Myth #1:
The virus is new.
Reality: The virus is closely related to widely circulating betacoronaviruses, sharing 65-70% common genetic material.
Myth #2:
Everyone is susceptible (immunologically naive).
Reality: Pre-existing or cross-immunity is widespread, and moreover children almost universally enjoy robust innate immunity.
Myth #3:
The virus is deadly. Recent polls revealed that the average member of the public believes the infection fatality rate (IFR) is 20 to 38%.
Reality: Ioannidis’ study, the most comprehensive to date, reveals the global IFR for under 70s to be 0.05%, with almost all fatalities involving serious comorbidities. For the median risk member of the population the IFR is less than 0.01%, meaning that for most people risk is negligible.
Myth #4:
Lockdowns are effective at reducing deaths.
Reality: More than 50 studies have shown that lockdowns have no material beneficial effect on Covid mortality, and that they worsen overall mortality outcomes when non-Covid collateral harms are factored in. Lockdown had no place in prior public health or pandemic respiratory virus guidelines, existing as a fringe idea among people who advocated militarized approaches to pandemics that completely contradicted public health and epidemiological practice and theory.
Myth #5:
Cloth mask mandates are effective.
Reality: The most comprehensive study to date, by the European CDC, demonstrated that almost all papers supporting cloth mask use were of low evidentiary value, and most exhibited signs of bias. The WHO admitted that its reversal on mask efficacy was politically motivated. There is no sign in the international epidemic data of mask efficacy. Behavioural science teams have been revealed to have deployed masks as a tool of psychological warfare (to increase compliance with public health measures). Masking as source control is inconsistent with aerosol transmission.
Myth #6:
Transmission is by droplets and fomites, so masks, sanitizing, stickers, social distancing and perspex screens are effective.
Reality: The most comprehensive study to date, by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, found no evidence supporting droplet and fomite transmission. Airborne aerosol transmission has the most evidentiary support, as for other respiratory viruses. Almost all the countermeasures deployed at great cost have no basis in science.
Myth #7:
Asymptomatic transmission is a driver of the epidemic.
Reality: Primary evidence suggests the opposite is the case—that asymptomatic infected people share small innocula, acting beneficially to spread and boost immune recognition. Asymptomatic cases are very rarely index cases in disease transmission, and somewhat less rarely of infection transmission.
Myth #8:
PCR testing at high cycle thresholds is appropriate. A positive result proves a case of disease or causality in a death.
Reality: PCR testing is not competent for diagnosis of COVID, or detection of “cases”, infections or infectedness. In particular, when deployed at high “cycle thresholds”, it is prone to generating epidemiological false positives, with severe economic consequences.
Myth #9:
COVID is untreatable. Nothing can be done until a patient arrives at hospital, at which point they should be ventilated and put on Remdesivir.
Reality: Early intervention in the 6-8 day window when the disease enters its inflammatory phase has been shown to be remarkably effective, drastically reducing deaths. Remdesivir and early ventilation have killed many. Off-label drugs have shown efficacy in many studies, yet are the targets of obvious propaganda by pharmaceutical companies and captured media.
Myth #10:
The vaccines materially prevent transmission.
Reality: By their very mechanism of action, injectable vaccines cannot and do not materially prevent transmission. This is not even a claim made by their manufacturers, but by politicians and conflicted scientists. There is no evidence for transmission reduction in the international epidemic data. The “greater good” argument is wrong.
Read the rest here [icon name=”arrow-right” prefix=”fas”] https://www.pandata.org/20-lies/