Covid Pandemic

[Typeing3]

COVID-19: Canada to update its ‘fully-vaccinated’ definition
June 14, 2022
https://globalnews.ca/news/8919947/covi ... efinition/

The federal government plans to change its definition of what it means to be fully protected against COVID-19 to reflect advice that a number of health experts have been recommending for months, including Canada’s top doctors.

Currently, federal employees are considered fully vaccinated if they have two doses of one of Health Canada’s approved vaccines.

On Friday, Dr. Theresa Tam told reporters during a briefing the COVID-19 vaccine efficiency wanes significantly over time, from 50 to 80 per cent effectiveness down to 20 per cent or lower six months after the second dose.

That’s why she has recommended that any official language encouraging Canadians to be vaccinated should not emphasize a specific number of doses, but rather say Canadians should be “up to date” with their COVID-19 vaccines.

“(A) mandate is a policy decision that takes account many different factors and it’s up to the policymakers at this time to make that difficult decision. But I would always be going with recommending ‘up to date,’” Tam said Friday, referencing the preferred policy wording.

“The difficulty, I think, right now is that the federal definition of vaccine mandates for administrative or travel or other purposes is not up to date. And I am encouraging everybody to adopt the definition.”

On Tuesday, federal cabinet ministers said they indeed plan to implement this policy change.

“Although two doses still protects significantly well against severe disease and death, two doses are not enough now to protect against infection and transmission. That is why we are transitioning now to an ‘up-to-date’ vaccination definition of what it means to be adequately protected against COVID-19,” Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Tuesday during a press conference in Ottawa.

However it could take several weeks or months to implement this policy change, due to work that must be done with provinces and territories, who also have responsibility for health policy, Duclos said.

He sidestepped questions on why it has taken so long to commit to this change, even as health experts have been recommending this update for several months.

On Tuesday, Ottawa also announced it is pausing its vaccine mandate for employees in the public service, and will no longer require employees in the federally regulated air, rail and marine transportation sectors to be fully vaccinated, effective June 20.

That means civil servants who were placed on unpaid leave due to a failure to disclose their vaccination status or a refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19 can return to work as of that date, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier announced during the same press conference Tuesday.

However, the ministers warned vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 health measures being lifted in recent days and weeks could return if the situation changes in Canada, particularly if a variant of concern emerges and begins to spread.

Duclos said health officials plan to spend the summer months shifting their focus to trying to encourage more Canadians to get vaccinated and boosted. He cited data provided by Tam Friday that demonstrated that although the vaccine doesn’t provide the same level of immunity against contracting Omicron variants of the virus, it does decrease severe outcomes and hospitalization rates.

“We will do that because we know (in) the summertime … there will be fewer cases, fewer hospitalizations,” Duclos said. “That’s the right time for Canadians not only to pause and deserve a summer break, but also to think of how to better be prepared individually and collectively for the fall season.”

Trudeau government threatens to bring back mandates and change definition of fully vaccinated
June 15, 2022
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... vaccinated

Are you ready for a return of vaccine mandates for travel in the fall with a new definition of fully vaccinated?

In case you missed it, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said they may change the definition of fully vaccinated to three doses instead of the current two if they bring back travel and work vaccine mandates in the fall.

That could leave a lot more people grounded or out of work because just 55% of the population aged 12 and over have three doses compared to 90% with two.

As with their decision to finally suspend the travel and work mandates, the government offered no evidence and no data to support this idea. They’ve been telling us as often as they can that they are listening to the best advice and best science, they just don’t want to share any of it with the public.

On Friday, Dr. Theresa Tam was asked what advice she had given to the Trudeau government on lifting these restrictions and she said that was a question for the ministers involved. On Tuesday, those ministers were asked what advice Dr. Tam had given them and their response was to say reporters should ask Dr. Tam that question.

“The adjustments we are making today are based on science,” Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc announced at Tuesday’s news conference.

While claiming it is all based on science, he held firm to the Trudeau government policy of not showing his work.

