It’s Thursday, and we have a major Coffee & Covid announcement — a new, more secure platform. In the news, we compare two letters published in the New England Journal of Medicine on emerging vaccine breakthrough infections — and it’s an eye-opener. Japan recalls millions of Pfizer doses after finding an unexpected ingredient. California shuts down a proposed statewide vaccine mandate, while New York deletes religious exemptions that its heroic healthcare workers always used to have. A new preprint study from the UK sheds more light on the efficacy of masks and social distancing in schools. And, Israel moves the goalposts. Again.

🦅 *WE’RE BACK! AND BIGGER THAN EVER* 🦅

www.coffeeandcovid.com. Spread it far and wide. Sign up so you can get C&C daily posts emailed to you, where they’ll be safely cached in everyone’s email account. You can subscribe for free or get back in the C&C Army. You can donate any amount this time. By getting the email version, you’ll be more easily able to forward and share posts with your network, especially with folks who eschew Facebooking or are perma-banned or whatever.

Sunday’s C&C post, which triggered Medium’s deplatforming, got 30,000 views in 24 hours, and 90,000 views in 72 hours. I was thinking about how Facebook has put three of my posts in jail during the last year and a half (two were restored after an appeal). All three were posts going viral. None of my material is conspiracy theory or even unique content — I just comment on mainstream news articles, studies, and information from the big agencies. So what I’m starting to suspect is that the platforms are using selective deplatforming to nip badthink in the bud whenever we start getting some traction.

Here’s the new link to Sunday’s post: What the Church Needs to Know about Covid-19, https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/what-the-church-needs-to-know-about-covid-19-2307dc2a111c.

What I’d like next — if you’re game — is for you guys to spread this article even wider and further than we did last Sunday. Let’s teach them that deplatforming doesn’t work to stop important information from getting out. If we can do that, maybe they’ll quit with all the censorship (haha, I know, I know).

The technology, now under our own URL, is Substack, which says it is committed to free speech, and according to what I’ve read, turned down a buyout offer from Twitter last year. It also hosts some other deplatformed authors like Alex Berenson. So I think it will get us a ways down the road.

Let’s get a million views on Sunday’s post. It might have only been a couple hundred thousand if they hadn’t cancelled it. And it will set up part II. Sunday’s post was Part I — a letter to pastors. This Sunday I aim to post Part II — a letter to all Christians (and other faith traditions, even atheists). You know, I might not have been inspired to write it had I not been cancelled; I feel like we’re onto something.

🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞

☎️ I’m SO proud of you guys — the calling is working! I’m initiating the next phase already, can’t mention the details yet, but will explain soon. If you are new here and want to help, text 5DAY to 43506 or enroll online at app.txtsignal.io/w/a5f1d78d. Leave this message at each number: “We want you to file a certificate calling for a special session under section 11.011(2), which allows only 20% of lawmakers to trigger the process starting a special session. We need anti-mask and anti-vaccine-mandate laws before hospital workers start getting fired in large numbers, which threatens our critical medical capacity. Please do it today — don’t wait any more. It has to start somewhere.”

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY*

🔬 Let’s look at two recent letters to the editor published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The first one, published two weeks ago, is headlined, “*Breakthrough Infections in BNT162b2-Vaccinated Health Care Workers*.” It describes four healthy and fully-vaccinated medical workers out of 1,137 who had breakthrough infections. The first interesting point the letter makes is that the breakthrough rate is 0.35%. What’s interesting about that number is that it is wildly higher — about 800% higher — than the initial phase 3 trials, which reported only 0.05% of breakthroughs (8 out of 17,411).

So there’s that.

But check this out. Then they ran genomic testing on the breakthrough patients. Guess which “variant” it was? Delta? Nope. ALPHA. The original strain. These breakthroughs weren’t a result of vaccine escape, at all. Apparently Alpha was beating the vaccines at rates far higher than what Pfizer and Moderna reported in their final clinical trials.

The second letter, published yesterday, is headlined, “*Resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Highly Vaccinated Health System Workforce*.”

The letter reports that, in the University of California San Diego Health (UCSDH) system, 83% of the healthcare workers had been fully vaccinated by July 15. During the initial vaccination period between March and June, they had fewer than 30 positive cases every month. But after July 15, it says “infections increased rapidly, including cases among fully vaccinated persons.” Oh.

Between March and July 31, 227 UCSDH workers tested positive for Covid. Guess how many were fully vaccinated? Fifty-seven percent (57%), or 130 of them. Of those breakthroughs, 83.8% were SYMPTOMATIC. There were no deaths in either the unvaccinated or the post-vaxx people, so the vaccines showed no advantage.

The researchers who published the letter speculated about the causes. Maybe because delta. Maybe because the mask mandate was lifted on July 15. They don’t know.

Now, if you look carefully at the timeline I described, you’ll see that there was a massive spike in vaccinated infections in just a SIX WEEK PERIOD — between June 1 and July 15. The unvaccinated infections also increased, but more slowly. The researchers included a chart, which they carefully (and smartly) described as “variants among healthcare workers.” I think they did this for cover. The researcher’s graph is so dramatic that I’m including it with today’s post:

See anything interesting there? Of course you do. What leaps off the screen directly into your prefrontal cortex’s lap is how much MORE OFTEN the vaccinated workers are being infected than the unvaccinated workers. What. The. Heck. This was NOT supposed to happen. It was supposed to be the EXACT OPPOSITE. That’s what Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky promised. Take the vaccines and you’ll be protected. For safety. Or something.

