31 July 2020

Third session of German Coronavirus Inquiry

[The inquiry’s third session consists of interviews with doctors and specialists from Italy answering questions on and recounting events from that country’s experience of the covid19 phenomenon (link to inquiry webpage: https://en.corona-ausschuss.de/). Images from northern Italy were instrumental in driving official narratives and justifying lockdowns elsewhere. Dr Wodarg was present and kicks off the session with a brief recap of the covid19 story. He makes three points worth repeating: 
  1. Wuhan alone in China produced scare stories and images, the rest of the country remained unaffected.
  2. Just as the situation died down in Wuhan/China, Italy exploded – end Feb / early March. Wodarg compared the harsh transition to a relay race, pointing out that viruses don’t leap fully from one country to the next; they radiate across the planet. 
  3. Italy’s hospitals are among Europe’s worst for contracting pneumonia while in their care.
The interviews are in English, so I’ve linked to their start times on YouTube and provide a synopsis of the more salient points. Where the Italian-German translator adds important information, I translate it.

Using blogger software is becoming increasingly unreliable. My embedded links cause the removal of the relevant paragraph's remaining text, my formatting attempts to change font size etc. are rarely registered on publication of the post, and the overall look, no matter my efforts, is always poor. My apologies on its behalf!]


Dr Füllmich and Dr Wodarg begin the session by outlining the inquiry chair’s legal interest and Wodarg’s medical interest in the Italian case. Because viruses do not change upon crossing country borders, and if people in country X seem to be responding very differently to the virus than people in country Y, it is important to discover which non-virus factors – demographics, air quality, medication used, etc. – explain those different responses.

The session begins with Dr Luca Speciani (https://youtu.be/vWkCSht8_bE?t=1795), a physician working in nutrition who also has a degree in agricultural sciences. Main points:

2020 Mortality across Italy similar to recent years, except for Bergamo and Bregia. The distinguishing factors singling out these regions are: 

  • very high numbers of flu vaccines; 
  • relocating elderly covid19 survivors (7,000?) from hospitals to care homes (there is a class-action suit against Lombardy because of this action); 
  • medical protocols: aspirin (fever suppressant) and anti-bacterials prescribed, as well as some expensive but ineffective antivirals;
  • thousands of intubations of elderly patients.

Regarding the prescribed-medications, a different programme was followed by one doctor who recorded zero deaths using inexpensive drugs for a whole month.This doctor was censured by the Italian government and forced to follow the ineffective/dangerous government guidelines favouring expensive drugs paid for from taxes. 

Italy is currently spreading and sustaining fear using “contagion hotspots”. 

Italian government issued guidelines to record covid19 as cause of death even if covid was only suspected. Not at all clear how many died of covid19.

Wodarg asks about a recent second report from the ISS claiming 85% died of covid19. How did they arrive at a figure that is the reverse of their original estimates? 

According to Dr Speciani, the report analysed only one sixth of total deaths, and looked only at what was recorded on death certificates. No autopsy data was included.

Dr Loretta Bolgan (a vaccine specialist, link: https://youtu.be/vWkCSht8_bE?t=4290) is asked whether autopsies have been conducted in Italy. A report on autopsy data is currently being written up (in which it has been established that patients did not die of pneumonia, the interpreter later explains). An epidemiological study is also underway comparing mortality statistics from previous years to 2020, which will tell us more. The Italian-German interpreter states that the report shows the virtual disappearance from Italian 2020 mortality statistics of various diseases – pneumonia, influenza, etc. – in favour of covid19.

Bolgan continues that the greater percentage of people became infected in hospitals, which in effect became Italy’s epidemic hotspots, and there were large amounts of incorrect treatment. Her view is to isolate only patients who are severely affected – a very low proportion of the total – and leave the rest as normal. It was unhelpful and unlawful to implement lockdown. And now, after much has been learned, Italian doctors are much better informed and prepared. She sees a danger in the proposed compulsory flu vaccinations – a clear link has been established between the flu jab and susceptibility to covid19 – which could create a sort of fake second wave.

There is then a discussion of various toxins discovered in vaccines whose composition was analysed, including amphetamine in Gardasil 9. This was taken to the police, but no answers were ever received. The chair decides that this sort of information, though otherwise very important, is not relevant to the inquiry.

Professor Antonietta Gatti (physicist, bioengineer, nano-pathologist, link: https://youtu.be/vWkCSht8_bE?t=10051). It is possible SARS-CoV-2 was present in Italy in late November 2019 (there are claims it was found in a river), but there is no clear data on this yet. 

She donated money and specialist equipment to a hospital for conducting a nano-scale investigation of samples taken from corpses whose cause of death was recorded as covid19. After one month, the team received a “very humiliating letter” from the hospital director saying there was no interest in the research. Professor Gatti’s interpretation is that they did not want to find out why Bergamo had the most deaths in Italy. 

She believes it would be possible to determine what triggered a particular thrombosis: SARS-CoV-2, pollutant nano-particles, a combination of viruses or something else. PCR tests only register positive or negative regarding some fragment of RNA, while the technologies she develops and skills she has can precisely determine causes. Using optical microscopes to investigate the details of the body at the organic scale of cells, combined with molecular-biology-based analytical extrapolations as your sources information, there is a 3-4 orders-of-magnitude blackhole in your data and understanding. Nano-pathology fills this gap. Precise cause of death is another matter, but causal factors leading to disease and complications such as thromboses could be ascertained, she believes.

Professor Pascuale Bacco (doctor, researcher, link: https://youtu.be/vWkCSht8_bE?t=12251) carried out autopsies in Italy and equates the SARS-CoV-2 virus with influenza viruses. He believes many were killed by incorrect treatment and medication in Bergamo/Bregia. His claims are based on the findings from his autopsies. In response to a question from Wodarg as to whether Bacco established a connection between particular medications and the occurrence of thrombosis, Bacco answers, yes. Further questioning establishes that Bracco blames government medicinal guidelines prescribed to doctors.

Professor Antonietta Gatti. From this linked-to timestamp on (https://youtu.be/vWkCSht8_bE?t=13583) there is a lengthy discussion of US vaccine contamination over 32 referencing a trial brought by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, in which no technical data sheets could be produced by governmental bodies demonstrating the safety of vaccines. Her work in this area seems to have attracted a cool response from industry, including having a charitable donation returned. 