Both Transport Minister Omar Alghabra and Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the changes were guided by science, but they too failed to produce anything to support their claims or disclose the advice from Canada’s top doctors.

The ministers were asked repeatedly about the data and science that led to their decision to change course. They were asked what has changed compared to a month ago or six months ago and they couldn’t answer, not with any actual data.

What the ministers were clear about was that these measures would very likely return in the fall. They wouldn’t say how many cases or hospitalizations we would need to see for the measures to return, just that it could happen and that their decisions will be based on, you guessed it, the very best science.

It would be unrealistic to expect the Trudeau government to lay out every piece of data, every recommendation from public health officials on this file, but some level of disclosure should be expected. As provincial governments across the country, led by Conservative, Liberal and NDP premiers have removed their own restrictions, they have explained what has changed and what scientific evidence guided their decisions.

The Trudeau government has done none of that.

In the early days of the pandemic, Trudeau called any requests for extra screening or other travel restrictions “knee jerk” and “reactionary.” As the pandemic progressed, as new hotspots and variants emerged, they resisted calls for suspending travel from areas of concern.

Their political calculations told them such measures would be unpopular, so they did nothing until forced to act. Now, with the pandemic conditions having changed dramatically in the positive direction, they cling to outdated mandates and measures because their political calculations tell them that keeping these measures in place is popular even if useless.

This isn’t how decision-making should take place. The public must have trust in the process and needs to see the medical and scientific evidence.

Trudeau has played politics with the pandemic, including with vaccine mandates, for too long. It’s time for the public to say enough is enough and demand to see the medical science rather than the political science behind his mandates.

[AbbyJr]

I just got another notification to book my third booster. I'm not getting it so I deleted the text.

[Antares]

I just got another notification to book my third booster. I'm not getting it so I deleted the text.

You need to step up like everyone else has and just do what you're told! You don't care about your community or obeying the science!1!

As for me, I'm on my 9th booster and doing great. Although I got some massive heartburn yesterday after devouring 6 bigmacs, a few milkshakes, and a case of Bud light.

[SouthSardiswx]

You need to step up like everyone else has and just do what you're told! You don't care about your community or obeying the science!1!

As for me, I'm on my 9th booster and doing great. Although I got some massive heartburn yesterday after devouring 6 bigmacs, a few milkshakes, and a case of Bud light.

9th! what are you a cyborg now Ants.

[Antares]

9th! what are you a cyborg now Ants.

[Forrest Gump]

You need to step up like everyone else has and just do what you're told! You don't care about your community or obeying the science!1!

As for me, I'm on my 9th booster and doing great. Although I got some massive heartburn yesterday after devouring 6 bigmacs, a few milkshakes, and a case of Bud light.

Right on , one more booster on your Pfizer loyalty card and you get a free toaster . Gotta luv free in this age of inflation...wait a minute,was that also created by government?

[Hawk]

I just got another notification to book my third booster. I'm not getting it so I deleted the text.

But why arent you getting your 3rd dose? U decided to get the 1st two...and apparently they do little after 6 months or so to protect us..
We are all scientific puppets!!

Then the 4th dose will be next

[Hawk]

You need to step up like everyone else has and just do what you're told! You don't care about your community or obeying the science!1!

As for me, I'm on my 9th booster and doing great. Although I got some massive heartburn yesterday after devouring 6 bigmacs, a few milkshakes, and a case of Bud light.

Dammm other than the heartburn that sounded like a good day

[Glacier]

But why arent you getting your 3rd dose? U decided to get the 1st two...and apparently they do little after 6 months or so to protect us..
We are all scientific puppets!!

Then the 4th dose will be next

If this news article can be believed, you will be required to get a shot every 9 months. https://www.visiontimes.com/2022/07/04/ ... ister.html

This means it's acceptable to be unprotected 1/3 of the time (the vaccine doesn't really do anything after 6 months)! And really, because it becomes less effective, you're only partially protected for most of the other 2/3 of time.

What's the point? I've had covid and two shots. And I know 4 people who died within 10 days of their shot including a 10 year old boy, so there is risk. In my view the risks are greater than the benefits, at least for anyone healthy and under 65.

