☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Saturday, September 4, 2021 ☙ An Odious Scheme 🦠

Welcome to the weekend edition! Today we have a new weekly Covid report from the state to analyze, and it’s TERRIFIC. The Sun editorializes about my vaccine mandate lawsuit and I respond...

Welcome to the weekend edition! Today we have a new weekly Covid report from the state to analyze, and it’s TERRIFIC. The Gainesville Sun editorializes about my vaccine mandate lawsuit and I respond, an Ohio judge gives patients relief from overbearing doctors, rebellious Florida school boards try a new approach to beating the State’s requirement for a mask mandate opt-out, Ontario sees triple-digits of kids hospitalized by the vaxx, South Australia pushes the limits of dictatorial Covid-19 technology surveillance, Bloomberg says the quiet part out loud, and a Nobel-prize-winning scientist calls vaccine passports unscientific and unethical.

🗞 *THE C&C ARMY* POST* 🗞

(*just in the figurative sense. Don’t be so literal.)

☎️ If you are new here, and want to help convince legislators in Florida to call for a special session, text 5DAY to 43506 or enroll online at app.txtsignal.io/w/a5f1d78d. You’ll receive daily instructions and a script. It only takes a few minutes a day to help!

💐 I’d like to thank all the amazing, generous people who’ve donated their money, time, and everything else to the cause. It really is overwhelming. This week, I hired a new full-time person who spent most of her first two days on the phone with desperate people from all around the state, listening and trying to help them navigate the various mandates and coercive policies. I am looking for more smart, loyal, hardworking folks to expand the C&C effort.

🗒️ Shands CEO Ed Jimenez and I have been in email communications about his generous offer to respond to the Covid Challenge and obtain written answers to six vaccine-related questions. The update is, the hospital’s lead doctors sort of responded to our questions with a FAQ on its website. I pointed out a few areas where the answers could be improved a little and Mr. Jimenez said he would get back to me. So, stand by! I’m not claiming the prize yet, but we’re getting closer…

👨‍🏭 We’ll be building out the C&C post archives over at the new www.coffeeandcovid.com site. Fortunately Medium gave us copies of every previous post from that platform. It’s a good idea to sign up now so you won’t miss any email editions.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY*

🔥 Yours truly was a prominent focus of the Gainesville Sun’s lead editorial yesterday. Here’s the link.

As you may know, I filed the first lawsuit in Florida a week ago challenging the City’s “vaccinate or terminate” policy on statutory and constitutional grounds. I do not generally comment about pending litigation here, as veteran C&C readers surely remember from all of last year while we were litigating the mask case. But I think it is fair to say a few things in response to the editorial.

In particular, the Sun’s editors quoted a sentence from the complaint, but chopped it up. Here’s my full quote:

But now, all of a sudden — just a few months later — the Plaintiffs aren’t heroes anymore. They are now goats; scapegoats of failed City policy, scapegoats for failed political leaders and federal policies. In its mad rush to solve an intractable problem not of the Plaintiffs’ making, the City has conceived an odious scheme to coerce the Plaintiffs into taking unwanted and unnecessary Covid vaccines by threatening their livelihoods, pensions, and dreams.

Here’s a link to the whole complaint so you can read my statement in context.

Now, to be clear, I do NOT have any complaints about how the Sun’s editors compressed my statement. I don’t think their revisions were especially unfair, and they make sense when you consider that they couldn’t just reprint my entire complaint in their editorial and still keep it short and punchy. And they were trying to make a different point anyway, deflecting from the City officials’ involvement in failed Covid policy and trying to blame it on the Governor, with whom the Sun is not, shall we say, politically aligned.

The first thing I noticed was the Sun’s generous admission that the City’s leaders HAVE failed. It admitted, “Elected officials, from the federal government on down, share responsibility for the resurgent number of cases.” So, we agree on that much, at least. We only differ on WHICH policies led to the resurgent cases, that’s all. I’d say it was the harebrained lockdown policies that pulled the pandemic out like an over-stretched piece of taffy. But we’ll agree to disagree on that one. For now.

Next, the Sun said: “Childers is also wrong about the vaccines being unnecessary. Recent hospitalizations and deaths from COVID have overwhelmingly been among people who haven’t been vaccinated.”

