Through 2020 and 2021, South Korea chased zero Covid with strict border controls, aggressive testing and tracing, and a vaccination campaign that reached nearly its entire adult population with mRNA (and some DNA) shots.
The country didn’t quite get to zero. Infections and deaths rose slowly last year. But it came close enough that the usual highly credentialed public health experts held it up as a light among the nations.
Here’s Devi Sridhar - once the world’s youngest Rhodes Scholar, today a “personal chair” in Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh Medical School - telling the world in November 2021 how super-duper-good South Korea did:
Devi - you can trust her, look at that piercing gaze! - explained:
Maximum suppression helped buy time for scientists to get to work, and therefore find a sustainable exit from the crisis… The pivot from maximum suppression to mass vaccination was a rational and logical shift to achieve a successful transition out of the pandemic.
Devi?
Reality called. It has some edits to your piece.
On Thursday, South Korea reported 600,000 new Covid infections - the equivalent of more than 4 million in the United States. In a single day.
Covid deaths are skyrocketing too. South Korea reported 429 deaths Thursday, the equivalent of about 3,000 in the United States. That number is all but certain to skyrocket - cases have risen so fast that deaths have not had time to catch up yet. No one should be surprised if South Korea reports more than 1,000 daily Covid deaths in the next month.
Dial E for exponential:
South Korea, even more than Hong Kong, shows the world what happens when Omicron hits a densely populated region that has no prior Covid immunity at the wrong time, as the mRNA shots fail in unison.
The mRNA shots have negative efficacy against Omicron infection within months - meaning that vaccinated people are more likely to become infected. Data from Canada, Britain, Scotland, the United States, and other countries all agree on this point. I’m not sure anyone serious even argues it anymore.
In New Zealand, for example, unvaccinated people now have even lower infection rates than those who have received boosters:
So South Korea finds itself exactly the wrong place in the Covid cycle.
It vaccinated its citizens mostly from June through October 2021. It started boosters in November, and the people who who received the third jabs first were the elderly and frail. The reason South Korea has the highest rate of new Covid cases any country has ever seen is not despite but because it is so highly vaccinated. The failure of the shots is accelerating the rate of infection and transmission.
Hospitalizations and deaths are rising too, though they have not reached the overwhelming levels that the case figures would suggest. The vaccine advocates - clinging to the last plank of the rapidly sinking SS MRNA - insist this is proof the vaccines are working. Or at least not failing catastrophically.
Maybe. Maybe not. Several factors complicate the picture around hospitalizations and deaths. Omicron is more contagious but milder. Treatments have improved in the last two years, and doctors now do everything possible to keep people off ventilators (in Britain, for example, the number of ventilated patients in Britain has almost completely decoupled from hospitalizations).
Also, South Korea has some of the thinnest people in the world (it is so focused on keeping its citizens thin that it uses a BMI standard of 25 for obesity, rather than the international standard of 30, to make its numbers look worse and encourage citizens to view obesity as a crisis). Obesity is a critical risk factor for Covid, so South Korea’s relative thinness makes cross-national comparisons even more difficult to make.
Finally, at this point no one can know how many hospitalizations and deaths South Korea will have in the next couple of months. By the time the counting is done, though, the world’s attention will elsewhere and the advocates will be onto Shot Five (this time it’ll work, really!).
—
Meantime, as cases and hospitalizations and deaths take off, South Korea is doing -
Well, pretty much nothing. The country has been loosening restrictions for months and says it will continue to do so.
As the Times wrote Thursday:
With the vast majority of its adult population vaccinated and about nine out of 10 of those 60 and older with a booster, South Korea is pushing ahead with plans to ease social distancing measures, relax border restrictions and learn to live with the virus’s risk, even as it is experiencing some of the highest per-person infection rates anywhere in the world.
The reality is that the South Koreans can’t do anything else. They’re not going back into lockdown, and they’ve already given boosters to basically everyone who might get any short-term benefit from them.