Check out Dr. Vinay Prasad on YouTube. Here is the latest video of his that I watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykwMAur0RTM

[SouthSardiswx]

If this news article can be believed, you will be required to get a shot every 9 months. https://www.visiontimes.com/2022/07/04/ ... ister.html

This means it's acceptable to be unprotected 1/3 of the time (the vaccine doesn't really do anything after 6 months)! And really, because it becomes less effective, you're only partially protected for most of the other 2/3 of time.

What's the point? I've had covid and two shots. And I know 4 people who died within 10 days of their shot including a 10 year old boy, so there is risk. In my view the risks are greater than the benefits, at least for anyone healthy and under 65.

Crazy, Glace heard there's a couple variants ramping up possible vaxx mandates will return l heard by fall.
Still not getting a booster l'm done with it absolutely mismanaged from the beginning.

[AbbyJr]

But why arent you getting your 3rd dose? U decided to get the 1st two...and apparently they do little after 6 months or so to protect us..
We are all scientific puppets!!

Then the 4th dose will be next

Personally, I've never been really concerned about Covid but I chose to get my first two doses to be respectful to those who were concerned. However, at some point a line must be drawn and I've decided I don't want any more boosters. Here's why:

I'm not high risk for a severe case of Covid and I've also had Covid once so not only do I have my first two doses, but I also have natural immunity. I see absolutely no reason to get more boosters. There is also the fact that I know some people who got their third booster and felt really sick for at least few days afterwards and I don't wish to experience those negative side effects. Now one could argue that I'm taking a risk of catching Covid again if I don't get boosted. But here's the thing. I'm taking a risk either which way. I'm either risking getting sick from Covid or getting sick from the vaccine itself. Since it's my body, it's therefore my right to weigh the risks and benefits and make my own choice, which I've done.

The government has no right to make our civil liberties subject to vaccination status.

[SouthSardiswx]

Personally, I've never been really concerned about Covid but I chose to get my first two doses to be respectful to those who were concerned. However, at some point a line must be drawn and I've decided I don't want any more boosters. Here's why:

I'm not high risk for a severe case of Covid and I've also had Covid once so not only do I have my first two doses, but I also have natural immunity. I see absolutely no reason to get more boosters. There is also the fact that I know some people who got their third booster and felt really sick for at least few days afterwards and I don't wish to experience those negative side effects. Now one could argue that I'm taking a risk of catching Covid again if I don't get boosted. But here's the thing. I'm taking a risk either which way. I'm either risking getting sick from Covid or getting sick from the vaccine itself. Since it's my body, it's therefore my right to weigh the risks and benefits and make my own choice, which I've done.

The government has no right to make our civil liberties subject to vaccination status.

Unfortunately Jr. Man that's what's happened it all seems to be part of some plan to control the masses.

[Typeing3]

Fearing another wave of COVID-19, feds urge people to get a booster dose
June 30, 2022
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/omicro ... -1.6507089

Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Canada's top doctor said Thursday that it's imperative everyone eligible for a booster dose gets their third shot now before the new, more infectious Omicron variants take hold in the coming weeks.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, said while COVID-19 case counts are currently stable, officials are bracing for a resurgence in late summer and early fall as immune-evasive variants like BA.4 and BA.5 become widespread and the country enters the respiratory virus season.

Tam said the best defence against this expected wave is getting up to date with COVID-19 shots.

The primary series of shots — the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine — don't offer enough protection and a third dose is needed for all adults and for certain high-risk adolescents, she said.

Government data suggests the first two shots offer little protection against an Omicron infection — "There's almost no protection," Tam said earlier this month — and data from other countries similarly suggest the primary series offers negligible levels of protection against transmission.

The first two doses do offset the possibility of severe outcomes like hospitalization and death but that protection wanes substantially over time, necessitating a third dose to jump start the immune response, Tam said.


Canada lags other countries in booster dose coverage

Tam said the benefits of a third dose are already well known. She said, based on data collected in April and May of this year, when Omicron activity was very high in Canada, people with a booster shot were five times less likely to be hospitalized and seven times less likely to die from the virus than the unvaccinated.