Well. That’s what local hospitals have been saying. But the Sun is behind the news coming out of Israel, Britain, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, to name only a few. Recent hospitalizations and deaths from Covid have NOT overwhelmingly been among people who haven’t been vaccinated in those places. I would welcome any suggestion from the Sun as to why it thinks that Gainesville will be somehow shielded from that unfortunate development.

But where the Sun and I disagree most is illustrated by this assertion: “There is no ‘odious scheme’ at work with vaccine requirements, simply a sincere effort to boost vaccinations to the level needed to broadly protect our community.” Because the vaccines leak, we now know that vaccinations will NOT broadly protect our community. At least the Sun didn’t claim vaccination would end the pandemic or anything.

But even more importantly, the Sun and I disagree over whether the scheme is ‘odious’ and was ever a sincere effort to protect the community. Now that we’ve gotten internal documents revealing that the City rejected repeated calls to conduct a risk assessment before ordering ‘vaccinate or terminate,’ we can fairly conclude that the safety of the community was NOT one of the City’s primary objectives. I am certainly open to any alternative explanation that makes sense. I sure can’t see it. And I’ve been looking for it very hard.

Interestingly, as of this morning, there were no comments to the online version of the editorial. I don’t think the public generally shares the Sun’s unbridled enthusiasm for ‘vaccinate or terminate’ policies.

🔥 Last week, an Ohio judge ordered a hospital to administer ivermectin to a critical, ventilated Covid patient at his wife’s request. I’ve probably received at least half a dozen calls just this week from around the state from desperate relatives who are fighting with hospitals trying to get the doctors to accept their clearly-articulated treatment preferences.

There isn’t really any legal issue here. Doctors do NOT have the right to force a particular standard of care on any citizen. ESPECIALLY when the doctors are essentially doing nothing more than waiting for a patient to die. I don’t know what this widespread phenomenon means for the medical profession, but it ain’t good.

Physician, heal thyself.

🔥 Yesterday, Greenberg Traurig, one of the largest law firms in Florida filed an administrative action on behalf of three rebellious counties — Alachua, Broward, and Orange — seeking to obtain a declaration that the Department of Health’s requirement for an “opt-out” to mandatory mask policies does not mean what those words explicitly say. The counties argue that the school boards (1) should be able to interpret the words “must provide an opt-out” to mean the exact opposite, i.e., “may reject any opt-out,” and (2) they shouldn’t have to listen to the DOH anyway.

The 67-page blockbuster really shows a profound lack of confidence in Judge Cooper’s recent decision in the suit against the Governor. The school boards widely cites Judge Cooper’s words in their new administrative action, but since they are taking this new administrative route, they obviously expect that Judge Cooper will be reversed. Here’s a little inside baseball for you: when the parties who won at the trial court level aren’t even waiting for the appeal to try something completely different, it usually means that even they know the trial court’s decision was infirm.

Also yesterday, the Governor’s attorneys filed their appeal of Judge Cooper’s decision to the First District Court of Appeals.

💉 Ontario, Canada — population 14 million — has now seen over 100 hospitalizations for adverse vaccine reactions in kids. Vaccine pushers argue “that’s only a small number relative to the number of kids who live in Ontario.” Maybe. But it’s probably not that small a number of the kids who’ve been vaccinated who live there. Not small enough, anyway. How many kids put into the hospitals is an acceptable amount? How many would it take before we decide maybe the drug isn’t a good idea for kids? What do you say to the parents of the kids whose lives are being turned upside down right now? “Thanks for helping?”

🦘 The war for freedom continues Down Under. The Atlantic reported this week that new lunatic Covid-19 policies in South Australia are testing the boundaries of the biomedical police state:

[T]he government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. Returning travelers quarantining at home will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

Does he, now? Proud isn’t the word that I’d imagine South Australians are feeling. Terrified is probably a better fit.

💉 Last week Bloomberg published an article with a headline that said the quiet part out loud: “*The Vaccinated Are Worried and Scientists Don’t Have Answers*.”

Experts, baffled again!

Don’t you think it’s ironic that people were induced to take the jabs so they could STOP worrying? Now they are constantly being given new things to worry about. It’s almost like the GOAL is a perpetual state of worry.

Bloomberg reported that, “Anecdotes tell us what the data can’t: Vaccinated people appear to be getting the coronavirus at a surprisingly high rate.” Thank you! Finally, someone in Big Media said what’s been obvious to the rest of us for a while now. And, get this: “public policy makers … cite the lack of clarity to justify staying the course. It can all feel like a mess.”