She believes something in the order of 60 bodies were autopsied in Italy. She would like to see more autopsies performed to learn about the precise mechanisms between infection and death.

Summary

Not much can be said with certainty, concludes the chair, other than there are obviously a number of co-factors – flu vaccines, air pollutants, treatments, medication – contributing to the high mortality experienced in Bergamo and Bregia. The oft-asked question about how prevalent these co-factors were in previous influenza epidemics was not answered satisfactorily.

Wodarg wishes that the sentinel system set up by the Robert Koch Institute (see my report on the inquiry’s fourth session), which gathers data on virus-infection incidence from hundreds of surgeries and clinics across Germany, were set up elsewhere, and that these were used to also monitor CoV. 

Herd immunity cannot be seen in antibody reactions, but in our T-cells, which Wodarg characterises as “memory cells”. Our exposure as children to various, ever-mutating viruses entrains this immunity.

The chair hopes that a subsequent session or interview might be possible with experts better skilled as communicators, and will endeavour to get Professor Klaus Püschel (pathologist) to assist Professor Gatti in her nano-scale-pathology work.

29 July 2020

Fourth session of German Coronavirus Inquiry

[Frau Professor Dr Ulrike Kämmerer, virologist and immunologist at the University of Würzburg, spoke via telephone link with the fourth sitting of the corona-crisis inquiry on 24 July 2020, to answer questions on the PCR test used to diagnose “infections” or “cases” of covid19 globally; there are an unknown number of versions of the test in use and an unknown number of ways in which the test is calibrated, but the fundamentals of the test remain unchanged. Dr Wolfgang Wodarg was present at the hearing to ask and answer questions, and occasionally present slides.]


[Above chart not presented at hearing, my addition]


Kämmerer begins with an explanation of the basic operation of the PCR test; the PCR test confirms or denies the existence of specific nucleic acids in the test subject. In response to prompting from Wodarg, she adds that the test searches, via “multiplication”, for a small gene fragment from a selected region of a virus, but cannot confirm or deny the presence of the complete – “full length” – virus. In other words, a positive test result cannot confirm the presence of a virus, only the presence of a fragment of genetic material from a particular virus. A positive test result thus says nothing about sickness or infection.

Dr Füllmich, one of the four-member chair of lawyers hosting the hearings, interjects, pointing out that this is extremely important and must be established clearly. Kämmerer expands on the point again, explaining that a positive PCR-test result says nothing about whether a virus is capable of replicating, can confirm the presence of particular nucleic acids, but can say nothing about whether the test patient is or will become sick. Thus, the test can say nothing about viral load in the case of asymptomatic people. 

Kämmerer then goes into further detail. There is some RNA on the surface of the swab taken from the subject. A positive result cannot tell us either that the RNA is in the subject’s cells, or that an active, intact virus capable of replicating via the subject’s biology is present. In response to a question from Wodarg as to whether the test they are discussing is the same PCR test being used globally to assess the severity of the covid19 pandemic, Kämmerer answers, “Exactly.”
Füllmich: “Frau Professor Kämmerer, this is, from my point of view at least, insanely important information [… ] Because I’m domiciled in the US, I know one thing: In the US, the only reason for the current panic is the continually repeated water-level reporting regarding the numbers of infections. Have I understood correctly that these PCR tests that you and Dr Wodarg have just explained and are being used, that these tests, when they record a positive result, provide evidence that some molecules have been found – or even parts of molecules – but not that some sort of infection has taken place?”

Kämmerer: “That is correct.”
In response to a question from Wodarg as to whether the test could be so configured that it could report on viral load and infection, Kämmerer responds that such would be possible, but scientists and researchers would have to work with the isolated virus. She has not yet seen anything in the literature stating that this has been done.
Wodarg: “This is what the European Union demands of tests intended for diagnostic purposes…”
Kämmerer: “Yes, normally they would conduct round-robin trials. Labs would be given samples and wouldn’t know whether there’s something in them or not – only the diagnostic collection office knows that. And the test has to report back positive, negative, weakly positive … but none of this has happened.”
Füllmich appears staggered by this information, and later asks Kämmerer again if the positive test results “slopping about” in the US at the moment really say nothing about infection and disease in the people tested.
Kämmerer: “That’s correct. Although if the test responds early [in its replication cycles], you can be fairly sure the virus is present. This is the familiar problem of where to set the cut-off point. This point mostly remains undefined in papers; the CQCT value used really ought to be specified. The papers never specify which PCR test is used with which parameters to record the positive results, so we absolutely cannot evaluate the data published; it’s like reading tea leaves.”
Kämmerer then answers in the affirmative to a question from Justus Hoffmann – inquiry-chair lawyer – asking if the test results are effectively worthless until the details on each test are known. Asked by Wodarg if the tests might be detecting a wide variety of SARS viruses, Kämmerer again answers in the affirmative. It is also impossible to say that the SARS-CoV-2 virus – apparently discovered in Wuhan – is new, or how new if at all.
Kämmerer: “We are dealing with an RNA virus, and RNA viruses mutate incredibly quickly. In other words, were the virus to be sequenced across the world, we’d find an unbelievably high number of variants of this virus. This is typical of RNA viruses, such that you’ll almost certainly never find exactly the same sequence to the one now present in Wuhan, or in New York, in Rio de Janeiro, in Melbourne, for example. This is practically impossible unless someone travelled from A to B to C and spread their virus.” [Which is surely the official narrative: that SARS-CoV-2 originated in and spread out from Wuhan.]
Kämmerer then explains that the correct procedure in developing a test is to use an isolated virus as a gold standard to ensure the test only and always identifies the single pathogen in question. 
Füllmich: “But that did not happen.” 
The test we’ve been working with thus far – Füllmich calls it “cobbled together” – is the shaky basis for the hundreds of variants being used worldwide to reinstate lockdowns in discovered hotspots. As a lawyer, Füllmich simply cannot understand how this can be so. Kämmerer agrees; as a virologist, she feels something is wrong.