Canada is lagging behind other developed countries in booster dose coverage. According to Duclos, only 60 per cent of adults who got their first two doses have gone back for a third. The rates are substantially higher in other countries like Japan and the U.K.

"We're behind most other G7 countries in our rate of third doses and we shouldn't be behind, we've been ahead of all those other countries with two doses. We know we have the capacity to do better and we will be doing better," Duclos said.

"As any physician or health expert will tell you, it's critical you go and get the shot that's waiting for you. Like the virus, immunity also evolves and Omicron has cruelly made us understand that two doses is no longer enough."

Duclos said every Canadian adult should have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the last nine months. Canadians who got a shot last summer are no longer "up to date," he said, and they need to roll up their sleeves now for a booster.

To that end, Duclos said Canada will no longer call people who've had two doses "fully vaccinated." But he didn't say if the government's vaccine mandates will be adjusted to dictate people have three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.


Past COVID infection doesn't offer enough protection: Tam

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), the body of independent experts that guide Canada's vaccine policy, strongly recommends all adults get a booster dose.

If a person has had a COVID infection, they should wait three months from diagnosis to get that booster dose, the committee has said.

A past COVID infection doesn't offer enough protection, Tam said. She said some Canadians are under the false impression that two doses of a COVID vaccine plus a past infection offers sufficient coverage.

"Infection-related immunity, particularly as it relates to Omicron, could wane over time. There are many other reasons as well to get a shot," Tam said, citing the possibility that a booster dose could lower the risk of people developing long COVID symptoms.

Tam said Canadians also shouldn't wait for an Omicron-specific vaccine.

While major vaccine manufacturers like Moderna and Pfizer are currently developing products that are tailored to the current strain, Tam said it could be months before the product is approved by Health Canada regulators for use in this country.

She also said those vaccines may not offer much more protection against Omicron than what's already available.

"There is still considerable uncertainty about the exact timing and availability of new formulations," said Dr. Matthew Tunis, the executive secretary to NACI. "The committee is unable to predict how the future will unfold."

Health minister says vaccine boosters will be required every nine months
July 4, 2022
https://www.westernstandard.news/news/h ... 42adf.html

Canadians will be required to get a COVID shot every nine months for the foreseeable future, says Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. He told reporters that previous definitions of “fully vaccinated” made no sense.

“Nine months is very clear and will help people understand why ‘up-to-date’ is the right way to think about vaccination now,” said Duclos. “‘Fully vaccinated’ makes no sense now. It’s about ‘up-to-date.’ So am I up-to-date in my vaccination? Have I received a vaccination in the last nine months?”

According to Blacklock's Reporter, when a reporter asked Duclos if he was setting the stage for vaccine mandates to return in the fall, he replied, “We must continue to fight against COVID,” replied Duclos.

“Do you rule out a return to mandates?” asked a reporter. “We want to be prepared for next fall and that requires an up-to-date vaccination which is based on the nine months,” replied Duclos.

“Why hasn’t the government changed the definition of fully vaccinated to three doses instead of two?” asked a reporter. “We can look forward to continuing the fight in the fall,” replied Duclos.

“We will never be fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” said Duclos. “Like the virus, our immunity also evolves.”

“Two doses are no longer enough,” said Duclos. “We must keep our vaccination up-to-date.”

“‘Up-to-date’ means you have received your last dose in the past nine months,” said Duclos. “If you’ve already received a first booster, that’s great. Please see if you’re eligible for a second or third booster to remain up-to-date.”

Currently 86% of Canadians over age five are fully vaccinated with two COVID shots, according to a National Advisory Committee on Immunization. The committee in a June 29 report said it would “continue to monitor the evidence” on whether third and fourth booster shots were recommended for the general public.

The committee has approved a fourth booster shot for nursing home residents, prisoners, residents of First Nations communities, the general public over 65 and immunocompromised individuals over the age of 12.