Devi Sridhar laid out what was supposed to happen (and what she thought had happened): lockdowns would be the bridge to vaccines which would be the tunnel to freedom! Good countries like South Korea would win and mean nasty selfish countries like the United States would lose.
Mistakes have clearly been made in both the UK and US – in particular, a cynical fatalism that no scientific solution would emerge, that mass infection was inevitable…
But biology is not a morality play. Science doesn’t always win, even if Pfizer pinky swore that it would:
—
We’re all Team Reality now, folks, even if some of the bluechecks still haven’t caught up. The only question left is not how much good but how much damage those miracle shots have done.
Exactly that. Put as much humor, charm, and science into a followup to Dr. Malone as in the magnificent article above. And throw in a snippet of humility, of course. I suspect that is the magic ingredient of the recipe that isn't easily found in the cubbard.
I think we are back to HCQ as more effective for Omicron. That IVM stuff is old school now. Alex can catch up later when he finds some time. But don't leave out the rest of the cocktail, the zinc is needed still.
Or you could gargle with some good stuff along with some nasal cleaning and avoid allowing the virus any replication time. Still, no word from the experts on that. They don't like advice from the old books.
I upped my exercise and sunshine first, then going into winter, got a Quercetin/Zinc/C/D supplement**. I went without mask almost everywhere, except when needing to get in the face of supermarket employees - because *they* had no choice. I mingled normally, went to large gatherings, and gave up only one thing - public transport. Result? One cold in 2 years.
**Should have said I always did take a good multivitamin with some Zinc/C/D, and a small glass of fresh OJ each morning.
I did the gargle and sinus cleaning daily when i was exposed to the virus. 3 days later i still got sick but it was just one roughish night and an elevated temp (not high enough to be called a fever apparently at 37.6) for a few days after. Great advice doctor Malone!
i actually saw a guy jogging on the street with a t-shirt printed with the slogan "science will win" and I didn't catch the logo associated with this marvellous battle cry. Now seeing the image Alex used of Pfizer's winning presentation I realise the jogger is a committed employee of the Evil Empire!! Even without knowing who/why of the shirt I of course smirked knowingly - this was only a month ago, but I would have smirked the same 2 years ago. Real science is not a war or a competition. Anyway, preaching to the converted here. But that's a t-shirt I don't want...
I'd rather have a banner...so I could hang it next to my "Let's Go Brandon"--to annoy the bejesus out of my neighbors, especially the dweeb with his rainbow-LGBTQ++#%*^/ flag.
The family on my street that put the sign in their front yard starting with "Love is Love" and moving on to every other woke-ism is the same one that routinely brings their dog to do its business on my lawn. So predictable.
Prior to my meeting my husband he had the same problem with a neighbor. He saved all the poops in his yard and them dumped them all on the offending neighbors porch. It stopped after that.
I did something along that line. My neighbor's dog pooped in my backyard and I got a small shovel and got it up and plopped it on her front steps. Then I called her up to tell her there was a present on her steps from me. It was a great cure for that problem.
Hah, too bad for yuo. You ackshully WORE tthem? I refised.. never would put one on I survived, too. God kicked out of a couple businesses, but went elsewhere brefaced and took care of my business. Eotk for myself, so my "e,ployer" can't demand I slap one of those filthy nappies accross MY mug, I'd quite if he did, and he knows it. I DID actuall get the stupid thing was pretty tired for a week or so, head sniffles, slightly sore throat and mild cough, no fever, no aches, no digestioin issues, never had to take to my bed. Hey, I've had plenty of colds over the years that were far worse than that. All this fuss over that minor slightb hump in the road? Its GOTTA be politics, as I knew it would be back in October of2019 when I frirst read of some new respiratory virus sweeping thruogh wunah CIty in China.. I knew the eedjits would take this ball and run downfield with it. Make our lives miserable, clamp down with a heavy boot on our necks.....
Conclusion #1 from the Covid era is that most people suck at math, suck at science, suck at comparative risk analysis, and are susceptible to whatever framing/narrative management they encounter.
