☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Tuesday, February 22, 2022 ☙ ACCOUNTABILITY 🦠

Covid restrictions fall from the UK to Alachua County; UK advertises a new vaccine injury division; post-pandemic accountability shows up, first in Florida, of course; and more...

Happy Tuesday, C&C! Today’s roundup includes: one more week till Narrative 2.0 Covid restrictions fall from UK to Alachua County; the UK advertises for a new vaccine injury division; Australia tries to get tourists to ignore its quarantine camps; the Canadian parliament ratifies Trudeau’s Emergencies Act and Alberta files suit; a new lawsuit against Pfizer shows great potential; and post-pandemic accountability starts to show up, first in Florida, of course.

Substack readers: the platform had some kind of problem with its email system yesterday, but Monday’s post was on time and can be found on www.coffeeandcovid.com. If you don’t get an email, always check the website.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥 Heading into the final week before the public unveiling of Narrative 2.0, near and far, Covid restrictions are coming off faster than reporters strip off masks after the cameras cut out. CNN reported a story yesterday titled “Boris Johnson Announces the End of Covid Restrictions In England.” All of them.

Great Britain is done. Even though the 95-year-old Queen of England just tested positive, Johnson announced that yesterday was “the day when all the efforts of the last two years finally enabled us to protect ourselves while restoring our liberties in full.” Finally! The restrictions will be phased out over the next couple months.

And, here it is, just as I predicted, the key to ending the pandemic: the UK government will no longer provide public Covid testing starting April 1. “Because we know Omicron is less severe, testing for Omicron on the colossal scale we have been doing is now much less valuable in preventing serious illness,” Johnson explained. In other words, they are pulling the plug on mass surveillance testing, which is what got this whole thing started in the first place. CNN reports that, going forward “testing will be far more targeted.” Uh huh.

And remember: if you don’t test, there IS no pandemic. It’s just flu season again.

🔥 A good friend and alert reader alerted me to the fact that the UK’s National Health Service is looking for workers to staff up the VACCINE INJURY CLAIMS department. I am not making that up. And, you can’t beat the group’s name: the “Vaccine Damage Scheme Team.” God bless the British.

I just love the passive voice: “An opportunity has arisen.” It has arisen … out of nowhere? It’s a mystery. According to the online advertisement, the Scheme Team “works on behalf of the Department of Health … to process claims for a one-off payment to people who have suffered a severe disablement due to direct affects from a qualifying vaccination.”

Severe disablement. How many of these severely disabled folks do you need to have in a country of 60M people in order to staff a bureaucracy to handle them all?

If the large contingent on Twitter is any sign, there are still lots of people clinging to the childlike notion that “there is no evidence the vaccines are linked to severe side effects.” But I’d call an entire government bureau to pay claims for “severe disablement” a “link,” wouldn’t you? A link of SOME kind?

🔥 Closer to home, the county commission here in Alachua voted yesterday to end virtually all Covid restrictions. The local government here was one of the FIRST counties to order mandatory public masking, and despite the changes in Florida law has been tenaciously hanging onto minor mandates, by masking its employees, mandating masks in county buildings and at commission meetings, offering incentives and special sick-leave policies to vaccinated staff, and so forth. But now, there’ll be no extra paid leave time for Covid days or post-exposure quarantining. I bet that’ll cut down a lot of “cases.”

And take a guess at when the good times are coming to an end here in Alachua? Think about it. I bet you guessed it — February 28, the day before the you-know-what. I guess they got the memo!

So weird that the entire world — except Canada — is ending the pandemic all at the same time.

🦘 Reuters published an article late last week headlined, “Fortress Australia To Welcome Tourists for First Time Under COVID.” The gist is that, after two years of having their border sealed to ‘non-essential’ travel, international tourists will now be allowed to enter the “Covid-zero” country. “The wait is over,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Sunday. So.

There are some unintentionally hilarious quotes in the article. Steve Hughes, head of HSBC’s Australian commercial banking division, was quoted as saying “the reopening reinforces Australia’s credentials as an open economy.” He’s delusional. It will take a generation for anyone to recognize Australia’s credentials as an open economy.

I mean, even the quote itself. Think about it. He said “Australia’s credentials” will support its “open economy.” Credentials. Like, “papers, please.” That’s not open. Poor choice of words, Steve. But funny. Maybe he was trolling the reporters.

Then, late in the story, Reuters gets around to the small print, explaining that “fully vaccinated travellers, Australians and international, are not required to quarantine in managed facilities.” Hahaha! If they determine you’re not “fully vaccinated,” then you get an all-expense-paid trip to one of the “open economy’s” lovely prison camps, I mean quarantine resorts. Actually, it’s not free. They charge you. You can only leave after you’ve paid.

I’ve been to Australia twice. It’s a great country, and Australians are — individually — the best. But collectively, they’re a disaster. It’s fun to see kangaroos, kookaburra, and koalas, and to watch penguins waddling around on the beach, but I’m still giving it a pass. I’ll look at those animals on YouTube. I don’t fancy traveling 30 hours just to be bunged into a quarantine resort. HARD PASS.