In response to a question from Viviane Fischer – inquiry-chair lawyer – regarding the wide variety of tests in use and broad spectrum of parameters that can be set when using the test, Kämmerer explains that it will never be possible to find one single constant variant of SARS-CoV-2. There are already 10s of mutants recorded in the relevant databases. 

Hoffmann then inquires about the possibility of comparison benchmarks that might inform us on the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 variants’ distribution through populations in previous years, such that we could assess relative severity. Kämmerer points out that such data does not exist, as no one had bothered about corona viruses up until now; they had never represented much of a problem, with SARS and MERS being notable exceptions. Wodarg draws attention to a chart – not specifying its source country of research – and mentions that there are a couple of places that have been researching this question – demonstrating the perennial presence of corona viruses (CoV) in influenza seasons.



Füllmich asks whether SARS-CoV-2 might have been present for some time, but only discovered at the end of 2019. Kämmerer’s response is that we can’t really know for sure, but it is possible – corona viruses mutate so quickly – that SARS-CoV-2 is new, whereby “new” means slightly different to some predecessor. It would be possible to discover if it is new, but “amplifiable samples” taken during a previous flu season would have to be extant and stored properly in liquid nitrogen.

The discussion then switches to a ranging exploration of immunity as it pertains to: various age groups – viruses do not notice age, they are effective only where cell receptors are present that they can dock onto, regardless of host age; to inborn and learned immunity; and to cross-immunity and how children’s constant exposure to countless CoV variants teaches their immune systems to defend against other variants by recognising similarities. Kämmerer stresses the importance of learned over in-born immunity, saying the children’s exposure via close contact with their families and school friends is critical. 

Wodarg raises the point that corona viruses have a highly identifiable basic structure – whence the name – involving the crown-like spikes surrounding their membrane, and that this structure facilitates cross-immunity. Kämmerer agrees, adding that the “spikes” themselves ought not to mutate as they are needed to “dock” with the hosts’ cell receptors. They are the ‘keys’ to the rooms – cell interiors – in which the virus can replicate; the spikes thus mutate very slowly.

Viviane Fischer and Füllmich ask if there’s a possibility that among the dead of previous influenza seasons, undiagnosed cases of SARS-CoV-2 might have been involved. Kämmerer recalls a paper published on an incident in Alberta, Canada, in which a number of elderly people died in a care home. Tests were conducted and a corona virus was found to be responsible. In other words, cases do occur where similar clinical outcomes regarding certain types of lung damage is effected by different strains. Hoffmann seeks confirmation that the claimed newness of the lung damage said to be caused by SARS-CoV-2 is in fact a fairly familiar and widespread artefact of other corona viruses. Kämmerer answers in the affirmative.

Wodarg then introduces the “sentinel” system set up by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) that receives data from hundreds of clinics and doctors’ practices from across Germany regarding the incidence of the various viruses that make their rounds from season to season, year after year.

["Kalenderwoche" means "calendar week", "viren" means "viruses"]

The discussion then turns, via a question from Füllmich, to the infamous “second wave”. Kämmerer responds by saying that corona viruses tail off in spring and return around December or late autumn.
Wodarg: “My question to all those talking about a ‘second wave’: When was there ever such a thing? How do you know that a second wave is coming? What evidence do you have that there can even be two waves? How is it that you can say so matter of factly: There WILL be a second wave! Who told you this? Where is the literature? Where can you find it? Nowhere!”
Füllmich: “That’s also our legal question. Because, with this evocation of a second wave that, in my view – I really do have to put it like this now – is desperately being invoked to keep these measures going, there really does have to be some evidence for it. That’s my question as a lawyer. Has there ever been such a thing, or is it just an ordinary summer flu?” [Rhino viruses, blue line in chart above.]
Wodarg: “There is no second wave. There’s no second corona wave; there is always, every year, a wave in which the corona viruses are more or less numerous. Every observation, all evidence we have, confirms this. So if someone is talking about a second or additional wave, then it can’t be a coming second wave, but one that someone is making. You can also make waves, but I don’t think that’s easily done.”
Füllmich: “We would have to be able to prove that.” 
Wodarg: “Agreed.”
Füllmich: “We have just learned that the PCR tests have absolutely no validity here. Antibody tests do to an extent, but we’re not finding anything at the moment, if I’m understanding things correctly from the mainstream media – whom I no longer trust – we’re not finding anything! And that’s why I’ve been wondering for a long time now why there’s all this talk of a second wave. […] You [gestures to conference telephone / Professor Kämmerer], as a virologist, perhaps you know more on this point: Is there any supporting evidence, has there ever been such a thing?”
Kämmerer explains that if the number of tests continues to grow and reaches the millions by late autumn / early winter, then the arrival of the next corona season will produce more positive results as a matter of course. There is, in that sense, going to be a second wave, but also a third, fourth, fifth … into the hundreds. It is an annual process. With the flu, for example, we don’t talk about second waves, but about seasons. There are also corona seasons.

The putative historical precedent of the Spanish Flu is raised as the only possible scientific evidence, but is deemed insufficient. The severely compromised immune system in young men exposed to the the poison gasses and extreme stresses of WW1 is offered as an explanation. Two consecutive flu seasons at the end of WW1 met virtually no resistance in the young soldiers. [There is much research on the Spanish Flu associating the large number of war-time vaccinations given to soldiers as an additional factor; apparently, non-vaccinated people were not similarly affected by the relevant two flu seasons.] A special hearing is to be held to go into these matters more closely.

Füllmich segues into the next question on fear and panic acting to weaken the immune system. Kämmerer says there is very good data on this question and it is non-controversial across the world that cortisone – produced by stress, fear, panic, etc. – down regulates the immune system; it is used medically to do so at need.

Hoffman then raises a basic, general question about how a virus can be seasonal. Kämmerer’s answer explains the hemispheric nature of seasons. [Rhino viruses appear to ‘prefer’ the stronger immune system characteristic of sunny months, while the others seem to ‘prefer’ the weakened immune systems of wintry months. Why this might be so is not addressed.]

