Health
Even a Military-Enforced Quarantine Can’t Stop the Virus, Study Reveals
… extreme quarantine among military recruits did nothing to stop the virus, compared with a non-quarantine group.
Penned by Jeffery Tucker at American Institute for Economic Research
The New England Journal of Medicine has published a study that goes to the heart of the issue of lockdowns. The question has always been whether and to what extent a lockdown, however extreme, is capable of suppressing the virus. If so, you can make an argument that at least lockdowns, despite their astronomical social and economic costs, achieve something. If not, nations of the world have embarked on a catastrophic experiment that has destroyed billions of lives, and all expectation of human rights and liberties, with no payoff at all.
AIER has long highlighted studies that show no gain in virus management from lockdowns. Even as early as April, a major data scientist said that this virus becomes endemic in 70 days after the first round of infection, regardless of policies. The largest global study of lockdowns compared with deaths as published in The Lancet found no association between coercive stringencies and deaths per million.
To test further might seem superfluous but, for whatever reason, governments all over the world, including in the US, still are under the impression that they can affect viral transmissions through a range of “nonpharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs) like mandatory masks, forced human separation, stay-at-home orders, bans of gatherings, business and school closures, and extreme travel restrictions. Nothing like this has been tried on this scale in the whole of human history, so one might suppose that policy makers have some basis for their confidence that these measures accomplish something.
A study conducted by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in cooperation with the Naval Medical Research Center sought to test the whole idea of lockdowns. In May, 3,143 new recruits to the Marines were given the option to participate in a study of extreme quarantine (along with extreme antivirus measures) or not. The study was called CHARM, which stands for COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines. Of the recruits asked, a total of 1,848 young people agreed to be guinea pigs in this experiment. The remaining ones went about their normal basic training in regular ways.
What did the CHARM recruits have to do? The study explains, and, as you will see, they faced an even more strict regime that has existed in civilian life in most places.
All recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating; practiced social distancing of at least 6 feet; were not allowed to leave campus; did not have access to personal electronics and other items that might contribute to surface transmission; and routinely washed their hands. They slept in double-occupancy rooms with sinks, ate in shared dining facilities, and used shared bathrooms. All recruits cleaned their rooms daily, sanitized bathrooms after each use with bleach wipes, and ate preplated meals in a dining hall that was cleaned with bleach after each platoon had eaten. Most instruction and exercises were conducted outdoors. All movement of recruits was supervised, and unidirectional flow was implemented, with designated building entry and exit points to minimize contact among persons. All recruits, regardless of participation in the study, underwent daily temperature and symptom screening. Six instructors who were assigned to each platoon worked in 8-hour shifts and enforced the quarantine measures. If recruits reported any signs or symptoms consistent with Covid-19, they reported to sick call, underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and were placed in isolation pending the results of testing.
Instructors were also restricted to campus, were required to wear masks, were provided with preplated meals, and underwent daily temperature checks and symptom screening. Instructors who were assigned to a platoon in which a positive case was diagnosed underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and, if the result was positive, the instructor was removed from duty. Recruits and instructors were prohibited from interacting with campus support staff, such as janitorial and food-service personnel. After each class completed quarantine, a deep bleach cleaning of surfaces was performed in the bathrooms, showers, bedrooms, and hallways in the dormitories, and the dormitory remained unoccupied for at least 72 hours before reoccupancy.
The reputation of Marine basic training is that it is tough going but this really does take it to another level. All respect for those who volunteered for this! Also, this is an environment where those in charge do not mess around. There was surely close to 100% compliance, as compared with, for example, a typical college campus.
What were the results? Incredibly, 2% of the CHARM recruits still contracted the virus, even if all but one remained asymptomatic. “Our study showed that in a group of predominantly young male military recruits, approximately 2% became positive for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by qPCR assay, during a 2-week, strictly enforced quarantine.”
And how does this compare to the control group that was not subjected to the strict regime?
Have a look at this chart from the study:
Which is to say that the nonparticipants actually contracted the virus at a slightly lower rate than those who were under an extreme regime. Conversely, extreme enforcement of NPIs was associated with a greater degree of infection.
I’m grateful to Don Wolt for drawing my attention to this study, which, so far as I know, has received very little attention from any media source at all, despite having been published in the New England Journal of Medicine on November 11.
