The COVID Illusion

By Michael J. Talmo (originally published in Transcend Media Service, Oct. 2020)

“The Magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.” — Ben Okri

18 Oct 2020 – At a magic show a few years back, I watched a magician make all sorts of things appear and disappear. The piece de resistance was when he made a huge multicolored parrot appear. Where did he get it from? “It must be magic,” I thought for a brief moment. Of course, it wasn’t. This is why magic tricks are called illusions. What’s important is not what has actually taken place, but what the audience thinks has taken place.

In motion pictures, illusions have risen to elaborate heights that no stage magician could ever match: Lon Chaney Jr. turning into the Wolf Man before our very eyes, the stop motion photography of Ray Harryhausen in films like “The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad,” the CGI and robotic dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park,” the breathtakingly beautiful world Pandora in the movie “Avatar,” and, in my opinion, the most awesome movie scene of all time: Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea in “The Ten Commandments.”

Nevertheless, spectacular as all of the aforementioned are, they aren’t real—they are mere shadows, fabrications, tricks, illusions—smoke and mirrors. Such is also the case with COVID-19.

This is how it was done.

Change the Definition

The World Health Organization (WHO) used to define pandemic as multiple epidemics in different parts of the world with “enormous numbers of deaths and illness.” That’s how I always defined it. But in 2009 the definition was changed. Since 2010, the WHO’s “Emergencies preparedness, response” page declares:“A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease.”

All that matters is how prevalent the disease is, not how many people get seriously ill or die from it.

Manipulate and Brainwash People with a Mass Media Campaign of Fear and Propaganda

In the case of stage magic, we know we are being fooled. In the same way, we know we’re being manipulated when a retail store charges $19.99 for something instead of $20.00. And I have no problem with this kind of manipulation because I’m free to ignore it. But just as there are some tricksters who claim to have genuine psychic powers, and religious charlatans who claim that they can heal people—I’m still waiting to see one of these characters restore an amputated limb, the tricksters in government and media are trying to convince us that COVID-19 is a genuine pandemic. They are using fear and official authority to distract us from the fact that we are being conned.

Consider the following global facts:

Every year, 9 million people die from air and water pollution; tobacco use (smoking) kills over 8 million people—1.2 million of that number are non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke; up to 650,000 people die of respiratory diseases linked to seasonal flu out of 1 billion cases; pneumonia causes 2.5 – 3.0 million deaths per year worldwide. The American Thoracic Society further reports that “Pneumonia is the world’s leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age.”

Average annual total deaths worldwide from all causes: 56 million.

In comparison, some 671,335,240 COVID-19 cases with only 6,730, 389 deaths out of a global population of over 8 billion over a three-year period amounts to a colossal nothing (these are the latest statistics as of January 15,2023).

Now, I ask you:

Why are we so worried about pathetically low COVID-19 numbers instead of the much bigger number items? Simple! Nonstop media propaganda is manipulating us into worrying about it. Day after day, night after night, hour after hour, our weary brains are being saturated with how many cases, how many deaths, how we must wear masks, socially distance, and sacrifice our freedom lest we be accused of being selfish and murdering our fellow earthlings.

The late Steve Allen pointed out how easily the media can manipulate people into paying attention to things they normally wouldn’t pay attention to in his 1998 book “Dumbeth: The Lost Art of Thinking With 101 Ways to Reason Better & Improve Your Mind.” On pages 419-420, “Rule No. 95,” Allen tells a story that I never forgot because I was an adult at the time it happened.

Many years ago, CBS anchorman Dan Rather came out to do the news. Only this time he held up a cucumber, put it on his desk, and went into his usual spiel—the camera would occasionally show a closeup of the cucumber. There was no explanation given for why this was done. The next evening ABC anchorman Peter Jennings did the same thing, followed by NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw the evening after that.

