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"Current lockdown policies are devastating for public health.".
Now, being of a modest and retiring disposition, I am of course very reluctant to say "I told you so". And since Hitlinda and her government brilliantly succeeded in its strategy of scaring New Zealanders literally witless (a strategy I've mentioned before today, also) - to the extent that 50% of the population have proved to be 'useful idiots' by voting Labour - you might well say that I'm trying to shut the door after the horse has bolted.
But eventually, thank God, there will be another election and by then even the most idiotic of the idiots will have realised their ghastly mistake, as the results of Election 2020 will be obvious. Those results, according to 11,000 medical specialists and over 30,000 medical practitioners worldwide, including a group in New Zealand, will include:
- lower childhood vaccination rates
- worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes
- fewer cancer screenings
- deteriorating mental health
NZ epidemiologist Simon Thornley said yesterday that the founding signatories of Covid Plan B, the NZ contributors to the 'Declaration', "felt obliged by their professional ethics to assert the low risk posed by Covid19, the availability of treatment, the dangers of Government over-reaction, and primacy of the doctor-patient relationship.
Recent assessments by economists indicate that the costs of lockdowns in New Zealand outweigh benefits by a ratio of between 90 and 200 to one.
More evidence of the idiocy in New Zealand of the "I always vote Labour" non-thinking.
It's estimated that 300 cancer patients will die because of missed appointments. The child/youth mental health team in Auckland noted a 1000% increase in demand following the first lockdown and not a single client in the country was able to see their counselor during lockdown. The ramifications of that on a country with one of the worst suicide rates in the world is yet to be seen.
In the United Kingdom, more than 24,000 cases of cancer have gone undiagnosed as a result of the suspension of normal services while delays in treatment mean some people’s disease is now inoperable, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) says. 3,800 people whose cancer would usually have been picked up by screening have gone undiagnosed, CRUK believes. Another 20,300 cancers have also been missed because an estimated 290,000 people were not urgently referred by their GP for investigation within two weeks of possible cancer symptoms, it says.
"They have seen the data," says Thornley, "and ... the initial fear"...
...deliberately whipped up by our 'kind' PM Ardern (remember her death threat of "tens of thousands"? ...
..."is now clearly unfounded. They are seeing the damage to people’s health caused by institutional fear and compliance, and by elimination strategies and lockdowns. Unlike too many others, they are prepared to say so.
"Their statement will signal to like-minded New Zealanders in the healthcare sector that they can and should resist, and they should reassure patients and the public."
The group says its statement was intended to break the silence. NZ registered health practitioners who want to join the movement should sign the international Great Barrington Declaration and email Covid Plan B (info@covidplanb.co.nz).
Contact: Simon Thornley, 021 299 1752
We, the poor put-upon public, can sign too. More than 50,000 concerned citizens worldwide have already done that. 'Useful idiots', aka 'smiling zombies' may think Level One is the pandemic you have when you're not having a pandemic and now they're safe; 'kind' baby-butcher Ardern has saved them. Hah. Just wait for her threatened Second Wave.
And meanwhile, some NZ citizens are very concerned for family and friends in Australia, especially Melbourne where megalomaniac Premier Daniel Andrews has had everyone locked down for 112 days. 112 days of lockdown end today - for restaurants and bars, that is. For churches, who knows?
112 days without Holy Mass, without Holy Communion, when the need for the Bread of Heaven has never been greater. No wonder Melbourne Catholics are talking about acedia, that affliction suffered by monastics. "Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep" (1 Cor 11:30). It's simply appalling that the Catholic Church should sacrifice souls on the altar of the great god Covid.
Melbourne's Archbishop Peter Comensoli in his empty cathedral. What has he got to smile about? |
"Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed."
"Vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. For children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than ... influenza. As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection falls. All populations will eventually reach herd immunity. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.
The most compassionate approach is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk: Focused Protection.
- Nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity
- Frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors.
- Minimized staff rotation.
- Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered.
- They should meet family members outside rather than inside.
- Those not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal.