Conclusion #2 is that unintended (??) consequences are real and vicious.
Conclusion #3 is that humanity has next to no control over the trajectory of the natural world, but the modern mind refuses to accept that. We demand that the world bend to our will, our science, and our politics.
Are you familiar with Bill Gate's "sun dimming technology" research? He's looking to reduce sunlight to reduce climate change. How stupid is that? I'm not sure how that photosynthesis thing is gonna work with this bright idea (pun intended).
Eugenics definitely need to make a comeback, but certainly not in the hands of Gates and other megalomaniac Molochites.
The removal of natural selection has been a disaster for the human race- indeed, we'd have a far smaller proportion of mindless narrative-followers and drones if nature still had her say. It's likely that this entire plandemic would never have come to fruition in a world where there were more strong-minded and self reliant individuals... I doubt the oligarchs would have the guts to try and pull this Reset nonsense on a population of strong willed people who'd hang them high at the first sign of such f-ckery.
Back in the '70s global COOLING panic/scare/mania, advocates (like Gates' sun dimming) proposed spraying the Arctic with carbon black to increase sunlight absorption. There's always someone with a clever scheme who only consider a one-way linear trend, and never contemplates the consequences of a reversal in conditions. Multiple ice ages and warming cycles (before the SUV) should indicate mankind has no clue about the explanation for the cycle tipping points.
Given Gates involvement in Common Core school curriculum and SARS-2, he should be banished from polite company, or worse...
Candis you maybe correct. I personally think he no longer thinks about money (you can't even count that much money) but rather wielding power over all mankind according to his view of "his universe".
Yeah. The biggest thing is a lack of *critical* thinking by a lot of smart people. It's something that most of us were never taught in school - and that's a huge problem.
I would agree and say I was never taught it in school but I grew up in a family of cops and firemen. They always question everything...it's part of their job...and it definitely impacted how I react to everything.
“We need to pay attention to what has happened in this country and how what has happened is continuing to create differential outcomes, so that we can become the democratic republic we say we are,” Crenshaw explained. “We believe in the promises of equality, and we know we can get there if we confront and talk honestly about inequality.”
Q: When did the American People say, "We are seeking a Democratic Republic?"
Please show me the quote from a Primary Source that proves the American People are seeking a Democratic Republic.
So true....I work with physicians who use phone apps to make their diagnosis rather than actually looking at the patient, listening to the patient and using some critical thinking. Not sure when this skill was lost?
Dude. Time to find a new pediatrician. Our ped hasn't even asked the question with our kids. He'd get an earful if he did. We aren't getting flu shots anymore either. And I'm questioning the other one they're supposed to get as teenagers too. I can't remember what it's for but this Vax experiment with the world has really opened my eyes.
This whole vax mess may have been a big fat gift to people as far as opening eyes to the industry that sells drugs that we absolutely do not need. As a nurse I will never get another vax of any kind, flu, shingles, nada. It's all a big pharma scam and I pray people with little ones start to look at the stats. Compare health and death rates for kids in Japan and how many vaxs they are required to get. It will blow your mind!
Alex, how did you not sneak "Virus gonna Virus" into this article ?
I was going to and then the ghost of Joe Biden entered the room and I forgot...
I think you need an ice cream cone, Alex... and then an afternoon nap~
kMp… you forgot the diaper.
which one? Mug of bum?
Heh
Ivermectin gonna ivermectin. Alex gonna step up, retract, and show Blue Pills how it’s done when you get it wrong.
Exactly that. Put as much humor, charm, and science into a followup to Dr. Malone as in the magnificent article above. And throw in a snippet of humility, of course. I suspect that is the magic ingredient of the recipe that isn't easily found in the cubbard.
Was he the ghost of past, present or future..... tomorrow.....
I haven't watched the news all week--so Joe Biden died?
How could one tell?
Good point. Maybe he is the spearhead of a zombie apocalypse.
Good answer.