Norway is looking pretty good, though. Maybe we’ll go see a glacier or a Christmas village or something.

🔥 Yesterday, the Canadian parliament voted 185-155 to ratify the use of the Emergencies Act against the trucker protest and everyone who ever supported it or even thought something nice about it. Separately, the Edmonton Sun reported a story headlined “Alberta Premier Jason Kenney filing legal challenge to end Trudeau’s Emergencies Act.”

Premier Kenney — Alberta’s governor — told media the use of Canada’s Emergencies Act was “unjustified in the circumstances,” an “overreach,” a violation of due process and “an intrusion into provincial jurisdiction.” So he’s suing. Good luck to him.

“The Emergencies Act was designed to come into effect at the failure of the state,” at a time when it was possible that democracy itself might fall. “However, there is no insurrection or coup,” Kenney said pointedly. “Police services already have all the powers they need through provincial authority. All the tools already exist.”

Kenney said that in the Prime Minister’s teleconference with premiers late last week, a majority (six of ten) of the provincial premiers urged Chinless Wonder Justin Trudeau NOT to implement the Emergencies Act. But, as you know, Trudeau did it anyway. For some reason. Paging Klaus Schwab.

🔥 Last week, the Court for the Eastern District of Texas unsealed a January 8, 2021 lawsuit against Pfizer and its clinical trial subcontractor, Ventavia. The suit was filed by a former Ventavia employee under the False Claims Act, which allows a U.S. citizen to sue anyone who defrauds the United States’ government.

The basis for the lawsuit is explained in its early paragraphs. Here’ the gist:

Defendants concealed violations of both their clinical trial protocol and federal regulations, including falsification of clinical trial documents. Due to Defendants’ scheme, millions of Americans have received a misbranded vaccination which is potentially not as effective as represented. The vaccine’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) authorization resulted from a deeply flawed clinical trial that violated FDA regulations. Defendants have profited from the COVID-19 pandemic at the expense of the United States and its citizens by abusing the scientific process.

The lawsuit is well-drafted, legit, and packed with interesting details for folks who enjoy that sort of thing. Here’s a link.

Unlike previous efforts, this lawsuit may have legs. I can't get the case history from Pacer yet. If they survived dismissal — the step that has killed previous attempts to get at the pharmaceutical giant — they’ll get discovery, and then we’ll really see the sparks fly. I'll update you when I can get visibility into the case.

This explains why the problems with Pfizer's clinical trials came out late last year, though.

🔥 The pandemic’s accountability phase is beginning to show signs of life. Maybe we’ll get some accountability after all. First, state school board associations are still punishing the National School Board Association (NSBA) for sending its odious letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which called for soccer moms to be investigated as domestic terrorists for criticizing school board members too harshly.

The latest state to drop out is the Idaho School Boards Association, which voted this week to terminate its membership with the NSBA, joining twenty-one other states that have fully dissociated, with an additional 7 states “distancing” themselves from the national group. That’s almost 3/5 of the states. It’s starting to look like the NSBA is toast. I guess that letter wasn’t such a hot idea after all.

🔥 In another example of post-pandemic accountability, Florida’s senate is considering passing a budget (it has already passed the house), which is alarming leftists worldwide. The Guardian UK reported the story with the headline, “Florida governor: school districts that defied no-mask mandate to lose $200m.” The budget bill seeks to punish defiant school districts by punching administrators in the wallet: school officials making more than $100K per year would get a pay cut. Nobody likes pay cuts.

Late last week after the budget passed the House, Republican congressman Randy Fine said “following the law is not optional. These school districts broke the law, and they were broken for nothing.” The budget — supported by Governor DeSantis — doesn’t affect any school programs of any kind.

Fine explained that the budget bill isn’t so much about punishing rebellious districts as it is “intended to reward the 55 [law-abiding] school districts, the overwhelming majority of which followed our state law and respected the rights of parents over the past year.”

Coffee & Covid officially supports the budget, which actually INCREASES education funding across the board, EVEN in the rebellious districts. It only pursues pay cuts for the highest-paid rebelling school officials, not teachers or staff. Opponents complain about things ranging from the clinically insane (“we’ll lose teachers!”) to general appeals to fairness (the bill doesn’t punish the School Board members who were the ones who actually rebelled).

While it is still too early to tell, Florida led the pandemic in re-opening, after all. Maybe this budget is a sign that Florida is leading the country in post-pandemic accountability, too. I hope so. Don’t get me wrong — I realize this is only a start. But we have to start somewhere.

My thought is, just declare a state of emergency and freeze their bank accounts. Haha, just kidding. But, accountability is important. And, fortunately, it seems some people in authority aren’t going to be so quick to forgive the heavy-handed tactics wielded over the last two years by petty political tyrants against our defenseless children. So be encouraged, and HELP. Do NOT go back to sleep. Do NOT forget.

Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll catch up with you again tomorrow morning for free refills.

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