Viviane Fischer then inquires into the possibility that social distancing might impair the development of people’s immune systems via lack of exposure to viruses. Kämmerer feels herself to be insufficiently qualified to answer the question definitively, but references the wipe out of native people in The New World upon the arrival there of Spanish conquistadors, suggesting that continued lack of exposure to evolving viruses may well be counterproductive in terms of immune-system health. She adds that giving the immune system nothing to do can lead to auto-immune diseases. 

Wodarg interjects that he sees the relationship between organisms and viruses as non-combative. We became humans, he reasons, in communication with our environment; we are “full of viruses” “occupied” by them. We are what we are because of bacteria and viruses, not despite them. The simple fact that things can go wrong is universal; our senses can make mistakes, we can forget what we have learned, and die as a consequence. The immune system can also make mistakes and forget, too. Life is about continuous [error-correcting] communications processes.

The topic is explored more deeply in terms of protecting your immune system via healthy living, in contrast to unhealthy living and (metabolic) chronic illnesses as impairments to it. Hence, age is not the critical factor in susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens, it is the quality of the immune system per se that counts.

Wodarg asks whether the large number of vaccinations given to children is the right training for the immune system. Our bodies benefit from annual exposure to pathogens; exposure stimulates the immune system. If we avoid exposure, we weaken ourselves. If we protect ourselves by hiding away in a hole for six months, for example, we “fall out of training”. The same applies if we lie in bed for six months; our bones and muscles degrade. Kämmerer agrees, with the caveat that the length of time required to significantly impair the immune system is uncertain, but certainly more than six months. How social-distancing measures should be assessed against this argument, Kämmerer does not feel qualified to say, but hazards it is unlikely to make any significant difference. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations are then mentioned, and it is agreed the flouting of social-distancing regulations that marked them led to no infection spikes.

The morning session closes discussing the difficulty of assessing the threat presented by the SARS-CoV-2 virus; there is no gold standard available that would facilitate such an assessment, and the different strains active in Wuhan, London, New York, etc. make the matter challenging, a challenge that also adversely effects development of an effective vaccine. In addition to this, there’s never only one pathogen at work at any given time, but a multitude. Determining unequivocally how the multiple pathogenic factors interrelate with chronic diseases and immune-system health presents enormous difficulties, not to mention inappropriate medical interventions such as intubation, environmental toxins, etc. The search is currently exclusively for corona viruses, meaning our data is grossly insufficient to the task.

Summary

The second half begins with Wodarg drawing attention to the grounds used to declare an emergency and what form the measures enacted in its wake took. Typically, a pandemic should look like a catastrophe, and there were images from northern Italy and Wuhan to suggest one was underway there and thus threatened Germany. However, in Germany’s case, this never materialised. Germany’s response was to call for “testing … lots and lots of testing”. Only by testing “the entire population” could Germany discover what’s going on. Information from hospitals, clinics and doctors’ surgeries was ignored. “Today we learned what the tests can tell us.” We are now justified in doubting that the tests can tell us anything at all about any danger Germany might be facing.

We know we are infected when our throats hurt or we have a runny nose. Which virus we might have caught isn’t the issue; we stay at home and wait for it to pass. But the argument that there is a new a dangerous pathogen afoot was used to test as many people as possible; enormous effort to learn almost nothing. Alternatively, sick people in hospitals could be have been targeted and tested; less effort to learn more. And there are also extant monitoring systems that yield infection “weather maps” in Germany. The image below shows weekly snapshots generated by the RKI’s “sentinel probes” (see above), starting with the last week 2019 proceeding through to week 13 (middle of March) 2020. Blue denotes no, green mild and red high rates of infection (of acute respiratory diseases). Four weeks later (mid April) the map was wholly blue again.


Wodarg’s point is that the monitoring tools used are critical. PCR tests tell one story, “sentinel” probes another, hospital-occupancy rates can add important detail, etc. [Of note here and drawing from comments made in the first hearing, PCR testing is now a business model turning over profits that rival those generated by vaccine manufacture.]

He then references a rough pyramidal breakdown of infection types per 100,000 of a population. 30,000 may have been exposed to the virus but have no symptoms. For this group, the question would be, are they infectious? Recently, the WHO produced a paper that answered, No, asymptomatic people are not infectious. Infectiousness is a direct consequence of viral replication within a host. If a virus cannot replicate in me, I cannot infect others with that virus. If it does replicate, its replication produces an inflammation, and this inflammation produces symptoms. And if I am infected, I know it before any test, because I experience the symptoms. The PCR test can only tell me that some molecule chain was discovered in me. A positive test result does not mean “infection”, it means only a positive test result. So if you notice symptoms, stay home, self-isolate, don’t visit Granny. Or, help towards herd immunity and get infected if you’re confident you can handle the particular virus. There is heated discussion about which of these two methods is the more sensible/effective.

Various members of the inquiry chair press Wodarg on this point, reminding him that SARS-CoV-2 is said to be especially dangerous because it is “invisible”, because even asymptomatic people are infectious, a critical criterion used to justify lockdown and mandating masks.

The answer is unambiguous, confirms Wodarg. “If I have no infection, no symptoms, then my body is not reacting [to the virus], not replicating any viruses and cannot spread [the infection].”

Hoffmann asks about the incubation period attributed to SARS-CoV-2. Incubation, answers Wodarg, is the period between contact with the virus and the onset of symptoms. The length of time varies significantly from person to person, and can be as quick as one to two days.

The discussion then revolves for a while around the annual distribution of viruses and how the relative prevalence of each impacts the ‘space made available’ to the others. Wodarg draws an analogy to a fixed-size meadow on which only a certain number of different flowers can grow. CoV is always present to varying degrees.
Füllmich: “So why has this one become a superstar, why has it suddenly been pushed to the foreground? Because what I’ve just understood is that it may have been exactly like this for years, i.e., during other flu seasons – at least this is how I understand it – this virus was also present then as now, albeit in a slightly different mutation.”
Wodarg’s answer is that specialists systematically overestimate. If you ask a virologist, they answer from a virologist’s perspective. With both the bird and swine flu they were wildly wrong. And they’re doing it again. By way of clarification, Füllmich crudely paraphrases that virologists discover some exciting new deadly pathogen, frighten politicians into believing them, then together they effect harsh sociopolitical measures like lockdowns. Wodarg responds by referencing medical conflict-of-interest issues. One is motivated to investigate these but not other matters, and financial profit plays a big part in determining where time and effort is invested. Vaccination, and now PCR tests, are big business.

