Good morning gang! Our roundup today includes: Triggered Stanford professors try to cancel a top Stanford Covid doc, a federal judge dismisses a lawsuit seeking to get rid of parental mask opt-outs in Florida, more outbreak news in unvaxx nursing home staff; CNN’s top Covid doc pens a HILARIOUS article about outbreaks, and a religious institution grudgingly agrees to accept religious exemptions to vaccination.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥 World-renowned Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya is having some trouble with the local wildlife. Dr. B. has an extensive resume, was one of the three drafters of the Great Barrington Declaration — which has been completely vindicated, in hindsight — and has published, testified, and spoken about Covid-19 in innumerable venues.

In a recent round-table with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Bhattacharya made the entirely uncontroversial point that “there is no high-quality evidence to support the assertion that masks stop the disease from spreading.” Completely true. Bhattacharya was only pointing out the well-known fact that there are no randomized controlled trials finding that masks provide any significant benefit outweighing their costs and risks.

Well. Apparently not EVERYBODY cares whether something is true. Doesn’t matte. They just don’t like it, they don’t want to hear it, it triggers them and totally gives them the sads. So naturally the RIGHT answer is to try to cancel the person who said the true thing that made them feel bad. Because science.

When mask champion Professor Melissa Bondy, also of Stanford, found out that Bhattacharya had mentioned the true fact there are no good mask trials, she got the vapors and nearly fainted. What on Earth?? It was just TOO MUCH. So she immediately took some critical time out of her busy day to bang out a fiery petition demanding that Stanford professors who spread misinformation and make grumpy people mad should be disciplined or fired or something.

The petition travels back in time to 2020 and basically accuses Bhattacharya of trying to kill grandma: “these recommendations are disturbing and contrary to public health standards; they foster uncertainty and anxiety and put lives at risk.”

It’s disturbing! We just can’t have people saying stuff that is “contrary to public health standards.” No way.

So, I guess stating facts “puts lives at risk” again. Just like in 2020. And, even worse, it makes your anxiety disorders flare up which makes your Xanax run out faster. No bueno. But lying, now, that’s much better. Lying keeps you safe and comfy and happy in your cozy cocoon of ignorance. So it seems Professor Bondy prefers that public health “experts” keep telling people what they WANT to hear — that masks keep those mean old virus germs off of you — and not disclosing awkward truths — like the fact that there aren’t yet any reliable studies proving that masks really keep you safe.

Stanford’s motto is “the winds of freedom blow.” The twenty-first century is just not working out like I’d hoped somehow.

Anyway, special thanks to Hall Monitor Bondy for helping keep everybody on the official script!

👨‍⚖️ Fortunately, apparently not EVERYONE shares Professor Bondy’s unwholesome enthusiasm for masks. Wednesday, federal judge Michael Moore in the Southern District of Florida (Miami) denied a lawsuit filed by parents of disabled kids who argued that everybody ELSE’s kids should have to do uncomfortable and invasive stuff to keep THEIR kids safe because fairness and community and working together or something. Science. Children’s bare faces are highly offensive to these parents, who just discovered how marvelous masks are about ten minutes ago.

Specifically, the parents complained about the fact that the Department of Health gave OTHER parents the right to “opt out” of mandatory mask policies. A right to opt out? What an outrage! Choice for others? Please.

So anyway, Judge Moore wrote in Wednesday’s ruling that the pugnacious parents should have pursued their administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit. Like petitioning the school board and stuff. As a litigator, I can tell you that a “go seek your administrative remedies” decision is vexing. To say the least. So.

🏥 Meanwhile, medical administrators continue to fail to heal themselves and instead just circle even faster down the Lovecraftian toilet bowl of madness. Last week, IU Health, the largest health care provider in Indiana, proudly announced it “suspended” 300 unvaccinated employees. Good! That will teach them!

It will also teach all the patients, who won’t get care from the suspended healthcare workers.

It will also teach the community, when medical capacity falls below minimally acceptable levels, like that hospital that had to suspend delivering babies because it laid off all the unvaccinated nurses in the delivery department.

It will also teach all the hospital’s managers, who are trying to juggle short staffing levels in their departments.

And finally, it will also teach the administrators who suspended the rebellious employees, when the administrators have to deal with all the ugly fallout from being short staffed and patients being sicker when they do come in and lost revenue from when they couldn’t provide ordinary service levels.

So there! Everybody learns a lesson. Nice job, IU Health!

💉 Oh dear. MORE breakthrough cases. This time, fourteen elderly residents of a French nursing home developed Covid-19 during an outbreak at the facility, despite being fully, safely, and effectively vaccinated against the virus, a study published Monday in JAMA Network Open found.

According to the study, the outbreak affected one in five residents who’d received both shots of the safe and effective vaccines, two one-dosers, and only one resident who was not vaccinated.

Let’s check those numbers one more time. Two single-dosing residents, eleven double-dosers, and only one vaccine resister.

Only one.

The article argues that, of course, the vaxx levels were high among the residents, so you’d expect high breakthrough cases. But, would you? I the vaxx LOWERS infection rates, you might still expect lower breakthroughs. But whatever. Here’s another interesting discovery: among the staff, only one third of the 102 staff members were vaxx. Of the 102, 12 were infected during the outbreak: nine unvaxx and three who’d taken the safe and effective vaccines. See how those numbers work out?