- Simple hygiene measures such as hand-washing and staying home when sick.
- Schools and universities should be open.
- Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.
The Great Barrington Declaration signatories: Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, biostatistician and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations; Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases;Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.
New Zealand's version of the Great Barrington Declaration is the Registered Health Practitioners for Covid Plan B. They have this to add:
"Health is based on freedom and trust. Free human beings can decide themselves about their health. Free societies decide in democratic discussions how to deal with their health."
But given Hitlinda's draconian 'mad March hare' measures, we have to ask, is New Zealand any longer a free society?
"The NZ Bill of Rights guarantees free choice of treatment. Fear of the pandemic" ...
orchestrated by NZ's very own Angel of Death Ardern
... "makes us unfree. It makes us see vaccination and lockdowns as the only way to get back to normality. International health data and our own experience shows that the fear engendered in the public and our patients is not proportional to the threat to their health posed by covid-19.
"New Zealand’s public health and economic response to Covid-19 ... is very likely to be more harmful than the threat posed by the virus in the medium to long term.
"Doctors can help ... by providing treatments if they fall ill to Covid-19. There is nothing we have yet seen in the features of this virus that warrants it being regarded as especially dangerous above the many other viruses that are with us every day.
"The infection fatality rate of Covid-19 is currently about 0.3% once antibody levels are accounted for. The infection fatality rate of influenza, which is strongest each winter, is about 0.1%. The age of people who die with Covid-19 is about the same as that from natural mortality. This information is enough to inspire us to take better care of our health, but not to drastically change our society and economy.
"About a third of Covid-19 positive patients have no symptoms, with about 90% of infections treated in the community, and only about 1.5% needing intensive care. In the US, almost all hospital treated cases have had other serious medical conditions and are almost all people who die with the virus are over 50 years old. Unusual or long lasting symptoms currently appear similar to a range of responses seen in other respiratory illnesses.
"Doctors now have many promising treatments against Covid-19, including vitamin D.
"Immune function can benefit from:
- minimising sugar
- refined starch intake
- several servings of fruit and vegetables daily
- being physically active
- socially connected
- having sensible sun exposure to ensure adequate levels of vitamin D
- avoiding tobacco and excess alcohol.
"Comorbidities that make people susceptible to Covid-19 (are) diabetes, hypertension and raised cholesterol. We need to treat Metabolic Syndrome which creates immune system dysfunction.
"Policies the Government should prioritise or review are:
- Adequate resourcing of high-quality infection control and care in rest homes and hospitals
- Abandoning lockdowns. These measures are disastrous economically and do little to contain viral spread.
- Review the requirement for managed quarantine and compulsory detention (which) leads to social isolation and undue mental distress.
- Further limits on border travel should be urgently reviewed.
- Avoid any measures that lead to social isolation.
- Review the requirement for compulsory diagnostic tests. Patients should have the right to refuse medical tests. Public health risk from this virus does not warrant these rights being superseded.
- Abandon the requirement for masks on public transport: the best epidemiological evidence does not support mask-wearing.
- Online patient consultations detract from the quality of the doctor-patient relationship and raise the risk of mis-diagnosis.
"As facts about the virus become self-evident, the public is wondering whether the current measures cause more harm than good. They will wonder why the authorities have been unwilling to listen to, or even allow, discussion of the facts and alternative policies."
The reason being that socialist governments just know what's best for us proles.
"We are deeply concerned that the consequence will be a loss of faith in health services, science and bureaucracy."
That's happened already.