The WHO’s unannounced change [in May 2009] to its definition of a pandemic is then brought up. Prior to this change, very large numbers of death and sickness were required globally, subsequently only infections caused by a new pathogen spreading across the world are required, something that is in fact an annual occurrence. Füllmich argues that every politician and lawyer should now be asking if there’s any basis for all these actions, and why this is considered a pandemic when it would have been a normal flu wave 11 years ago. 

The media’s presentation of accumulated cases is described by Wodarg as totally misleading. Bar charts showing weekly figures compared to each other, which then depict a curve denoting the weekly rise and fall of cases would be far more reasonable. Wodarg returns to the rough pyramidal breakdown, whose remaining groups consist of 60,000 with symptoms, 8,000 who pay a visit to the doctor because of those symptoms, 500 who end up in a clinic and a remaining 25 who die. A rough estimate of a typical viral epidemic in a developed country. 

Füllmich asks why test results that tell us nothing about infections and disease incidence are reported in the media as “infections”. Wodarg answers, “To make us afraid.” This is not about disease, it’s about vested interests. They made us afraid of the bird flu and of the swine flu: “30 million dead!” said the WHO. We’ve yet to reach 1,000 cases worldwide for the bird flu. Again the WHO declares a pandemic, just as with the swine flu, but without drawing attention its changed definition.
Füllmich: “And no one asks [any critical questions]! It’s as if it’s all being dictated from above. It’s incomprehensible to me. […] Did anyone ask about the change of definition during the Council of Europe’s inquiry into the swine flu?”
Wodarg says the question was asked. The WHO responded that the change was made for pragmatic reasons; we must be careful. The risk now, agree Füllmich and Wodarg, is that every influenza virus can be used to declare a pandemic. Now, essentially, the world is constantly at the mercy of what virologists might discover or “stage”, argues Wodarg. “They just need to start measuring.”

So the mere declaration of a pandemic, recaps Füllmich, is enough to get the whole world to play along. And yet surely there are many other people who can make a far more accurate assessment of what is occurring in hospitals, in funereal homes, etc. Wodarg agrees, reporting that he receives emails from a large number of resident doctors telling him that nothing is happening. “Why don’t they say anything?” asks Füllmich. “They do,” answers Wodarg, but their voices aren’t reported in the media. “Where are the critical media?” asks Wodarg. Where are any critical voices, Wodarg and Füllmich ask. Germany had 50 million doses of the swine-flu vaccine, but then German doctors raised the alarm and only 4 million were administered. He hopes this time that no doctor is prepared to vaccinate their patients with such a quickly developed vaccine as is anticipated for SARS-CoV-2.

The conversation turns to politics. Wodarg is aware of a few politicians who are suspicious of the official narrative, but doubts they will raise concerns. Wodarg and Füllmich reason that the causes must be psychological if there are no evidential or medical reasons for the lockdown and mask mandates; why else would the vast majority uncritically obey? Wodarg compares the phenomenon to how people follow the latest fashion trends. Füllmich suggests the inquiry invite psychologists and psychoanalysts to a hearing.

Wodarg returns to the RKI, stating that it has excellent resources and gathers highly accurate and pertinent data. Sadly this goes unused. All media reporting filters through Herr Spahn [Germany’s health minister] and Dr Wieler [director of the RKI]. Füllmich asks if people lower down the RKI hierarchy could be interviewed. “They would lose their jobs,” answers Wodarg. And any whistleblowers that do come forward insist on anonymity. Füllmich announces that the chair can offer legal anonymity to any whistleblowers.

Wodarg is reminded of totalitarian states. “It’s frightening” what’s happening in Germany, he says. Füllmich believes many people have the same impression and is now of the opinion that fear of the pandemic is misplaced, but fear of something else is indeed warranted.

After criticising formerly objective and critical media such as the TAZ and Correctiv – the latter, according to Wodarg, lied about having interviewed him when in truth he contacted them to warn them about how SARS-CoV-2 is a repeat of the bird- and swine-flu scandals – the chair concludes, and reports on its future programme. It will be interviewing psychologists regarding the impact of the various measures on children, and looking into why the media presents such a uniform perspective of the crisis. The media’s failure to properly present statistics and the various medical aspects is critical, and must be elucidated. 

27 July 2020

First session of German Coronavirus Inquiry

[Below is my translation of a report by RT Deutsch of the first session of an inquiry currently underway in Germany investigating the justifications and impacts of Germany’s corona-crisis measures. The first hearing was an interview of Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, who played an instrumental role in exposing the fraudulent nature of the swine-flu pandemic declared by the WHO in 2009. While RT’s report is fairly thorough and true to the hearing, being in a very neutral style it fails to convey the passion Wodarg brings to the table.]

Wolfgang Wodarg – Hearing

Swine flu and the role of the WHO

Wolfgang Wodarg introduced himself as a lung specialist and epidemiologist who was responsible for preventing and handling epidemics as head of a health department for several years.

Wodarg said it was the 2005 bird flu that initially made him aware of irregularities in connection with seasonal respiratory diseases. At that time, he continued, the media disseminated images of dead birds alongside the WHO prediction of 30 million human deaths. In response to his inquiries, the WHO failed to provide him with the actual data supporting this estimate, instead giving him advertising material [on Tamiflu] from a vaccine manufacturer, and this from a WHO employee who shortly thereafter moved to the vaccine department of the pharmaceutical company Novartis.

According to Wodarg, institutions and individuals played a role in creating and assessing situations “based on a handful of cases”. They are still active in the current “pandemic”. Back then, cases were gathered through “searching” and disseminated through the media, and then used to set the agenda.
“Thanks to this drama that they created in Mexico, the CDC got involved, and then the first cases were diagnosed in the USA. And that’s how it got on the radar.”
It was a modus operandi he observed during the bird-flu event and even before, during SARS 2002/2003, which, he said, led to the “Pandemic Preparedness” process established by the WHO; after all, a dangerous pathogen could emerge at any moment. Plans were drawn up on this basis and partly secret contracts were concluded between states and the vaccination industry, even though this involved public money, reported Wodarg. The contracts are triggered when the WHO declares the highest pandemic level. Wodarg pointed out that the definition of a pandemic was changed without explanation.* Up until 2009, not one of the influenza outbreaks recorded since the 1930s met the pandemic criteria. Since then, every influenza outbreak fulfils the WHO definition of a pandemic.