Within 48 hours the entire nation was talking about cucumbers. People were dressing up like cucumbers, articles were written about them including in the New York Times, discussions about the philosophical, political, and social implications were convened, songs were being made up. One of them, “The Cucumbah Rhumba,” put out by RCA Records made it to number seven in the top 40 its first week on the charts,

Allen went on to explain that this is how talk show hosts along with some of their guests become celebrities: “Television creates the illusion that they are important…for the past fifty years television has been making celebrities out of cucumbers.”

And, unfortunately, monsters out of microbes.

Corrupt Government, Medical Science, and the Media

This is how bad it has gotten:

Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 2013, Abstract: “The pharmaceutical industry has corrupted the practice of medicine through its influence over what drugs are developed, how they are tested, and how medical knowledge is created. Since 1906, heavy commercial influence has compromised congressional legislation to protect the public from unsafe drugs.”

Emory Law (Emory University School of Law) 2018 study: Page 123-124: “Today, the pharmaceutical industry contributes heavily to the FDA’s annual budget…With huge profits and thousands of paid lobbyists, Big Pharma often gains leverage in how legislation is crafted and/or abandoned.” Page 128: “Given its mega profits, Big Pharma has become known for its ability to wield political and social influence over its stakeholders, including the federal government and its agencies, healthcare systems, insurance firms, medical practitioners and administrators, hospitals, and consumers.”

British Medical Journal, 2008 article: “The proliferating connections between doctors and the drug industry have brought the credibility of clinical medicine to an unprecedented crisis.”

In 2016, CBS News reported that in the US, the American Medical Association (AMA) called for a ban on pharmaceutical ads because they’re “prompting consumers to demand expensive medications they might not need…The debate over pharmaceutical advertising comes at a time when Americans are spending more than ever on prescription medication…nine out of 10 of the biggest pharmaceutical companies actually spend more on advertising than on R&D…”

Noticed all the TV commercials and internet ads for masks? All of that revenue, we’re talking billions of dollars, makes it highly unlikely that the corporate media will criticize mask mandates or report on the actual science that shows they don’t prevent viral diseases.

Another corrupting influence on modern medicine are billionaire philanthropists and their foundations. They portray themselves as noble and magnanimous. Don’t be fooled. Modern philanthropy is mainly a scam that the rich use to avoid paying taxes, make themselves even richer, and control governments. Billionaire philanthropists are drawn to power and corruption like an outhouse draws flies.

Bill Gates is filthy rich. He has a net worth of 124 billion. The only guy on the planet who’s richer is Jeff Bezos with a net worth of 188 billion (Bloomberg Billionaires Index). In 1975, Gates co-founded Microsoft Corporation. In 2000, he and his wife founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which is now the WHO’s biggest donor. (NOTE: these statistics subject to change over time)

A May 2017 article in POLITICO, “Meet the world’s most powerful doctor: Bill Gates,” explained why his influence is something to be concerned about: “Some health advocates fear that because the Gates Foundation’s money comes from investments in big business, it could serve as a Trojan horse for corporate interests to undermine WHO’s role in setting standards and shaping health policies…In January, 30 health advocacy groups penned an open letter to WHO’s executive board protesting against making the Gates Foundation an official partner of the agency…”

About Bill Gates himself, the article went on to report: “Few people dare to openly criticize what he does…he is treated like a head of state, not only at the WHO, but also at the G20, a Geneva based NGO representative said, calling Gates one of the most influential men in global health.”

Gates isn’t a doctor despite the title of the aforementioned article. He has no medical training. But because of his wealth and power people fear him. POLITICO said that most of the 16 people they interviewed for the article did so on the condition that they remain anonymous. This fear of Gates is known in academic circles as the “Bill Chill.”

And is this mere coincidence? On March 10, the day before the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the Gates Foundation announced it was launching the “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator” to speed up the development of vaccines and treatments along with Welcome and the Mastercard Impact Fund. The start-up will be $125 million–$50 million from the Gates Foundation. The program will work with WHO, government, the private sector, and global regulatory and policy-setting institutions.