The SAME PROPORTION of vaxx staff — one third — were infected in proportion to the unvaxx staff. Almost like the vaccines conveyed no protection against infection at all. Which can’t possibly be right. Dr. Fauci said so. Science! Shut up!

The lead researcher on the study said the quiet part out loud. “Outbreaks can occur in nursing homes, even if residents are fully vaccinated,” Dr. Joel Belmin said. Oh.

Outbreaks. Outbreaks CAN occur in 100% vaxxed. Not just infections. Outbreaks. So.

💉 Yesterday, CNN published an unintentionally hilarious article written by its top medical correspondent and media personality, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

The article is supposed to be a nice reassuring piece about breakthrough infections. Don’t worry about them! The vaccines are awesome. In fact, Gupta even begins the piece by saying that breakthrough infections actually prove HOW WELL the vaccines are working. I am not making that up:

> “For the public health community and the scientists who helped create the vaccines, however, ‘breakthrough infection’ signifies just the opposite: proof the vaccine is doing its job, just as it should.”

Hahahaha! 2 + 2 = 5, dummies!

Then, Gupta says that the hospitals are reporting 90% of patients are totally “unvaccinated,” and they are NOT playing games with how they are counting vaccinated people, not this time, no way. You can believe them. But THEN, Gupta immediately admits that “At the same time, however, many of us know someone who, after being fully vaccinated, has tested positive for the coronavirus and showed symptoms. I know several, as well.”

Um. I’m pretty sure that Gupta — intentionally or unintentionally — just called the hospitals liars.

It gets even better. Gupta admits that we should probably stop calling breakthroughs “rare”:

> “[I]t makes the [breakthrough] phenomenon seem very real and not at all “rare” — so we should probably stop describing them that way. In fact, because vaccinated individuals are not getting tested very often, we have no idea how common these infections really are.”

Haha again! According to Gupta, WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY BREAKTHROUGH CASES THERE ARE. It could be a lot.

Gupta admits, “exact numbers on ‘breakthrough infections’ are hard to pin down. Again, part of that is because there is no nationwide data available on asymptomatic and mild breakthrough cases. And we also don’t routinely test the vaccinated[.]” Thanks for the data, CDC!

So what does Gupta propose to do about all this uncertainty and lack of good data? Mass surveillance testing? Randomized community tests?

Without any sense of irony or how much of a buffoon he looks like, Gupta — after admitting that we don’t have any reliable data on the proportions of breakthroughs — then goes through some long math and quotes Fauci and says that the proportions of breakthrough cases “confirm” that the vaccines are working. But wait. If you don’t know HOW MANY there are then how do you know what the PROPORTION is, dummy?

Don’t worry about it, says Gupta! It’s so simple. Let’s just stop calling them “breakthrough” cases! Let’s just come up with a better word! He can’t think of one right now though.

Gupta, a glutton for punishment, continues, re-defining what the vaccines are supposed to do. He quotes an NIH scientist who said, “The vaccines were always designed to focus against disease in the lower airways [the lungs] — not in the upper airways [the nose and upper throat].” Haha! Bet you didn’t know that! They’ve been keeping it a secret that the vaccines were “always” designed ONLY to work in the lungs. Since you aren’t an “expert,” you didn’t “need to know” that. But now you know. So.

I really want to wind this up but I can’t stop myself. He just gave me too much material to work with.

Gupta next goes on to admit that the vaccines stop working after a while, in a process he calls “waning.” Hey, natural immunity wanes too, he says. So waning doesn’t prove the vaccines don’t work. It’s the opposite! Waning proves they do work! “[E]ven if immunity among the vaccinated is found to decrease months or years after the second shot, that still doesn’t mean the vaccine isn’t working.”

Um. It’s MONTHS, doc. Not years. Months. Nice try though, slipping “years” in there, though. But don’t worry! Gupta says “when our antibody levels drop, we can wear a mask to avoid even that mild exposure. And, we may consider getting a booster shot or eventually an intranasal vaccine[.]”

Back to the masks! I guess they ARE better than vaccines, after all.

💉 The College Fix reported that Loyola University finally backed down and agreed to grant religious exemptions to mandatory vaccination after all. Well, they backed down after the Catholic university was threatened with a lawsuit, anyway. Now, you’d think that the ONE place that would honor a religious exemption to vaccination WITHOUT a lawsuit would be a catholic university. Apparently not.

The law firm who represented the exemption-seeking catholic students was Florida’s own Liberty Council. “Forcing any person to receive one of these COVID injections is a violation of both state and federal law,” the nonprofit’s chairman Matt Staver said. “In addition to federal law protections, Illinois has strong conscience protections.”

Lol. “Covid injections.” I love it.

Staver explained that, “[t]he students objected based on the fetal cell line/abortion connection since each of the three injections available were either produced or tested with fetal cell lines that originated in elective abortions.”

I think we need to come up with some kind of group or outfit or something that upholds biblical beliefs about life and stuff. We need something to fight against these catholic universities. Places that will teach kids sound theology. As opposed to schools like Loyola. Anybody have any ideas?

Have a fabulous Friday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more coffee and more covid. Covid NEWS, anyway.

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