The
problems are the decision makers, the politicians and the medical leaders defining the reaction to the virus, and to the belief that man governs the climate. This is the circle that defines the way everyone that
handles these two matters has to act and they place the limitations on how those frontlines can legally act.
What lays behind the decision of two State governments outlawing the use of the HCQ therapy?
It appears the main cover for the politicians are their medical epidemiologists or the BOM. THE practice then is, with Climate, people like the greens and WWF are given their heads. That’s votes, but the rest of society suffers extreme government actions. There is no balancing of opinions whatsoever. People have their reputations and lives destroyed on the basis of politicians chasing those votes. It’s one sided because of the nature of people we put in the parliament where science and statistical mathematics or the understanding of what is involved in making formal statements on such matters. The politicians are totally captured by the persons they pick to be the official voices of the BOM or any science and maths matters. There is almost zero ability in politicians to even begin to take on alternative views or open their minds. If they are backbencher and speak out, they place their jobs at risk. In Australia, the way these most urgent matters are decided is actually medieval. Disagreement with their political decisions is to risk everything but being burned at the stake. Politicians discuss nothing, seek no alternative view to those few they ascribe huge powers to. In these two most destructive matters for our nation, it’s a closed argument. As with the ABC,
Politicians seem to run a closed shop, listening to nobody outside their bureaucracies. They don’t appear to understand that their sources of advice can be as biased in their opinion giving as any other institution in
Our nation.
Sorry if this comes out as a rant, but I do not understand how, in a democracy, our governing bodies haven’t yet learned that the nation would go much further if their decision making was based on expanded sources of expert knowledge beyond what a stultified public bureaucracy can produce. This seems to be getting worse with time as knowledge grows exponentially and literally as fast as light, and no one body can any longer be regarded as the font of all knowledge on almost any topic. Unexplained actions, actions which nobody seemingly can come forward and defend logically,based on latest data should no longer have to be tolerated, because that flies in the face of encouraging the advancement of knowledge in the first place.
This argument goes for both the Climate and the epidemic.
Hogan’s article demonstrates the stupidities that
one has to tolerate as argument when the governing bodies are so undereducated in the matters at hand and it is easier to destroy those questioning the official line than it is to find a little humility and a lot of
extra understanding by listening to alternative, learned points of view. That is what I have found so
fulfilling about this site. I can’t add to the science, but by God I grab a lot of insight as to how quickly
everything is developing since my formal education and work finished. Government knowledge is limited
to that of those it uses to make decisions. Are they on top of their game? Is their knowledge up to date
enough to handle what is a new , destructive virus when we are told this IS a new virus and everyone is learning as they go?
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A fully justified and understandable “rant”.
What pushes both CAGW and CV19 hysteria is the same “forcing”: money and/or access to power and a good retirement package beyond what would be possible in a normal job.
From any engineering perspective the idea of making electricity using renewables is bizarre and damaging to society: the instigators are long gone when clean up time arrives, all too quickly.
There IS an undercurrent of money that is invisible to consumers but much appreciated by the Elites working the thing.
Just a small thought on CV19. Last week the total number of “tests” done in Australia was stated: I estimated that at $50 per test, the total government expenditure of our taxes was a minimum of $250,000,000: yes that’s a Quarter of a Billion dollars.
As I said last year on several occasions;
World War Three is here and we are being enslaved by the new elites who after grabbing their share, quickly pack up and move to New York.
The bottom line for CAGW and CV19 is Money and we get left to ponder the unused Desalination Plants littering the place and the wonderful outdoor cover provided for every school in Australia by a benevolent government. Money?
KK
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good little video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMT-AwkuRCU
What Determines T-Helper 1 vs T-Helper 2 Response?
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Absolutely excellent video resource. Thanks mwhite.
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