Denounce and Censor Anyone who Challenges the Official Narrative

Numerous doctors, scientists, and journalists throughout the world are saying that what we are being told about COVID-19 is flat out wrong. A significant percentage of the public also feels this way. But the mainstream media only cares about what orthodox political authority has to say. All else is heresy, or to use the more popular secular term: a conspiracy theory.

In an August 21 article in Columbia Journalist Review, “Journalism’s Gates Keepers,” Tim Schwab reported that Gannett, owner of USA Today, and the Poynter Institute that runs PolitiFact, received funds from the Gates Foundation and have used these so-called fact-checking sites to defend Gates against “false conspiracy theories” and “misinformation.” Such as it not being true that the foundation has financial investments in COVID vaccines and therapies when “In fact, the foundation’s website and most recent tax forms clearly show investments in such companies, including Gilead and CureVac.”

Schwab further reported that of the nearly twenty thousand charitable grants made by the Gates Foundation through the end of June, $250,000,000. went to media outlets. To name some: NPR, BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Univision, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Le Monde, Washington Monthly.

Fox News is just about the only mainstream media outlet that has sometimes been critical of official COVID-19 policy. Last April, Tucker Carlson reported on his show, “Big tech censors dissent over coronavirus lockdowns,” that YouTube, Twitter, Google, and Facebook are no longer allowing what they call misinformation about COVID-19.

Carlson showed YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki tell CNN: “Anything that would go against World Health Organization policies would be a violation of our policy and so remove is another really important part of our policy.” Among content that YouTube removed was the press conference where California medical doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi presented data showing that COVID-19 was no worse than the flu.

Carlson also reported that Facebook removed an events page for a political protest against COVID-19 restrictions in Michigan. When asked about it by ABC News, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said: “We do classify that as harmful misinformation and we take that down.” Facebook uses PolitiFact to monitor content.

Last May, Seattle Washington Superior Court judge Brian McDonald tossed out a lawsuit accusing Fox News of disseminating false information about COVID-19. The lawsuit was filed by a nonprofit organization called the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE). To quote Judge McDonald: “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

A common tactic of oppressive governments is to label dissenters mentally ill. This is a way to invalidate them and in many cases to justify putting them away. It’s known as “punitive psychiatry.” This is done in China, in the old Soviet Union as well as in modern Russia, Cuba, Poland, France, India, Thailand, and in the United States to name some.

A recent article in Psychology Today, “How Narcissists Reject Social Distancing,” and another article in Healthy Research, “How Do Narcissists Handle COVID-19?,” make the ridiculous claim that people who refuse to wear masks and socially distance are narcissists. Are these people serious? Talk about projection and gaslighting.

A much more sane December 2011 article in Psychology Today, “Narcissism: Why it’s So Rampant In Politics,” and a September, 2019 article in The Conversation, “Pathological power: the danger of governments led by narcissists and psychopaths,” show who the real nutcases are: The callous politicians and public health officials who shut down the global economy along with the corporate elites who control them.

Steve Taylor, PhD, who wrote the 2019 article said it best: “It’s not really surprising that people with personality disorders are drawn to political power—narcissists crave attention and affirmation, and feel they are superior to others and have the right to dominate them. They also lack empathy, which means that they are able to ruthlessly exploit and abuse people for the sake of power.”

In other words, we need to socially distance our politicians. Instead of allowing them to lock us down, we should be locking them up.

Another scare tactic to force compliance with COVID-19 restrictions is claiming that death will strike you down if you don’t. This is done by citing cases of young people who died of COVID-19 because they didn’t take it seriously—keep in mind that around 80% of all US deaths are people 65 and up. Of course, there are always anecdotal cases that can be cited when it comes to any disease.

One such case was 17 year-old Carsyn Leigh Davis of Fort Myers, Florida who supposedly died of COVID-19 after attending a “COVID party” at her church last June. Snopes reported that this was media spin that probably originated on a website called FloridaCovidVictims. The church actually called it a “Release Party.”