And check out the trajectory of breakthrough infections in vaxx people. It’s heading straight up. I wonder what August’s data will look like?

Since the vaxx people can transmit the virus, and they are the majority of new infections, the vaxxed are now more of a risk to their unvaccinated co-workers than the other way around.

So, explain the vaccine-mandate strategy to me again? How’s it supposed to work? And, how’s it going?

💉 Japan is recalling over a million Moderna vaccine doses, and suspending the production of millions more, after discovering that the drugs were contaminated with TINY PARTICLES OF STAINLESS STEEL. I am not making that up. And, um, over a HALF MILLION PEOPLE in Japan got shots from contaminated batches before they figured it out.

But don’t worry! The Pharma officials and government experts said that they “do not believe” the steel particles pose any health risks to anybody. Um, okay … but if so, why recall the doses, then? Why not keep on jabbing them? If they are so harmless, why throw away all those expensive vaccines? And … the experts do not “believe” the tiny steel particles pose risks? Believe? We’re going on faith now?

Remember all those viral videos of people sticking magnets to themselves after getting the shots? Total hoax, right? Completely debunked? Are we SURE? Like, REALLY sure?

Things are just going SO awesome with these experts in charge. Let me know when you think we should get some new experts.

🔥 Just when you think you’re ready to write California off as a lost cause, some gopher-like sanity pops up out of a hole in the ground. On Tuesday, a proposed vaccine verification bill that would have required all employees, public or private, to show proof of vaccination or take a weekly Covid test was quietly defeated. So, that’s good. But of course, democrat assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, who sponsored the bill, said she will keep on trying to build more consensus for a new, better bill.

🔥 On the other hand, on Monday, the New York Department of Health unanimously approved an emergency order banning religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate that have always been available for healthcare workers. Don’t worry, it’s not religious persecution. C’mon, man. Be serious. Now, a half-million medical personnel have lost their long-standing ability to raise their religious concerns about the jab. So. Take that, heroes of the pandemic.

🔬 A new preprint study published in MedRxIV this week is headlined, “*COVID-19 mitigation measures in primary schools and association with infection and school staff wellbeing: an observational survey linked with routine data in Wales, UK*.”

The researchers looked at various Covid-19 mitigation strategies used in schools in Wales (population 3.2 million), including masks and social distancing. Guess what they found? “There was no evidence that face coverings, 2-metre social distancing or stopping children mixing was associated with lower odds of COVID-19 or cold infection rates in the school.”

Oops! Take that, narrative!

There are now only about a LOT of studies concluding school masking does not result in lower Covid infection rates. Just ask me for links if you don’t believe me. When will we just accept that fact, and move on? I realize it is hard for some people.

💉 On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published a story headlined, “*In Israel, Being Fully Vaccinated Now Means Three Shots*.”

“We are updating what it means to be vaccinated,” said Israel’s coronavirus czar, Salman Zarka, at a press conference on Sunday. “Updating” what it means. Updating. Not “changing.” No. Change is bad. But updates are good! You’re welcome!

You never saw THAT coming, did you? You thought the goalposts were firmly planted this time. Two shots and out. But, nope.

CNBC reports that preliminary data published by the Israeli government in July showed the Pfizer vaccine was only 16% effective against symptomatic infection in people who had received two doses back in January. Only sixteen percent. In other words, a tiny fraction of the placebo threshold.

Two weeks ago, Science reported that US experts watch Israel’s data carefully. “I watch [the Israeli data] very, very closely because it is some of the absolutely best data coming out anywhere in the world,” says David O’Connor, a viral sequencing expert at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Israel is the model,” agreed Eric Topol, a physician-scientist at Scripps Research. “It’s pure mRNA vaccines. It’s out there early. It’s got a very high level population [uptake]. It’s a working experimental lab for us to learn from.”

I’ll need some help from someone with accounting background, because I’m starting to get too many of these wagers going at the same time. Still, here’s a new challenge: I’ll bet $1,000 that the term “fully vaccinated” doesn’t stop at three jabs. If it goes to four, you pay me $1,000. If they stop here, and the goalposts don’t move again, then I’ll pay YOU $1,000. You can agree to those terms in the comments if you want. It’s on!

Anyway, Israel just announced that people with fewer than three jabs will be restricted in their traveling, dining out, and other common, normal, everyday human activities. I mean, they have to do SOMETHING, right?

The articles reporting the “updated” rules say they are based on a “new study” showing TEN TIMES the protection after a booster shot. Sounds great, but then what they also admit, but don’t exactly highlight, is that the new “study” only lasted TWELVE DAYS. I had to read it twice. Twelve days? Is that a joke? Nope.

The booster eligibility period in Israel is now down to only five months. Gee, that was fast, huh?

Just to remind you, after the White House announced an aggressive five-month booster period for the US, the top two officials at the FDA abruptly resigned. So.

Have a terrific Thursday and I’ll be back here tomorrow. Do something good today!

You can also find me on Facebook and MeWe, mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.