Wodarg argued that these contracts have effectively created a market for the vaccine industry, which uses different strategies employing new technologies such as bioreactors and adjuvants. It is fundamentally problematic to use vaccines on healthy individuals, and for this reason vaccination should be a personal choice. In the past, vaccines were manufactured or controlled by the state, whereas today they have been privatised by the vaccine industry and possible harms socialised, in that the state is held liable: in Germany’s case, through its healthcare offices.
The growing fusion between economics and politics, for example Donald Rumsfeld acting as CEO of a vaccine manufacturer and later as a minister in the George W. Bush government, plays an important role, continued Wodarg. The scientific basis for proofs of effectiveness and approvals in the case of vaccines against the swine flu has thus become opaque. On balance, Wodarg stated, the development has caused more harm than good.

In contrast to national parliaments, the Council of Europe had a decisive impact on explaining developments concerning the swine flu, in particular due to its composition of government and opposition parties from its 47 member states. The finding determined that it had been a fake pandemic made possible by the WHO’s redefinition of “pandemic”. The WHO itself, continued Wodarg, is bound by various conditionalities and acts non-transparently. This information went around the globe and was the cause of scandal in many countries.

Since the end of the 1990s, the WHO has become increasingly under-financed, such that today roughly 80% of its budget consists of conditional monies that are primarily of an economic character, added Wodarg.

Who monitors?

The important thing to be aware of, is who monitors disease outbreaks.  Epidemiologists concern themselves with symptoms, cases, frequency, location and causal chains, virologists with taxonomic and molecular sequences. Earlier, cultivating viruses played a role, whereas today it’s about sequencing and, consequently, the development of tests for finding these molecules and gene parts.
And yet discovered molecules cannot diagnose disease. Moreover, there is the problem of false positives. Such tests are fundamentally unsuited for assessing infection.

Wodarg recounts an anecdote that reveals what else can go wrong with these tests:
“I received an email from friends in the USA. It said that they went to a test and had to wait for an hour. That was too long for them, so they left. Next day they received a letter telling them they had tested positive.”
Obviously, carrying out test procedures and the tests themselves are problematic due to their extreme sensitivity and possible contamination.

Furthermore, there’s the problem of what one looks for with the test, and what one ignores. It has in the meantime become clear that there have been earlier discoveries of SARS-CoV-2. [In other words, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is deemed ‘new’ because we started looking for it.]

Tests, in particular the globally marketed Drosten test, are scientifically interesting but clinically irrelevant. You find what you look for, asserted Wodarg. But whatever you discover says nothing about what is taking place in a person’s biology, nor about the sought for and constantly changing viruses. Such tests are only clinically relevant when there are specific medicines for specific viruses.

In the end, it is the entire field of diagnosis, medical measures and medication that plays a role in such disease outbreaks, not to mention country-specific and social factors such as access to and organisation of the healthcare bodies. For example, images disseminated by the media of “white tents” in the USA were in fact nothing unusual.

The same applies to the images from northern Italy. There too there are specific factors to take into account and carefully analyse, for example demographics and the condition of healthcare and nursing home facilities, as well as the effects of the panic triggered by the lockdown and media reports, leading to personnel shortages and erroneous treatments due to knee-jerk reactions.

Vaccines and tests

It is well known that there can be no evidence-based claim about  the benefits of vaccines against constantly changing pathogens. On the other hand, they do represent annual business in the case of seasonal infectious diseases such as influenza.

Studies have demonstrated similar disease occurrence in vaccinated and non-vaccinated people. Vaccinated people become infected by other pathogens that “fall through the cracks”.

All of this information must be known to the responsible German authorities such as the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI).

The planned RNA vaccines constitute a technology that moves the bioreactor used to manufacture the vaccine into the human body itself, with the body being genetically modified by the vaccine. Germ-line mutations that might result from the complexity of living systems with recursive processes are prohibited in Europe but cannot be ruled out, meaning that a sufficiently long period testing this sort of vaccine, running to several years, would be required.
“It’s a wonderful business model. I don’t even have to produce the vaccine any more. I give you this easily manufactured RNA, inject you with it, and then you produce the vaccine yourself. No more chicken eggs, no more bioreactors; you are the bioreactor. Excellent! And this is a new product, so there’s a patent, which makes it even more expensive, so I earn even more. On the economic front, that’s the idea. Wonderful!”
Asked whether there is any medical justification for this, Wodarg answered:
“No. It is irresponsible to use this as a reason to place millions of people at such risk. It is utterly irresponsible and criminal, in my opinion. As a doctor, I would rightly be judged as grossly negligent and imprisoned.” 
Regarding the tests, in addition to the fact that they are unsuitable as a diagnostic tool, there is also the problem that they have no official validation. The EU insists on official approval for this sort of medical product. Currently, transitional provisions apply, from national to EU law.

The current tests open up a new, enormous market for PCR and antibody tests, as for the mechanically automated processes developed for them. “New tests” are required by “new waves”.

A member of the inquiry [Dr Füllmich] drew attention at this point to the possibility of product liability. In this context, the question was later put to Wodarg as to whether he had discerned any distinguishing quality of the corona outbreak. This question [stated Füllmich] is legally pivotal in justifying such a massive suspension of fundamental rights – the foundation of Germany’s democracy – through the lockdown measures. Wodarg could discern no such quality:
“That the pathogen is more dangerous than previously, that the pathogen is more dangerous than others that emerge during the influenza season, has not been demonstrated.”
Restrictions to our freedoms by state authorities such as healthcare offices are administrative acts, argued Wodarg. Such acts must be very well considered and justified, as otherwise indemnity claims could be brought against the official bodies.
“If I cannot prove and justify, before a court, that I was certain, that it was right, that it had to be, then I am liable. And if a healthcare office relies on a test that is not approved as a diagnostic tool, then locks up people who show no symptoms, well they’d have to dress up very warmly were they to present that case before court.”
The conclusions drawn at the time from the swine-flu reassessment in a report by the Council of Europe are, according to Wodarg, primarily relevant to structural factors that are equally pertinent to the corona crisis.

