☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Thursday, March 3, 2022 ☙ GO GET HIM 🦠

The Economist and the WaPo dunk on the Big Guy’s big speech; Ivermectin gets some decent press; a study shows masks CAN'T work; Pfizer's first docs come out; jabs don't work well in kids; more...

We’re one whole day post-SOTU, do you feel different? Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, happy Thursday! Your roundup today includes: ivermectin gets some decent press; the Economist and the WaPo dunk on the Big Guy’s big speech; a new study proves it is physically impossible for cloth masks to stop Covid; comments on the Pfizer doc release; and several studies and trials suggest jabs aren’t working well in younger kids.

🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞

🪖 My client and friend Dr. John Littell was featured in a WESH 2-Orlando article headlined, “Florida Doctor Claims He’s Treated 3,000 COVID-19 Patients With Human Version of Ivermectin.” I was astounded to see it was a fair, balanced, and possibly even slightly favorable piece. For example, the aired portion describes Ivermectin as a drug that “could be a lifesaver.” It’s also the first time I’m aware of a midmarket media source publishing an article saying anything favorable about the antiparasitic drug.

If major regional TV stations can now discuss Ivermectin without getting cancelled, maybe it’s time for our politicians to grow a pair? Lead from behind!

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥 The Economist’s take on the Biden SOTU isn’t very encouraging for Dems. Its twitter headline was, “After a Little More Than One Year in Office, the President Is in a Slump. His Answers to America’s Domestic Ailments Were Unsatisfying.” You don’t say.

The article’s actual headline was even worse: “Joe Biden’s State-of-the-Union Address Fails to Impress.” Oh dear. Maybe he should’ve cancelled airplane masking like I suggested.

Keep in mind that marxists hollowed out the Economist years ago and is now a reliably leftwing mouthpiece. I keep waiting for them to run a cover saying “Capitalism is Dead” or something. So if they COULD have found something to like in the Big Guy’s speech, they would’ve.

Mocking Biden’s gaffe-making tongue seems way too easy — even for me — but the Economist went there:

“Never regarded as a gifted orator, Mr Biden was in especially poor form, stumbling through both his scripted lines and ad libs. He spoke of the ‘Iranian people’ when he meant Ukrainians and confused the word ‘vaccine’ for ‘virus’.”

Haha! True! And the mag noted the weirdest thing Biden said, which was cut off from the Fox feed that I watched, which had already switched to the talking heads. Any, the Economist called out the odd event:

“After the perfunctory closing line ‘May God protect our troops’, the president felt compelled to add a mystifying postscript: ‘Go get him!’ (or perhaps, as some transcribed it, ‘Go get ’em!’), he shouted into the microphone.”

It’s true. I’ve seen it on other clips. And, it IS mystifying. Bizarre, even. There’s no good explanation, except maybe he repeated some private communication he heard in his earpiece, like his aides telling each other to go get JOE. Not something you want repeated in friendly media.

Regarding his proposals, the Economist saw the speech the same way I did: “There were signs of cooling relations between the Democratic Party’s progressive and moderate factions.” The magazine said Biden was “pointedly distancing himself” from “progressive phraseology like ‘equity’ and ‘environmental justice’.”

Not a good sign.

🔥 Meanwhile, the Washington Post ran its SOTU story, not celebrating a victorious oration, but headlining “Fact-checking President Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address.” The usually-Biden-friendly paper identified a long list of misinformation in the Big Guy’s speech:

— Biden said: “Our economy created over 6.5 million new jobs just last year, more jobs created in one year than ever before in the history of America.”

WaPo: “The United States is emerging from a pandemic that caused huge job losses in 2020 — 9 million jobs, in fact.”

— Biden said: “The only president ever to cut the deficit by more than 1 trillion dollars in a single year.”

WaPo: “In the first four months of fiscal 2022, which began last October, the federal government ran a deficit of $259 billion.”

— Biden said: “America used to have the best roads, bridges, and airports on Earth. And now our infrastructure is ranked 13th in the world.”

WaPo: “Of the 12 economies the WEF ranked ahead of the United States, three — Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates — are tiny coastal city-states. That’s not a relevant comparison.”

— Biden said: “Look, repeal the liability shield. It makes gun manufacturers the only industry in America that can’t be sued.”

WaPo: “Biden’s language is too sweeping. Gun manufacturers can certainly be sued — and some other industries have some liability protections.” Like Pharma, say?

— Biden said: “Just last year, 55 Fortune 500 corporations earned $40 billion in profits and paid zero dollars in federal tax.”

WaPo: “The companies in question pay billions of dollars in federal payroll taxes. … The number comes from a report issued in April by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. .. Company tax returns generally are not made public, so ITEP’s numbers are the product of its own research and analysis of public filings.”

— Biden said: “Seventeen Nobel laureates in economics say my plan will ease long-term inflationary pressures.”

WaPo: “Biden’s plan has changed significantly since [the economists’ letter was written]. The bipartisan infrastructure plan became law, but the rest of the spending proposal has been pared back.”

— Biden said: “The single biggest investment in history was a bipartisan effort.”

WaPo: “While certainly the largest package of infrastructure spending in decades, the infrastructure bill passed in 2021 would not qualify as the largest in U.S. history. … Biden’s prepared text had different language, but in his telling, Biden made the claim more specific and less factual.”

So.