“The committee recommends all other individuals 12 to 64 years of age may be offered a fall Covid-19 booster dose regardless of the number of booster doses previously received,” it wrote in a June 29 report.

“The committee has not been prescriptive,” said Dr. Matthew Tunis, executive secretary, adding, “The committee is unable to predict how exactly the future will unfold. So they’re providing us with the best advice at the time to look forward.”

'TWO DOSES ARE NO LONGER ENOUGH': Canadians required to get COVID shot every nine months
July 4, 2022
https://torontosun.com/news/national/tw ... ine-months

As we continue to live with COVID-19, turns out we will also have to get used to living with COVID-19 vaccinations.

Canadians will be required to get a booster shot every nine months for the foreseeable future, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters.

So if you thought you were fully vaccinated, think again.

Duclos said that the previous definitions of “fully vaccinated” makes no sense, explaining that it’s more important that shots are “up to date” and whether or not a person has “received a vaccination in the last nine months.”

He added, “We will never be fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” according to [a href="https://www.blacklocks.ca/well-never-be-fully-vaxxed/"]Blacklock’s Reporter[/a].

Duclos was asked if he was preparing Canadians for the return of vaccine mandates in the fall, he reportedly replied, “We must continue to fight against COVID.”

In other words, mandates won’t be ruled out just yet.

“We want to be prepared for next fall and that requires an up-to-date vaccination which is based on the nine months.”

He clarified, “Like the virus, our immunity also evolves. Two doses are no longer enough.”

Duclos explained that “‘up to date’ means you have received your last dose in the past nine months.”

He said, “If you’ve already received a first booster, that’s great,” but suggests that Canadians check if they are eligible for a “second or third booster” to remain on top of vaccinations.

Currently, in Ontario, only those who are 60 and over, residents of First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities aged 18 and over, those who live in long-term care homes, retirement homes and congregate settings, and some immunocompromised are eligible for the next round of boosters.

Eighty-six per cent of Canadians over five years of age are fully vaccinated with two COVID-19 shots, according to NACI.

In a June 29 report, the committee recommended that boosters be offered to all other individuals from 12 to 64 years of age, regardless of the number of booster doses they have previously received.

“Cases of COVID-19, including associated hospitalizations and deaths, are currently declining in Canada,” NACI said in a release. “However, the likelihood, timing, and severity of a future wave of COVID-19 is uncertain.”

Liberals tease Covid vaccines every nine months
July 4, 2022
https://tnc.news/2022/07/04/alshow-vaccine-tease1/

The Liberal government is poised to adopt the view that you can never be “fully vaccinated” against Covid, but have to get boosted every nine months to keep your vaccination “up to date.” This is what Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said, though he stopped short of announcing any policy changes (for now). True North’s Andrew Lawton discusses the latest moving goalposts of public health and explains why Canadians should be nervous about a full-throttled return of restrictions and mandates in the fall.

https://twitter.com/TrueNorthCentre/sta ... 4981781504
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4r6D4W7Jfw




https://twitter.com/FrankGrimes_Jr/stat ... 2046433280
https://twitter.com/FrankGrimes_Jr/stat ... 8522430474
https://twitter.com/FrankGrimes_Jr/stat ... 3203281925

[SouthSardiswx]

Why of course another fear tatic to get the masses vaxxed l'm not buying it.

https://fortune.com/2022/07/05/ba5-omic ... aDQyQUVQVQ..

[AbbyJr]

Title: Why I spoke out against lockdowns
Author: Martin Kulldorff
Date: June 4th, 2021
Source: https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/0 ... lockdowns/

I had no choice but to speak out against lockdowns. As a public-health scientist with decades of experience working on infectious-disease outbreaks, I couldn’t stay silent. Not when basic principles of public health are thrown out of the window. Not when the working class is thrown under the bus. Not when lockdown opponents were thrown to the wolves. There was never a scientific consensus for lockdowns. That balloon had to be popped.