There are most definitely remedial courses of action in this regard, especially in Germany with its international and exemplary body, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). The [PCR] test, the foundation for all of this, could be subjected to a risk-benefit analysis in line with up-to-date international scientific knowledge. The government, the Federal Joint Committee, and the health-insurance funds may commission such an analysis. But this has yet to happen.
“That one can use some in-house test to shut down the entire republic is very strange.”

Democracy and media

In answer to the question as to whether he had ever in his professional and political life experienced such a total lack of interest in precisely identifying causes despite such grave restrictions to fundamental rights and consequences, Wodarg answered in the negative:
“In terms of the homogeneity of the political response, no, I’ve never experienced its like. There was always an identifiable, powerful opposition, and the government had to explain itself. I’ve never experienced anything of this kind. With the swine flu, however, it was also the case that there was no real political opposition in Germany.”
The media has played a very decisive role, he continued:
“When there’s no opposition in the media, when there is no critical media outlet, then politics loses its nerve, too. (…) If the media presents politics with public facts that are served up as the truth, it is then extremely difficult for politicians to resist. (…) If the issues at hand are presented in such a way that no one would understand if the government behaved any differently, then it gets very difficult for government and opposition alike.”
With regards to the economic consequences from the corona measures, which won’t be fully felt by the majority of the population until September, Wodarg expresses scepticism regarding the media’s role to date:
“When the media report on the economic difficulties, their reporting is of the effect that they themselves are nicely protected. In other words, the responsibility that the media has … the uncritical position and the one-sided reporting of the larger media outlets that we observe … that’s a mistake … that is a failure by our media. What we’re doing in this small office here should actually be discussed in public, and on the major channels. I get asked thousands of times, ‘Why aren’t you there, why aren’t you getting involved!?’ I used to do just that. But today, because [critical voices] are just defamed – hey presto, you’re gone. That’s how they filter out all critical voices.”
By weaponising the media in this way, democracy is damaged, reasoned Wodarg. The self regulation possible in a democracy, in terms of finding compromises and solutions that improve public wellbeing, takes place in a one-sided way.
“We are being turned into the victims of those who are laughing themselves to death over our democracy. (…) Guilty parties are named. But they themselves are never the guilty ones.”
He looks with confidence to the coming national elections at which everyone wants to be reelected:
“If we are able to get the questions we’re raising here in this form to the general public, such that they are then asked by the majority of the population and taken up by the media: ‘What is your position on this? Do you really want to force these masks on us again as a sign of our subjugation, or are you going to protect us against this sort of nonsense? Do you want to expose us again to these genetic experiments and put us under pressure?’ When I hear Frau von der Leyen say, ‘We won’t be able to end the pandemic until the vaccine is there.’ Who is ‘we’? What kind of behaviour is that?”
Wodarg finds this incomprehensible, and also that it is swallowed by the media; as if a pandemic could be ended “by the government”.
The important thing – which is part of this inquiry’s work as I understand it – is that the public is furnished with arguments that enable them to ask questions. (…) What are you [politicians] doing to us? What are your primary concerns? How will you ensure that we’re not lied to? What is your relationship with the pharmaceutical industry? Surely you realise that they don’t have our health, but rather their stock-market performance, in mind.”
The problem impacts the entire healthcare system with its profit-orientation towards private interests, to whom, one way or another, public money flows via the health-insurance funds. And this is equally true of the financial disincentives [beds kept empty earned hospitals money] influencing hospitals during the corona crisis. Money, needed in other areas, that could have been differently employed with more effective public controls.

Summation and outlook

The first session raised serious doubts over the alleged medical circumstances of the corona crisis that are presented as facts, summarised Dr Viviane Fischer, inquiry spokesperson. The [PCR] test’s veracity could not be determined. The inquiry members find it strange both that nobody appears to be interested in this particular issue, and that the institutes that could pronounce on the matter have not been commissioned to do so.

The grave and already identifiable consequences of the corona measures will be examined more closely in subsequent sittings. Dr V. Fischer also stated it will be important to determine the factual bases for the corona crisis that are relevant to each of its different stages. In the final analysis, in the event of such grievous attacks on fundamental rights and such severe consequences arising therefrom, an attendant and lasting evaluation of the effected measures is indispensable, according to a statement from the Federal Constitutional Court.
“Was there sufficient factual justification for the lockdown?”
This would be addressed via international inquiries and fact-finding hearings, for instance on the situation in China, Italy and other countries, regarding the images and media reports, which were and continue to be instrumental in shaping how the crisis is handled in Germany.

Additional special attention should be given to the responsible institutional bodies for country-specific details as well as supranational monitoring and inquiries.
Examination of the issues surrounding the test will be intensified, including possible co-infections, and, equally, of the inquiry into the medical measures and consequences of the corona crisis. Furthermore, the economic impact on bodies such as central banks and financial entities, as on state social systems and budgets, must also be examined.

In connection with vaccine and test problems, the inquiry concluded it is also important to consider data-protection aspects and possible use of the “corona lists” and genome data collected in this context.

As with the processes surrounding the swine flu, light must be shed on the hidden decision structures, vested interests and their personnel and institutional connections, in particular at the WHO and its affiliated organisations. Of primary importance here would be the relationship between economic and public interests.


*[Translator’s addition, quoting Wodarg on this vital point: “A pandemic rests on two pillars. The first is that there’s an infectious disease spreading globally. The second was the seriousness of the disease, the severity of case numbers and fatality / number of deaths.” Wodarg later quotes the particular criterion that disappeared from the WHO website around 4 May 2009: “An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears, against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in epidemics worldwide, enormous numbers of death and illness.” He asserts that the WHO failed to announce this change, but various nations noticed and voiced their concerns. (See this article from 18 May 2009.) Pandemics are now a “banality”. The swine flu pandemic was declared in June 2009.]