Biden should’ve stuck with the original plan to completely cancel the pandemic. It’s what everyone was expecting by the time he gave the speech anyway. This last-minute shimmy to the test-treat-jab plan, and the retention of airplane masking, cast a gloomy shadow on everything else he said, which didn’t amount to much anyways. So he’s not getting any bump this time. A massive wasted opportunity for dems.

Oh well! I wish he’d axed it, to be honest. My dad always used to say, “it doesn’t do a puppy dog any good to cut its tail off an inch at a time.” But at least it’s good news for everyone who would’ve been mad that Biden got a benefit from “ending the pandemic.”

😷 I laughed so hard at this next article that I snorted coffee into my brain pan. Yesterday, twenty-four hours post-SOTU, the Daily Mail UK ran an article headlined “So, What Was the Point? Cloth Masks Allow 90% of Particles to Filter Through Giving Them Little Ability to Prevent COVID Transmission, Study Finds.”

Hahahahahaha! What WAS the point, indeed, my jolly old chaps!

If only someone had warned us! If only there had been some way to know that cloth masks don’t stop viruses! My GOSH! Good thing the science has finally figured out this incredibly difficult enigmatic physics mystery. I hope somebody wins the Nobel prize for this, I really do. So let’s see what incredible new discovery the researchers uncovered to unravel decades, I mean months, of established scientific wisdom.

The researchers noted “that unlike N95 or surgical masks, cloth masks are not built using material made to filter out particles.” Wow. This is cutting edge science right here people. Pay attention to the miracles of the modern era. “Woven fabrics, such as cotton, make for good jeans, shirts, and other apparel, but they are lousy air filters,” said Richard Sear, co-author of the study and physicist at Surrey University.

PHYSICIST. Not doctor. Doctors NEVER should have been advising people about masks because they don’t understand basic physics. Masking isn’t medical science, it’s PHYSICS, because it’s about airflow and the behavior of tiny floating particles. With all due respect to doctors, and I know a bunch of good ones, they tend to think they know everything and can be pretty free with their opinions when they should probably refrain from comment.

In other words, Doctors should shut up about masks, because they don’t know what they’re talking about. Respectfully, of course.

Again, the story ISN’T that this study, which is based on a 3-D model, dissed masks and showed it is literally IMPOSSIBLE for them to filter virus particles. The study is not high-tech. The article is not complex. Both could have been done in about ten minutes back at the start of the pandemic. There’s nothing new here. Nothing’s been “developed.” The REAL story is that the Daily Mail ran the article at all, which can now be used to humiliate mask holdouts by unsympathetic or angry folks who were forced to wear useless masks for two years. Here’s the link: https://tinyurl.com/3p8ybxk3.

🔥 So Pfizer released its first batch of documents pursuant to Court order late Tuesday, and the media and agency investigators have been diligently digging through them ever since. Haha, just kidding. The media has a blackout on the story. There are NO official investigations pending anywhere in the US, right down to the county level. So it’s up to us. Again.

First of all, as a litigator, I immediately recognized that because Pfizer still has about a six-month window to produce all the docs, it will backload the production, producing the least useful and least damaging documents first, in hopes of going back to court later with a new development or argument. At that point they can say “Judge we’ve already produced 100,000 documents” or whatever.

Anyway, the point is, I’m not super excited about the March documents, not yet, because it wouldn’t make sense for Pfizer to produce the most damaging material first. Hot-takes are trickling out, but I would suggest care in putting too much stock in these early analyses. Whenever the issue is something that only independent analysts will cover, like this, I wait to read both sides’ takes before forming an opinion. In other words, after I read a credible claim going one way, I search for the rebuttal argument. Just like in court.

For example, much is being made of a nine-page list of “Adverse Events of Special Interest” that is included in the docs. But a hostile source that appears credible claims that “AESI” are just conditions that the drugmaker is paying special attention to, and may or may not have actually happened to anyone. So while it is interesting that Pfizer picked those particular nine pages of AESI, it is not necessarily informative.

The guy could be full of horse hockey. But it looks credible, and more importantly raises a question that has to be answered — what are AESI anyway? So let’s be patient and wait a little longer. That’s easy to do, right?

🔥 Meanwhile, the New York Times published an article Monday headlined, “Pfizer Shot Is Far Less Effective in 5- to 11-Year-Olds Than in Older Kids, New Data Show.” It describes a study run by New York State health officials who have been collecting jab data, and who found that Pfizer’s jab is much less effective in preventing infection in children ages 5 to 11 years than in older adolescents or adults.

The Times notes that this new information comes right behind Pfizer’s clinical trial results, which showed the vaccine performed poorly in children aged 2 to 4 years.

Apparently, the drug’s efficacy drastically worsens between ages 11 and 12. During the week ending January 30, the vaccine’s effectiveness against infection was 67 percent in 12-year-olds but just 11 percent in 11-year-old children. This is almost certainly related to disparate dosing, because 12-year-olds get 30 micrograms of the shot (same as adults), but children 11 and under only get 10 micrograms.

The Times noted that giving the children a higher dose to kick up the immune response may not be an option, because some data suggest that it may cause too many “fevers,” described by the paper as “an unwelcome and potentially dangerous side effect in young children.” Fevers is a technical term. So.

Finally, the article notes new information from CDC showing that, five months after immunization, two doses of the Pfizer vaccine appeared to offer virtually no defense at all against moderate illness from Omicron among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years. They suggested that boosting would “dramatically” increase efficacy.

Of course. We’ll see.

Have a terrific Thursday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for more.

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