Here are four actual media headlines about the study that miss the point entirely:
- CNN: “Many military Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic, studies show”
- SciTech Daily: “Asymptomatic COVID-19 Transmission Revealed Through Study of 2,000 Marine Recruits”
- ABC: “Broad study of Marine recruits shows limits of COVID-19 symptom screening”
- US Navy: “Navy/Marine Corps COVID-19 Study Findings Published in New England Journal of Medicine”
No national news story that I have found highlighted the most important finding of all: extreme quarantine among military recruits did nothing to stop the virus, compared with a non-quarantine group.
The study is important because of the social structure of control here. It’s one thing to observe no effects from national lockdowns. There are countless variables here that could be invoked as cautionary notes: demographics, population density, preexisting immunities, degree of compliance, and so on. But with this Marine study, you have a near homogeneous group based on age, health, and densities of living. And even here, you see confirmed what so many other studies have shown: lockdowns are pointlessly destructive. They do not manage the disease. They crush human liberty and produce astonishing costs, such as 5.53 million years of lost life from the closing of schools alone.
The lockdowners keep telling us to pay attention to the science. That’s what we are doing. When the results contradict their pro-compulsion narrative, they pretend that the studies do not exist and barrel ahead with their scary plans to disable all social functioning in the presence of a virus. Lockdowns are not science. They never have been. They are an experiment in social/political top-down management that is without precedent in cost to life and liberty.
Health
FDA Committee Members Reviewing Pfizer Vaccine For Children Have Worked For Pfizer, Have Big Pfizer Connections
“The industry defends the attempts to influence committee members as simply efforts to best present their case”
The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee is holding a virtual meeting Tuesday October 26 to discuss authorizing a Pfizer-BioNTech Coronavirus vaccine for children between the ages of 5 to 11 years old.
This committee has a lot of sway with the FDA and their findings will be relevant, considering the Biden administration is getting ready to ship vaccines to elementary schools and California has already mandated the vaccine for schoolchildren pending federal authorization.
But the meeting roster shows that numerous members of the committee and temporary voting members have worked for Pfizer or have major connections to Pfizer.
Members include a former vice president of Pfizer Vaccines, a recent Pfizer consultant, a recent Pfizer research grant recipient, a man who mentored a current top Pfizer vaccine executive, a man who runs a center that gives out Pfizer vaccines, the chair of a Pfizer data group, a guy who was proudly photographed taking a Pfizer vaccine, and numerous people who are already on the record supporting Coronavirus vaccines for children. Meanwhile, recent FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is on Pfizer’s board of directors.
HERE’S THE MEETING ROSTER: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee October 26, 2021 Meeting Draft Roster.
Acting Chair Arnold S. Monto was a paid Pfizer consultant as recently as 2018.
Steven Pergam got the Pfizer vaccine: Building trust in safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines (fredhutch.org)
Committee member Archana Chatterjee worked on a research project related to vaccines for infants between 2018-2020, and the research project was sponsored by Pfizer.
Myron Levine has mentored some U.S. post-doctoral fellows, and one of his proteges happens to be Raphael Simon, the senior director of vaccine research and development at Pfizer.
James Hildreth, temporary voting member, made a financial interest disclosure for this meeting in which he disclosed more than $1.5 million in relevant financial interests, including his work as president of Meharry Medical College, which administers Pfizer Coronavirus vaccines.
Geeta K. Swamy is listed as the chair of the “Independent Data Monitoring Committee for the Pfizer Group B Streptococcus Vaccine Program,” a committee sponsored by Pfizer. Duke University states that “Dr. Swamy serves as a co-investigator for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trial.”
Gregg Sylvester previously served as a vice president for Pfizer Vaccines, where he launched Pfizer vaccines including one for children.
Among the meeting’s “temporary voting members,” Ofer Levy, Boston Children’s Hospital, is for the Pfizer vaccine for children, Eric Rubin is pro-vaccine for children, Jay Portnoy supports authorizing Coronavirus vaccines for kids, and Melinda Wharton complained over the summer about how orders for the CDC’s “Vaccines For Children” program dropped.
FDANews stated last December: “FDA advisory committee members in the past have frequently been the target of heavy politicking by industry representatives of whatever drug they were considering for a recommendation at in-person meetings. That process has been somewhat altered by the fact that during COVID-19, meetings are being held virtually. But it’s likely that behind-the-scenes pressuring still goes on. The industry defends the attempts to influence committee members as simply efforts to best present their case.”