The CDC COVID-19 Data Tracker shows that 0-17-year-olds are only 0.1% of all deaths. That’s around 220 deaths out of the current some 220,000. And they’ve got kids in school wearing masks and socially distancing. Anyway, Snopes further reported that Carsyn Leigh Davis had a complex medical history with multiple pre-existing conditions. She had an autoimmune disorder, was morbidly obese, had Bronchial Asthma, and subcutaneous emphysema, to name some. She was also a cancer survivor.

One of the most famous cases of a young person dying of COVID-19 was Richard Rose of Port Clinton, Ohio. Rose was only 37 when he died last 4^th of July. According to the CDC, 30-39-year-olds are only 1.3% of all COVID-19 deaths. But Rose’s death made international headlines because he posted on Facebook that he refused to wear a mask and considered COVID-19 to be “a load of hype.” He supposedly got COVID-19 at a pool party that he attended in June. No mention if anyone else at the party died of COVID-19.

A lot of the articles were gotcha pieces claiming that Rose died because he didn’t have a mask on. This kind of thinking is akin to religious dogma. Only instead of saying that God will punish you for disobeying him, it’s the deadly virus will kill you if you disobey the high priests of medical science.

Studies of randomized controlled trials clearly show that masks don’t prevent viral respiratory diseases. So, what really happened to Mr. Rose? I couldn’t find much info on him except that he wasn’t married, had no kids, did have pets, was a war veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan for 9 years, spent a lot of time helping homeless veterans, and that he was well liked. Yes, it’s sad that he had to die so young. However, there are a couple of things to consider.

It is claimed that Mr. Rose had no health problems. But photos and videos of him show an obese man who, in my opinion, didn’t look very healthy. But the big factor is his military service. My search of the internet found a lot of articles and studies about the fact that veterans who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from severe respiratory problems–especially a condition called “constrictive bronchiolitis.” PBS, along with other news outlets reported that this is due to the plethora of toxic chemicals soldiers were exposed to due to sandstorms, huge burn pits right near where they lived and worked, and other hazards.

Rose said two days prior to his death that he was having breathing problems. He was found dead in his home. His symptoms were described as flu-like. No autopsy was performed nor was a toxicology report filed which requires drawing a blood sample because the coroner said that doing these things was too risky due to COVID19.

Claim the So-Called New Disease Has Lots of Vague Symptoms

COVID-19 has no unique symptoms which makes it easy to claim that people have it. Permit me to illustrate:

NOTE: people may not have all of the symptoms of the diseases listed including COVID-19. Other diseases not listed here can also cause symptoms attributed to COVID-19.

Pneumoccal Disease (pneumonia)

Fever, chills, cough, rapid breathing or difficulty breathing, chest pain, stiff neck, headache, photophobia (eyes being more sensitive to light), confusion, low alertness, and vomiting

Influenza (flu)

Fever, chills, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headache, fatigue, vomiting or diarrhea (some people), respiratory symptoms without a fever

Common Human Coronaviruses (CHC) (4 types cause mild symptoms, SARS & MERS more severe)

Runny nose, sore throat, headache, fever, cough, general feeling of being unwell, can also cause pneumonia or bronchitis

Bronchitis

Coughing with or without mucus, soreness in the chest, fatigue, mild headache, mild body aches, sore throat, fever, shortness of breath or trouble breathing

Sepsis

High heart rate, confusion or disorientation, extreme pain or discomfort, fever, shivering or feeling very cold, shortness of breath, clammy or sweaty skin

Asthma

Coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, trouble breathing

Lupus

Muscle and joint pain, fever, rashes, chest pain, hair loss, sun or light sensitivity, kidney problems, mouth sores, prolonged or extreme fatigue, anemia, memory problems, blood clotting, eye disease

COVID-19

NOTE: Next to each symptom I have listed the diseases that have the same symptoms for easy comparison.