New Zealand data shows vaccine is effective. Your interpretation of the data is wrong or you are intentionally misleading your audience.
Do possibly mean New Zealand data shows ivermectin is effective?
Would you mind taking the time to explain to me how it is misleading please? Genuinely curious, I don't want to be mislead.
It has to be intentional. The flaws in his analysis are so obvious is has to be intentional.
Please give us an example. Please.
He probably suffers from the same inability to read data normalized to 100,000 of each population segment that Max James does in this thread.
The flaw is in your interpretation of normalized data.
Judas priest! can we let him say what he wants without endlessly banging the drum for Malone and ivm?
No.
I think we are back to HCQ as more effective for Omicron. That IVM stuff is old school now. Alex can catch up later when he finds some time. But don't leave out the rest of the cocktail, the zinc is needed still.
Or you could gargle with some good stuff along with some nasal cleaning and avoid allowing the virus any replication time. Still, no word from the experts on that. They don't like advice from the old books.
don't eat sugar, lose weight, zinc and quercetin naturally most effective
You need to add vitamin C to the mix, creating a zinc ionophore.
I do take C ,just didnt mention it. Now I have to look up ionophore
The quercetin is the ionophore, though?
I upped my exercise and sunshine first, then going into winter, got a Quercetin/Zinc/C/D supplement**. I went without mask almost everywhere, except when needing to get in the face of supermarket employees - because *they* had no choice. I mingled normally, went to large gatherings, and gave up only one thing - public transport. Result? One cold in 2 years.
**Should have said I always did take a good multivitamin with some Zinc/C/D, and a small glass of fresh OJ each morning.
COLFLEX ORAL SPRAY, get it on-line, worked for me and everyone I know who tried it. Tastes great and worked fast.
I did the gargle and sinus cleaning daily when i was exposed to the virus. 3 days later i still got sick but it was just one roughish night and an elevated temp (not high enough to be called a fever apparently at 37.6) for a few days after. Great advice doctor Malone!
Lots of D3.
It's "bated breath". Baited breath must smell really awful.
Get over it and yourself. Thanks!
Get over it. You Ivermectin freaks are so annoying.
When is Alex going to start selling the "Virus Gonna Virus" t-shirts and other merchandise? I'd buy one.
You know. "Virus gonna Virus" tees would be a big winner!!!
I see a Bright Red Hat with those words on Alex's head....
Instead of "MAGA" - "VGV"
Oooooh Team Reality I totes would buy a shirt with that on it!!!!
HS teacher here; I totes would buy a tote with that on it! Nice heavy canvas tote to carry to school EVERY day.
Me too!!!!
Me too!
I know! I love "Team Reality!"
How about a Shepard Fairey style graphic but instead of Obama with the caption "HOPE" it's Alex with the caption "LOLCATZ".
Put me down for 3
i actually saw a guy jogging on the street with a t-shirt printed with the slogan "science will win" and I didn't catch the logo associated with this marvellous battle cry. Now seeing the image Alex used of Pfizer's winning presentation I realise the jogger is a committed employee of the Evil Empire!! Even without knowing who/why of the shirt I of course smirked knowingly - this was only a month ago, but I would have smirked the same 2 years ago. Real science is not a war or a competition. Anyway, preaching to the converted here. But that's a t-shirt I don't want...
I’ll bet that jogger was wearing a mask.
Science never wins, of course.
It merely suggests that until evidence appears to the contrary, it has a plausible hypothesis.
Check out the t shirt in the avatar. Homemade.
I'd rather have a banner...so I could hang it next to my "Let's Go Brandon"--to annoy the bejesus out of my neighbors, especially the dweeb with his rainbow-LGBTQ++#%*^/ flag.
(You'd LOVE my neighborhood.)
The family on my street that put the sign in their front yard starting with "Love is Love" and moving on to every other woke-ism is the same one that routinely brings their dog to do its business on my lawn. So predictable.