Two key Covid facts were quickly obvious to me. First, with the early outbreaks in Italy and Iran, this was a severe pandemic that would eventually spread to the rest of the world, resulting in many deaths. That made me nervous. Second, based on the data from Wuhan, in China, there was a dramatic difference in mortality by age, with over a thousand-fold difference between the young and the old. That was a huge relief. I am a single father with a teenager and five-year-old twins. Like most parents, I care more about my children than myself. Unlike the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, children had much less to fear from Covid than from annual influenza or traffic accidents. They could get on with life unharmed — or so I thought.

For society at large, the conclusion was obvious. We had to protect older, high-risk people while younger low-risk adults kept society moving.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, schools closed while nursing homes went unprotected. Why? It made no sense. So, I picked up a pen. To my surprise, I could not interest any US media in my thoughts, despite my knowledge and experience with infectious-disease outbreaks. I had more success in my native Sweden, with op-eds in the major daily newspapers, and, eventually, a piece in spiked. Other like-minded scientists faced similar hurdles.

Instead of understanding the pandemic, we were encouraged to fear it. Instead of life, we got lockdowns and death. We got delayed cancer diagnoses, worse cardiovascular-disease outcomes, deteriorating mental health, and a lot more collateral public-health damage from lockdown. Children, the elderly and the working class were the hardest hit by what can only be described as the biggest public-health fiasco in history.

Throughout the 2020 spring wave, Sweden kept daycare and schools open for every one of its 1.8million children aged between one and 15. And it did so without subjecting them to testing, masks, physical barriers or social distancing. This policy led to precisely zero Covid deaths in that age group, while teachers had a Covid risk similar to the average of other professions. The Swedish Public Health Agency reported these facts in mid-June, but in the US lockdown proponents still pushed for school closures.

In July, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article on ‘reopening primary schools during the pandemic’. Shockingly, it did not even mention the evidence from the only major Western country that kept schools open throughout the pandemic. That is like evaluating a new drug while ignoring data from the placebo control group.

With difficulty publishing, I decided to use my mostly dormant Twitter account to get the word out. I searched for tweets about schools and replied with a link to the Swedish study. A few of these replies were retweeted, which gave the Swedish data some attention. It also led to an invitation to write for the Spectator. In August, I finally broke into the US media with a CNN op-ed against school closures. I know Spanish, so I wrote a piece for CNN-Español. CNN-English was not interested.

Something was clearly amiss with the media. Among infectious-disease epidemiology colleagues that I know, most favour focused protection of high-risk groups instead of lockdowns, but the media made it sound like there was a scientific consensus for general lockdowns.

In September, I met Jeffrey Tucker at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an organisation I had never heard of before the pandemic. To help the media gain a better understanding of the pandemic, we decided to invite journalists to meet with infectious-disease epidemiologists in Great Barrington, New England, to conduct more in-depth interviews. I invited two scientists to join me, Sunetra Gupta from the University of Oxford, one of the world’s pre-eminent infectious-disease epidemiologists, and Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University, an expert on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations. To the surprise of AIER, the three of us also decided to write a declaration arguing for focused protection instead of lockdowns. We called it the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD).

Opposition to lockdowns had been deemed unscientific. When scientists spoke out against lockdowns, they were ignored, considered a fringe voice, or accused of not having proper credentials. We thought it would be hard to ignore something authored by three senior infectious-disease epidemiologists from what were three respectable universities. We were right. All hell broke loose. That was good.

Some colleagues threw epithets at us like ‘crazy’, ‘exorcist’, ‘mass murderer’ or ‘Trumpian’. Some accused us of taking a stand for money, though nobody paid us a penny. Why such a vicious response? The declaration was in line with the many pandemic preparedness plans produced years earlier, but that was the crux. With no good public-health arguments against focused protection, they had to resort to mischaracterisation and slander, or else admit they had made a terrible, deadly mistake in their support of lockdowns.

Some lockdown proponents accused us of raising a strawman, as lockdowns had worked and were no longer needed. Just a few weeks later, the same critics lauded the reimposition of lockdowns during the very predictable second wave. We were told that we had not specified how to protect the old, even though we had described ideas in detail on our website and in op-eds. We were accused of advocating a ‘let it rip’ strategy, even though focused protection is its very opposite. Ironically, lockdowns are a dragged-out form of a let-it-rip strategy, in which each age group is infected in the same proportion as a let-it-rip strategy.