Signatories:
Dr Cindy de Villiers – General Practitioner, M.B.,Ch.B;Dr Matthias Seidel – Obstetrician and Gynaecologist; Dr Anne O’Reilly – General Practitioner. MB BCh FRNZCGP; Dr Rob Maunsell – General Practitioner;Dr René de Monchy – Consultant Psychiatrist; Dr Robin Kelly – General Practitioner MRCS, LRCP, FRNZCGP; Dr Tessa Jones – Integrative medical practitioner MBChB, Dip Obs, FRNZCGP, FACNEM, FABAARM; Dr Alison Goodwin – General Practitioner, MBChB, FRNZCGP; Dr Ronald Goedeke – Director of Appearance Medicine, BSc Hons MBChB; Dr Deon Claassens – General Practitioner, MBChB, Dip. SportsMed, FRNZCGP; Shane Chafin – Pharmacist,AGPP,BCACP; Dr Ulrich Doering – General Practitioner, MBChB, Dipl O&G, FRNZCGP; Dr Samantha Bailey – Research Physician MBChB (Otago).
22 October 2020
"New Zealand has not released any analysis about the negative health impacts of the Covid-19 elimination and lockdown policy.
"Studies released in the UK this week indicate that their lockdowns are responsible for thousands of deaths and new illnesses, principally as a result of delayed cancer diagnoses (see note below).
"The only known study of lockdown health impacts in New Zealand was of a Dunedin primary health clinic, where referrals and tests had dropped 100% and 99% respectively. Anecdotal evidence provided to the Covid Plan B group is that referrals and tests may be down across the country by two thirds. Auckland District Health Board is also investigating after four women died during and after pregnancy this year, with three dying since alert level 3 was instituted in late March. Expected numbers of deaths are between 0 and one from previous years.
"Dr Simon Thornley, spokesman for Covid Plan B, said the Government’s elimination and lockdown policy was based on hope, because little analysis of the downsides of the policy has been carried out.
“If you base your rationale on discredited models and you don’t count impacts, this is not a policy based on evidence.
"This is a policy based on an assumption that the low Covid-19 impact is the result of the lockdown policy. There is no proof of that, and international studies indicate it is unlikely.
"This is also a policy continued on the assumption that there are no negative effects. But the effect on unemployment is now clear, with a 38% rise in adults on the jobseeker benefit since late March. Now, the impact of delayed diagnosis and under treatment of other conditions must be considered.
“We are not even trying to count what the other effects have been on health. We do not know how many people have died, had conditions or prognosis worsen because of the ways lockdown and fear have affected healthcare.
“We call on the Ministry of Health to undertake the same studies we’ve seen in the UK, and to weigh those costs against what they imagine, or count, are the benefits of the elimination strategy.”
Who knows what it would take for Hitlinda to lock us up for Christmas? We're thinking, not a lot. Probably depends on what Helen Clark has in mind for us.
Pope Francis greets gay film director Evgeny Afineevsky |
Meanwhile, although the Vatican as usual has tried hard to explicate (but has now been told to shut up), 'His Holiness' the pope has followed up his inexplicable remarks on civil unions by announcing he will celebrate Christmas in private. It seems St Peter's Basilica will be closed for Christmas.
Bergoglio (that styling seems more appropriate now, than 'His Holiness' has been jumped on for his "scandalous" endorsement of homosexual civil unions, Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan has asked the pontiff to retract his approval "for the sake of the salvation of his immortal soul."
"Every true Catholic, every true Catholic priest, every true Catholic bishop must with deep sorrow and a weeping heart regret and protest against the unheard fact, that Pope Francis ... uttered in the documentary film Francesco ... his support for civil same-sex unions."
Fr Michel Rodrigue |
We don't know what lies ahead for New Zealand or for the Church (thank God), and as Catholics and Christians we treat "our joys and afflictions with like indifference", but we need now to take heed of the many prophecies of the "Illumination of Conscience" which mystics say is imminent.
While no one is obliged to believe mystics, the Bible has this to day in Amos 3:7: "For the Lord God does nothing without first revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets."
On March 24, 2020, Father Michel Rodriguez Priest, Exorcist, Founder and Superior General of The Apostolic Fraternity of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre (founded in 2012) wrote the following to his supporters:
"You must now consecrate your house or apartment to the Eternal Father through the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary. We must regularly bless our places, our homes, with exorcised holy water. ...
"The prayer of the Holy Rosary, of Saint Michael the Archangel, and that of your guardian angels will be your comfort, your strength, your protection."