Health
FDA Panel Backs Pfizer Shot For Kids: “We’re Never Going to Learn About How Safe This Vaccine Is Unless We Start Giving It”
The same FDA panel approved the rollout of boosters earlier this month based off “gut feeling” rather than data.
An FDA vaccine advisory panel on Tuesday voted unanimously 17-0 in favor shooting up kids aged 5-11 with Pfizer’s experimental mRNA injection with panelist Dr Eric Rubin stating, “we’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it.”
Full context:
“We’re never going to learn about how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it,” Dr Rubin said, urging other panelists to vote for it. “That’s just the way it goes.”
The panel voted in favor of experimenting on tens of millions of helpless children with zero long-term data on side effects because 94 children between 5 and 11 have died with COVID-19 (they claimed “of”) and “all have names. All of them had mothers,” to quote the emotional gobbledegook uttered by panelist Patrick S. Moore.
From The Washington Post:
“To me, it seems that it is a hard decision but a clear one,” said Patrick S. Moore, a University of Pittsburgh microbiologist and committee member. He noted that 94 children between 5 and 11 have died of covid-19, and “all have names. All of them had mothers.”
As the WSJ reported:
Members of the FDA’s vaccine-advisory panel supported Moderna’s booster dose even though the evidence for it was from a small study and had mixed results.
“It’s more a gut feeling rather than based on really truly serious data,” said Patrick Moore, a member of the committee and a professor of molecular genetics and biochemistry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “The data itself is not strong, but it is certainly going in the direction that is supportive of this vote.”
This is how they “follow the science.”
Health
Governor takes over state’s PRIVATE businesses, mandates vaccines for all
‘His message was crystal clear, obey or lose your job’
The governor of Washington has begun a process that could result in a statewide mandate for all workers to accept the experimental COVID-19 shots in order to be able to get a paycheck.
Across America already, universities, schools and hospitals have COVID vaccination mandates – even though as experimental treatments those actions remain under court challenge in many cases.
President Biden also has ordered the vaccinations for federal workers and the military. And companies with more than 100 employees.
But now Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee in Washington has moved the agenda even further.
A report at the PostMillennial explains under Inslee, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries has proposed an emergency package of rules addressing the “emergency powers” given Inslee to respond to COVID-19.
“This package, which is an extension of current mandates, grants Inslee the ability to enforce COVID vaccine mandates on all private businesses in the state of Washington, according to elected officials,” the report said.
It was a statement from Republicans Jim Walsh and Jesse Young of the legislature that revealed the actions.
“This mandate from L&I demonstrates a complete lack of transparency, which dilutes public trust in our government and fails to show the agency’s good faith in promulgating the rule. The reality is this move by L&I is a blank check for the agency to enforce any of the governor’s mandates or edicts on private employers,” they wrote.
They explained if the state agency wants such a rule, officials should request it in “an open and transparent manner that allows public review and comment.”
“Even if an opportunity for review and comment is not afforded the public, L&I’s website should host the proposed rulemaking to grant easy access to the public,” they said.
They also warned about arbitrary enforcement because of the proposal’s vagueness.
“There is no clear case for ‘good cause’ or ‘the preservation of the public health, safety, or general welfare’ as the governor’s proclamation already addresses these issues, making L&I’s mandate arbitrary and capricious,” they said. “We call on the governor to immediately repeal this mandate. If L&I wants to push this policy, it needs to go through the proper channels and work with the Legislature.”
The report explained Inslee’s recent vaccine mandate was unlike others in that it provided no opt-out for testing instead.
“His message was crystal clear, obey or lose your job,” the report said. “Despite mass protests across the state with thousands of state workers in attendance, Inslee followed through on his orders and terminated thousands that decided not to comply.”
The report warned, “If Inslee follows through on L&I’s emergency rulemaking package, all businesses and employees in the state of Washington will be subjected to submitting proof of vaccination as a condition of employment.”
Real Clear Policy earlier explained that Americans simply don’t like Biden’s orders and mandates.
The article pointed out that health authorities have openly misled the public, including top medical adviser Anthony Fauci’s multiple flip-flops on COVID issues.
He deceived the public, for example, by saying the public didn’t need to wear masks, then again when commenting about “herd immunity.”
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