When writing the declaration, we knew we were exposing ourselves to attacks. That can be scary, but as Rosa Parks said: ‘I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.’ Also, I did not take the journalistic and academic attacks personally, however vile – and most came from people I had never even heard of before. The attacks were not primarily addressed at us anyhow. We had already spoken out and would continue to do so. Their main purpose was to discourage other scientists from speaking out.

In my twenties, I risked my life in Guatemala working for a human-rights organisation called Peace Brigades International. We protected farmers, unionised workers, students, religious organisations, women’s groups and human-rights defenders who were threatened, murdered, and disappeared by military death squads. While the courageous Guatemalans I worked with faced much more danger, the death squads did once throw a hand grenade into our house. If I could do that work then, why should I not now take much smaller risks for people here at home? When I was falsely accused of being a Koch-funded right-winger, I just shrugged – typical behaviour by both establishment servants and armchair revolutionaries.

After the Great Barrington Declaration, there was no longer a lack of media attention on focused protection as an alternative to lockdowns. On the contrary, requests came from across the globe. I noticed an interesting contrast. In the US and UK, media outlets were either friendly with softball questions or hostile with trick questions and ad hominem attacks. Journalists in most other countries asked hard but relevant and fair questions, exploring and critically examining the Great Barrington Declaration. I think that is how journalism should be done.

While most governments continued with their failed lockdown policies, things have moved in the right direction. More and more schools have reopened, and Florida rejected lockdowns in favour of focused protection, partly based on our advice, without the negative consequences that the lockdowners predicted.

With the lockdown failures increasingly clear, attacks and censorship have increased rather than decreased: Google-owned YouTube censored a video from a roundtable with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, where my colleagues and I stated that children do not need to wear masks; Facebook closed the GBD account when we posted a pro-vaccine message arguing that older people should be prioritised for vaccination; Twitter censored a post when I said that children and those already infected do not need to be vaccinated; and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) removed me from a vaccine-safety working group when I argued that the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine should not be withheld from older Americans.

Twitter even locked my account for writing that:

‘Naively fooled to think that masks would protect them, some older high-risk people did not socially distance properly, and some died from Covid because of it. Tragic. Public-health officials/scientists must always be honest with the public.’

This increased pressure may seem counterintuitive, but it is not. Had we been wrong, our scientific colleagues might have taken pity on us and the media would have gone back to ignoring us. Being correct means that we embarrassed some immensely powerful people in politics, journalism, big tech and science. They are never going to forgive us.

That is not what matters, though. The pandemic has been a great tragedy. A 79-year-old friend of mine died from Covid, and a few months later his wife died from cancer that was not detected in time to initiate treatment. While deaths are inevitable during a pandemic, the naive but mistaken belief that lockdowns would protect the old meant that governments did not implement many standard focused-protection measures. The dragged-out pandemic made it harder for older people to protect themselves. With a focused-protection strategy, my friend and his wife might be alive today, together with countless other people around the world.

Ultimately, lockdowns protected young low-risk professionals working from home – journalists, lawyers, scientists, and bankers – on the backs of children, the working class and the poor. In the US, lockdowns are the biggest assault on workers since segregation and the Vietnam War. Except for war, there are few government actions during my life that have imposed more suffering and injustice on such a large scale.

As an infectious-disease epidemiologist, I had no choice. I had to speak up. If not, why be a scientist? Many others who bravely spoke could comfortably have stayed silent. If they had, more schools would still be closed, and the collateral public-health damage would have been greater. I am aware of many fantastic people fighting against these ineffective and damaging lockdowns, writing articles, posting on social media, making videos, talking to friends, speaking up at school board meetings, and protesting in the streets. If you are one of them, it has truly been an honour to work with you on this effort together. I hope that we will one day meet in person and then, let’s dance together. Danser encore!

Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.