So … not understanding what’s happening is a REASON to stay the course. Okay. A “mess” is one word for it. Another word for it is not suitable for a nice family blog like C&C, but it involves a big steaming pile of something.

Tom Friedan, former CDC director, said “There are a few things we can say definitively. One is that this is a hard question to address.”

What? Let me get this straight. One of the few things we can say definitively is that it is a hard question to address? What does that even mean? What is “definite” about a “hard question to address?” Isn’t that the OPPOSITE of “definite?” What are these experts blabbering about?

“It’s quite clear that we have more breakthroughs now,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “We all know someone who has had one. But we don’t have great clinical data.”

Oh, no? It’s truly fascinating why, with all the unprecedented local, state and federal surveillance, reporting, contact-tracing, and researching, we still don’t have “great clinical data,” by which I assume Ghandi euphemistically means, in expert-ese, “we have no idea.”

But don’t worry! The editors at the Gainesville Sun say that there is NO CHANCE vaxx people will get infected and hospitalized after getting the jab. None. Zip, zero, nada. You’re totally safe! Don’t listen to clueless experts! Just listen to newspaper editors!

Here’s how Bloomberg wraps up the article :

For the time being, there are simply more questions than answers. Are breakthrough infections ticking up because of the delta variant, waning immunity or a return to normal life? Are vaccinated people more vulnerable to severe illness than previously thought? Just how common are breakthrough infections? It’s anyone’s guess.

Hahaha! It’s anyone’s guess. ANYONE! You’re as good a guesser as all the experts and newspaper editors and anyone else. Remind me what we have all these so-called experts for again.

🔥 Nobel-prize winning Harvard scientist Martin Kulldorf summarized the recent Israeli study on natural Covid immunity, saying “In Israel, vaccinated individuals had 27 times higher risk of symptomatic COVID infection compared to those with natural immunity from prior COVID disease… No COVID deaths in either group.”

Because of this data, Kulldorf calls vaccine passports unscientific and unethical: “Prior COVID disease (many working class) provides better immunity than vaccines (many professionals), so vaccine mandates are not only scientific nonsense, they are also discriminatory and unethical.”

Um, Kulldorf is an expert. He seems to have SOME idea about what’s going on. Maybe we should listen to HIM? Asking for a friend.

📊*COVID IN FLORIDA AND ALACHUA COUNTY*

Great news today out of Florida. As you can see from today’s updated chart, Florida has finally cleared the summer wave and is headed down the backside.

Weekly hospitalizations have fallen from 16,164 to 14,577 — a significant shift, and even more compelling when compared to the peak of 17,198 three weeks ago.

Florida’s reported “cases” are down from 151,749 two weeks ago to only 129,240 last week. That is a major shift. Even better, cases under 12 fell 11% from the previous week, and for 12-29, cases fell 19%, in spite of increased school contact tracing and testing.

The state’s positivity rate fell again from 16.8% two weeks ago to 15.2% last week. That’s a HUGE reduction of about 25% off the peak from three weeks ago (19.8%).

Florida’s Harvard/Yale r-naught score is now down to 0.73 — lower than at any time during the pandemic. It’s now about HALF of the peak of 1.38 reached the week of July 15.

Alachua County’s positivity rate is down from a peak of 16.4% four weeks ago to 11.7% last week.

Only statewide “covid positive” deaths increased a little from 389 to 433. Since death reports lag everything else, we’ll expect this number to also start dropping over the next couple of weeks.

Now. Here’s an interesting fact for you. There are only five states in the U.S. that are recording falling Covid numbers. One of them is Florida. Now consider this: Since Florida implemented its free monoclonal antibody treatment centers — a move that experts and media personalities tried to discredit — the average daily number of new hospital admissions has fallen by nearly a quarter in just over 2 weeks. Just saying.

I’ll leave you with this encouraging thought. The 1918 influenza pandemic had three major waves over about a two-year period, and then the virus receded into ordinary endemic flu levels. We’ve now seen three major waves of Covid over about a two-year period. Maybe it’s all over. At least the medical part. Maybe.

Have a fantastic weekend! We’ll see you back here for more C&C on Monday to get you off to a great start.

---

Join the C&C Army!
You can find me at https://www.coffeeandcovid.com.
And, MeWe, mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.