Prior to my meeting my husband he had the same problem with a neighbor. He saved all the poops in his yard and them dumped them all on the offending neighbors porch. It stopped after that.
Love it! I may have to adopt the same remedy, although with people this dense, they may not be able to make the connection.
I did something along that line. My neighbor's dog pooped in my backyard and I got a small shovel and got it up and plopped it on her front steps. Then I called her up to tell her there was a present on her steps from me. It was a great cure for that problem.
Why you guys dissing all that free fertilizer???
Put it on a cloth mask. 🤣😜😷
Mask mandate just ended here. Burned mine and will never wear one again.
Hah, too bad for yuo. You ackshully WORE tthem? I refised.. never would put one on I survived, too. God kicked out of a couple businesses, but went elsewhere brefaced and took care of my business. Eotk for myself, so my "e,ployer" can't demand I slap one of those filthy nappies accross MY mug, I'd quite if he did, and he knows it. I DID actuall get the stupid thing was pretty tired for a week or so, head sniffles, slightly sore throat and mild cough, no fever, no aches, no digestioin issues, never had to take to my bed. Hey, I've had plenty of colds over the years that were far worse than that. All this fuss over that minor slightb hump in the road? Its GOTTA be politics, as I knew it would be back in October of2019 when I frirst read of some new respiratory virus sweeping thruogh wunah CIty in China.. I knew the eedjits would take this ball and run downfield with it. Make our lives miserable, clamp down with a heavy boot on our necks.....
I'd prefer a t shirt. I never want to wear a mask again.
I would never wear mine.
Oh man, I love that one!
Dr Tyna has a shirt that says it, it's her favorite tag line as well. Looks like it's only in a women's tank top atm, but there are other fun shirts, too! https://store.drtyna.com/collections/clothing/products/viruses-are-going-to-virus-womens-tank
I'd buy one
Make your own. Fabric paint is cheap.
Me too...!
Why not sneak “buy Pandemic, and contribute to my legal fees to sue Twitter, who will never change their partisan anti-American agendas!”
Sorry Mr Berenson, I don’t buy it, figuratively or literally. But, thank you for the privilege to comment.
I assume you are writing “Pandemic Vol 2: how corrupt immoral uncaring scum are actively killing people”???
By the way, I ain’t perfect, but, I am direct and candid, so, good luck with your lawsuit in monkey court…
🙈🙉🙊…
How do observe thousands of severe adverse reactions and continued mandates, without suspecting something nefarious if not borderline evil?
Entrenched evil, on multiple levels.
Science is a mortality play.
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/the-vax-pushers-pathetic-last-stand?s=w
Excellent...! 🤣
Conclusion #1 from the Covid era is that most people suck at math, suck at science, suck at comparative risk analysis, and are susceptible to whatever framing/narrative management they encounter.
Conclusion #2 is that unintended (??) consequences are real and vicious.
Conclusion #3 is that humanity has next to no control over the trajectory of the natural world, but the modern mind refuses to accept that. We demand that the world bend to our will, our science, and our politics.
The world laughs in response.
Absolutely agree. The number of “scientists” who think they have figured out how to control nature astounds me.
Gates knows the key to the sheep (money! more money!). But none of us will win over nature.
Are you familiar with Bill Gate's "sun dimming technology" research? He's looking to reduce sunlight to reduce climate change. How stupid is that? I'm not sure how that photosynthesis thing is gonna work with this bright idea (pun intended).
He really wants to starve us to death with his massive acreage and nothing planted ! Eugenics!
Eugenics definitely need to make a comeback, but certainly not in the hands of Gates and other megalomaniac Molochites.
The removal of natural selection has been a disaster for the human race- indeed, we'd have a far smaller proportion of mindless narrative-followers and drones if nature still had her say. It's likely that this entire plandemic would never have come to fruition in a world where there were more strong-minded and self reliant individuals... I doubt the oligarchs would have the guts to try and pull this Reset nonsense on a population of strong willed people who'd hang them high at the first sign of such f-ckery.