22 July 2020

The Great Reset – what is it, really? | By Ernst Wolff

Over the last six months, the world has undergone historical changes. For the first time in its history, the global economy has been intentionally brought to an almost total standstill, an act whose consequences will soon surpass anything humanity has experienced in peace time.

But this appears to be just the beginning. Signs are gathering that what we now face is not a course correction; rather, we will see this course continue and even intensify. The alliance established half a year ago between scientists, media and politicians that brought about the lockdown is currently using every conceivable opportunity to create the pandemic’s “second wave” – even though the first never attained the horrors predicted but kept well within the territory of previous influenza pandemics.

Because we have not once, even in the case of previous far more dangerous outbreaks, come close to initiating such comprehensive measures to control a disease as we have for Covid19, it is hard not to suspect that behind the apparent concerns about the public’s health lie quite different motives.

Indeed, there is a large amount of data, facts and developments that not only support this supposition, but make it seem extremely probable. You could express it with a single phrase: “The Great Reset”. It certainly seems the world’s financial and political elites see it as necessary. Their lead representatives are to gather under this phrase in Davos at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in January 2021, having declared The Great Reset the theme for the coming times.

And it’s true – an all-encompassing reset is due for two reasons: the first is that the global financial sector is no longer fit for purpose in its current form, the second is a global economy teetering on the brink of the greatest collapse in its history.

These are the details:

The global financial system has been kept alive artificially by central banks since the financial crisis of 2007/08 by the continual lowering of interest rates and money creation ex nihilo.

The first lever is now more or less exhausted in that interest rates have reached zero almost everywhere. Further reductions into negative-interest territory would turn the money-lending business into a money-losing business and the banking sector would collapse from within.

The central banks are thus forced to reach for the second lever: money creation. But this has further inflated already gigantic financial-market bubbles through the trillions created so far during the corona crisis. Continuing with this lever risks destroying the purchasing power of the planet’s major currencies.

Because there is no other lever the central banks can use to keep the system alive means the present money system now finds itself in its final days.

The real economy looks to be facing even more drastic challenges. It is currently experiencing the greatest upheaval in human history at the hands of the digital revolution.

The use of artificial intelligence and robots to replace human labour will have far greater consequences than did the industrial revolution 250 years ago. Corporations and state-owned enterprises will make enormous numbers of people redundant through digitalisation. Products of every type – from replacement teeth to electric cars to finished houses – can already be printed anywhere in the world from a 3-D printer. Huge numbers of factories are therefore going to close, and road, sea and air logistics will become superfluous to a large extent. On top of that, home-office and home schooling will be part of the new normal, as will telemedicine and cryptocurrencies. 

These developments will destroy hundreds of millions of jobs worldwide and with them the means of existence for an equally large number of people. This in turn brings grave consequences in its wake because these people will no longer be able to buy goods and services – the fuel of any trade-based economy – nor will they be tax payers.

Because the previous money system was based on value creation through human labour, artificial intelligence and robot automation take the ground out from under it. But instead of disassembling the current money system – made redundant by these recent developments – and erecting a new one in its place, those who benefit most from the present system are doing everything  they can to keep it working to their benefit.

But this ambition confronts them with a very difficult problem: a gradual transformation of extant society into the “new normal” would meet with growing resistance from within the population, very likely to social unrest and possibly popular uprisings and even civil war. The elites therefore have to come up with a different strategy, which is exactly what they have been doing, with great dedication, for the last few years. The result of their efforts is captured in the coming WEF summit’s title: “The Great Reset”.

This reset is nothing other than a form of shock therapy; the changes will be rolled out at high speed, not gradually. And to this end, the elites have obviously found a perfect partner: the new corona virus.

They have used it to create a scape goat they will blame for everything – from the lockdown and its massive layoffs to the forced wearing of masks, closed borders and the steady disappearance of cash. Officially, then, it is not elite selfishness that has brought about the changes and restrictions, it is their concern for the wellbeing of the people – an absurd reversal of the facts that is currently accepted by a majority.
What does all this mean for our future?

Because up to now only a part of the changes has been implemented and we therefore find ourselves in the initial phase of the Great Reset, it is almost certain that further intensification of the measures enacted thus far awaits us. And this is exactly the role to be played by the second wave in stoking fear and panic. If this proves insufficient, state-appointed virologists will wheel out other threats, such as the recent outbreak of bubonic plague in China.

That large companies are being used to conjure up infection “hotspots” and different smaller, regional locations are being ordered into lockdown should not be seen as happenstance. These measures, as well as capturing biometric data from people, serve the targeted monitoring of potential trouble spots and will play a very significant role in the coming phase in terms of sustaining state regulations.

This development will be accompanied by an ideological campaign whose building blocks can be marvelled at on the WEF homepage, and elsewhere. Factory closures and the collapse of the logistics sector will be sold to us as “climate protection” due to the reduction in emissions. The helicopter money required by the millions of unemployed, which will serve purely and simply to stimulate demand, will be sold to the public as an “unconditional basic income”. And the digitisation of the middle classes will be idealised as the path to a more just future, even though the process will be nothing other than the subjugation of medium-sized businesses to internet platforms whose market power is already reaching the immeasurable.

All of this sounds extremely depressing and demonstrates that the financial elite – roughly 0.001 percent of the world population – is engaged in a process of leading the rest of humanity into a sort of digital dictatorship. Particularly depressing is that the vast majority of humanity has not yet begun to resist.

But this may well change profoundly in coming weeks and months. The effects of the lockdown and other measures to flatten the second wave will wreak such monstrous social and economic damage, that many of those untouched so far will increasingly find themselves in opposition to the system through their own experiences.

Precisely this conflict, which will impact millions of people, should be seen by us all as a positive challenge; it offers a unique opportunity to explain to a great number of the uninformed that the Great Reset is nothing other than an attempt to perpetuate a system that history wants to move beyond. Perpetuating it serves only a tiny minority while leading the majority into a future resembling a digital prison in which an individual’s personal development is determined by algorithms, in which social life is monitored and controlled, and democratic freedoms will only be granted insofar as they do not get in the way of high-powered computers.