Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Johns Hopkins study reignites COVID lockdown debate
https://www.foxnews.com/health/covid-lockdowns-johns-hopkins-study-debate
A recent controversial Johns Hopkins meta-analysis reignites a discussion about the adverse consequences of lockdowns after finding they had no significant mortality benefit during the first wave of the 2020 pandemic in the United States and Europe, according to a recent report.
Fox News guests use questionable lockdown study to launch misleading attacks on masks, vaccines
https://www.salon.com/2022/02/03/fox-news-guests-use-study-to-launch-misleading-on-masks-vaccines/
Fox News segments on Wednesday repeatedly conflated a new study that questions the effectiveness of pandemic lockdowns with the controversies over vaccines and mask mandates, essentially to claim that all public health measures are ineffective. Yet many scientists across the globe have rushed to speak out against the paper, pointing out its flaws — something that Fox News did not address in its constant coverage of the study.
Did a Johns Hopkins Study 'Prove' Lockdowns Don't Work? What We Know So Far
"This is a highly political "push/opinion piece" masquerading as "sober analysis," Jeremy Kamil, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport told Newsweek in an email. "One of the authors mentions affiliation with the Cato Institute, which as far as I know is a right-wing pro-business organization that is against governments doing anything at all about anything. The methods seem deceptive."
What to know about the study on lockdowns and COVID-19 deaths by economists
https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/feb/07/what-know-about-study-lockdowns-and-covid-19-death/
Fox News and other outlets are touting a new study that looked at how early COVID-19 lockdowns impacted mortality of the disease. The stories come with bombshell headlines that say research conducted by Johns Hopkins University found that lockdowns barely reduced deaths.
A new paper by three economists affiliated with Johns Hopkins University found that COVID-19 lockdowns barely reduced deaths, but the paper has not been peer-reviewed and is considered a working paper. The university did not endorse the study.
Several experts have criticized the paper and point to issues such as the authors’ broad definition of lockdown, a limited focus on the first wave of the pandemic, a comparison of policies that look very different from country to country, and an exclusion of studies that look at the science of disease transmission.
Other research has found that lockdown measures have helped save millions of lives during the pandemic.
Now 'Prof Lockdown' slams shock study that found draconian curbs only reduced Covid deaths by 0.2%
There are also questions about the methods used in the paper. Only 24 studies were included in the review and some were discarded for seemingly trivial reasons, which led to accusations the authors 'cherry-picked' studies.
But other experts said the review shows there is 'no evidence that lockdowns did any good and accused the British media of 'maintaining pandemic fear' by failing to cover the report.
Crucially, the researchers also left out studies which looked at early lockdowns in countries which managed to suppress Covid and record extremely low death rates during the pandemic through incredibly strict lockdowns and border controls — such as China, Australia and New Zealand.
Noting this limitation, the authors write: 'One objection to our conclusions may be that we do not look at the role of timing. If timing is very important, differences in timing may empirically overrule any differences in lockdowns.'
They add: 'Including these studies will greatly overestimate the effect of lockdowns, and, hence, we chose not to include studies focusing on timing of lockdowns in our review.'
Expert reaction to a preprint looking at the impact of lockdowns
“Smoking causes cancer, the earth is round, and ordering people to stay at home (the correct definition of lockdown) decreases disease transmission. None of this is controversial among scientists. A study purporting to prove the opposite is almost certain to be fundamentally flawed.
“In this case, a trio of economists have undertaken a meta-analysis of many previous studies. So far so good. But they systematically excluded from consideration any study based on the science of disease transmission, meaning that the only studies looked at in the analysis are studies using the methods of economics. These do not include key facts about disease transmission such as: later lockdowns are less effective than earlier lockdowns, because many people are already infected; lockdowns do not immediately save lives, because there’s a lag from infection to death, so to see the effect of lockdowns on Covid deaths we need to wait about two or three weeks. (This was all known in March 2020 – we discussed it in a paper released that month, and later published in Nature. Our paper is excluded from consideration in this meta-analysis.)
“It’s as if we wanted to know whether smoking causes cancer and so we asked a bunch of new smokers: did you have cancer the day before you started smoking? And what about the day after? If we did this, obviously we’d incorrectly conclude smoking is unrelated to cancer, but we’d be ignoring basic science. The science of diseases and their causes is complex, and it has a lot of surprises for us, but there are appropriate methods to study it, and inappropriate methods. This study intentionally excludes all studies rooted in epidemiology–the science of disease.”
The Evil Eye Remover
https://www.aish.com/sp/so/The-Evil-Eye-Remover.html
Since this piece initially came out, people have been asking if the “curse” ever lifted. Well, my husband’s career ripened and prospered, my daughter’s condition improved dramatically, and around then I won close to $13,000 in fellowships and awards for that novel I was working on. In fact, “In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist” has just been released. Oh, and I became the owner of a washing machine.
'Violence against haredim is a direct result of incitement by Liberman and his friends'
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321923
Eichler told the MKs, "Today a haredi Jew was cruelly beaten in Bnei Brak by a cruel and incited police officer, because he did not wear a mask. And whose fault is that? Those who say, 'The haredim hate us,' and those like Liberman who blame the haredim for the high cost of living."
"The deadly blows by the police against haredi Jews, as occurred today in Bnei Brak and as occur in every violent meeting of the police and haredim, are a direct result of the incitement by Liberman and his friends. May the Guardian of Israel protect the remnants of Israel from the enemies from without and from the enemies at home."
Monday, February 7, 2022
Mum seeking reunion with sons dismisses offer of help as ’tissue of lies’
A letter from the president of the Vienna Jewish community, Oskar Deutsch, offering to help the British Jewish solicitor, Beth Alexander, to take part in the upcoming June barmitzvah of her twin sons, Samuel and Benjamin, has been denounced by a furious Ms Alexander as “a whitewash” and “a tissue of lies”.
Ms Alexander describes this as “a complete fabrication. I never received help at any time. I was always alone with my lawyer. I asked people to come along as my witnesses. I asked my neighbour to come as my witness and she kept adjourning and eventually refused. People were terrified to say publicly that they supported me”.
Netanyahu: Imagine if IDF used F-35s against citizens
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321882
"Something unthinkable has happened here. Police officials have illegally used the most aggressive tools in the world to spy on countless citizens - journalists, social activists from right and left, mayors, businessmen, politicians, their families - who was not" spied on, Netanyahu asked.
"The private lives of citizens were unveiled here. They followed them, listened to them, got into their most hidden secrets and who knows what improper use they made of this espionage. Spyware designed to thwart terrorism and fight our enemies has become an everyday tool used by police to spy on civilians in violation of any norm, in violation of any law.
To illustrate the seriousness of the matter, Netanyahu said that "this is similar to the IDF using the F-35 planes we use against Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas to bomb the citizens of Israel. There was no such thing and under no circumstances should it be on the agenda."
Freedom Convoy 2022 Refund Request
GoFundMe supports peaceful protests and we believe that was the intention of the Freedom Convoy 2022 fundraiser when it was first created. However, as a result of multiple discussions with local law enforcement and police reports of violence and other unlawful activity, the Freedom Convoy fundraiser has been removed from the GoFundMe platform.
The update we issued earlier enabled all donors to get a refund and outlined a plan to distribute remaining funds to verified charities selected by the Freedom Convoy organizers. However, due to donor feedback, we are simplifying the process for you. We will automatically refund your contributions directly - you do not need to submit a request. You can expect to see your refund within 7 - 10 business days.
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