Back in the '70s global COOLING panic/scare/mania, advocates (like Gates' sun dimming) proposed spraying the Arctic with carbon black to increase sunlight absorption. There's always someone with a clever scheme who only consider a one-way linear trend, and never contemplates the consequences of a reversal in conditions. Multiple ice ages and warming cycles (before the SUV) should indicate mankind has no clue about the explanation for the cycle tipping points.
Given Gates involvement in Common Core school curriculum and SARS-2, he should be banished from polite company, or worse...
AGREE!
The last thing we need is Gates’ meat hooks on the Climate
Meat hooks...I see what ya did there. 🤣
Newsflash: they've been doing it for decades.
Maybe so... but now Mr. god is on the case. It's amazing what unlimited wealth does to the human brain.
I have long suspected that excess money takes it's due in grey matter. They become fools for the money on a grand scale.
Evil fools
Candis you maybe correct. I personally think he no longer thinks about money (you can't even count that much money) but rather wielding power over all mankind according to his view of "his universe".
As an electrician I install dimmer switches all day. What's the bog whoop?
The Verdict is still out on this one as a virus driven by Nature. This right now is the very first Virus that came with its own cure.
The other unknown is that the vax seems to "enable" new variants...that's scary. Who knows where that will lead!
I think all Corona viruses may come with their own cure
What is the cure? Death? Help me out, I'm a little slow.
So Ukraine gets $800,000,000 of our hard earned taxpayer money, Congress just gave themselves a 21% pay raise with our hard earned taxpayer money.
...And we get $6+ gas and 8% inflation.
Got it.
Making Millions as they destroy Millions of lives is more Profitable than Natural immunity!
Similar story with Lysenkoism in the USSR.
Try as we might, reality is always vindicated.
Darker than a lone steers tuchas on a moonless prairie night.
Read State Boys Rebellion by Michael D’Antonio. Dark indeed.
Darker than a lone steers tuchas on a moonless prairie night.
Yeah. The biggest thing is a lack of *critical* thinking by a lot of smart people. It's something that most of us were never taught in school - and that's a huge problem.
I would agree and say I was never taught it in school but I grew up in a family of cops and firemen. They always question everything...it's part of their job...and it definitely impacted how I react to everything.
We are now taught critical race theory instead.
CRT is the latest "buzz word" for: The Constitution of The United States of America is too difficult for you to understand. Let ME explain it to you.
Ha!
CRT Proponents:
“We need to pay attention to what has happened in this country and how what has happened is continuing to create differential outcomes, so that we can become the democratic republic we say we are,” Crenshaw explained. “We believe in the promises of equality, and we know we can get there if we confront and talk honestly about inequality.”
Q: When did the American People say, "We are seeking a Democratic Republic?"
Please show me the quote from a Primary Source that proves the American People are seeking a Democratic Republic.
a democratic republic is what our Constitution says we are.
Constitutional Republic?
Elizabeth, your son is a lucky kid. You taught him well
So true....I work with physicians who use phone apps to make their diagnosis rather than actually looking at the patient, listening to the patient and using some critical thinking. Not sure when this skill was lost?
I think one of them may be my kids' pediatrician. Told me earnestly that the vaccine lasts longer than natural immunity. :-(
Dude. Time to find a new pediatrician. Our ped hasn't even asked the question with our kids. He'd get an earful if he did. We aren't getting flu shots anymore either. And I'm questioning the other one they're supposed to get as teenagers too. I can't remember what it's for but this Vax experiment with the world has really opened my eyes.
This whole vax mess may have been a big fat gift to people as far as opening eyes to the industry that sells drugs that we absolutely do not need. As a nurse I will never get another vax of any kind, flu, shingles, nada. It's all a big pharma scam and I pray people with little ones start to look at the stats. Compare health and death rates for kids in Japan and how many vaxs they are required to get. It will blow your mind!
Don't have them get the HPV vaccine. It is a death and disability shot also.
That's the one! Thank you.