Fever (Pneumonia, flu, CHC, sepsis, bronchitis, lupus)

Chills (pneumonia, flu, sepsis)

Cough (pneumonia, flu, CHC, bronchitis, asthma)

Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing (pneumonia, CHC, sepsis, bronchitis, asthma)

Fatigue (flu, bronchitis, lupus)

Muscle or body aches (flu, bronchitis, sepsis, lupus)

Headache (pneumonia, flu, CHC, bronchitis)

New loss of taste or smell (Mayo Clinic: aging, nasal/sinus problems, medications, dental problems, smoking, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease)

Sore throat (flu, CHC, bronchitis)

Congestion or runny nose (flu, CHC)

Nausea or vomiting, diarrhea (pneumonia, flu)

Persistent pain or pressure in the chest (pneumonia, bronchitis)

New Confusion (pneumonia, sepsis)

Inability to wake or stay awake (narcolepsy)

Bluish lips or face (pneumonia, asthma, NHS, UK)

Diagnose Based on Symptoms Alone

No test is required to diagnose someone with COVID-19. A health care professional is permitted to label a case or a death COVID-19 on the basis of symptoms alone. This is known as presumptive diagnosis. Do not confuse this with a “presumptive positive” diagnosis which is referring to someone who tested positive at a local public health laboratory, but has not yet been confirmed at a CDC lab.

Here are the facts right from the CDC: Page 2: “In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID-19 cannot be made, but is suspected or likely (e.g. the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as ‘possible’ or ‘presumed.” In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgment in determining if a COVID-19 infection was likely.”

Diagnosing COVID-19 without a test applies to the rest of the world as well. All diseases are classified under ICD codes (International Classification of Diseases) maintained by the WHO. There are two codes that are used for COVID-19: U07.1 and U07.2. The first ICD code is used for COVID-19 cases that were diagnosed with a test or “confirmed.” The second ICD code is for COVID-19 cases that were diagnosed without a test or “suspected.”

However, In a March 24 email, “COVID-19 Alert No. 2,” the NCHS division of Vital Statistics issued the following instructions to the states: “NCHS is not planning to implement U07.2 for mortality statistics…if the death certificate reports terms such as ‘probable COVID-19’ or ‘likely COVID-19,’ these terms would be assigned the new ICD code.” Meaning, ICD code U07.1.

Could the reason for not using ICD code U07.2 be to make it more difficult to check inflated death numbers? Go the CDC Provisional Death Counts page and look at it. Listing all COVID-19 deaths under ICD code U07.1 makes it virtually impossible to tell how many deaths were people who were never tested. It could be tens of thousands for all we know.

Back in April, the New York Times and other media outlets reported that New York City’s health department “released a revised COVID-19 death count that included those who were not tested but were presumed to have died from the disease. That added an additional 3,700 people…Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio have all recently moved to start reporting presumptive COVID-19 deaths.”

The NCHS does provide a reason for not using ICD code U07.2 in the March 24 email: “Because laboratory test results are not typically reported on death certificates in the U.S.” Sorry, not buying it.

If COVID-19 had a unique symptom, say a one inch diameter horseshoe shape blue lesion on your left butt cheek that glows in the dark, a presumptive diagnosis wouldn’t matter. Yet, we’re supposed to believe that somehow, magically, doctors and even lay people can determine who has COVID-19 and who doesn’t based on symptoms that can be caused by numerous other diseases.

The CDC refutes this nonsensical illogic on its own website. Here is what it says about the flu: “People may be infected with the flu and have respiratory symptoms without a fever…However, influenza can also occur outside of the typical flu season. In addition, other viruses can also cause respiratory illness similar to the flu. So, it is impossible to tell for sure if you have the flu based on symptoms alone.”

If there is no way to know who has the flu based on symptoms alone, then there is no way to know who has COVID-19 based on symptoms alone. Simple logic. Simple common sense.

Use Inaccurate Nonspecific Tests

It doesn’t matter if COVID-19 tests are done at home, in a hospital, or at a drive-up site. It doesn’t matter if a swab is used or if it’s a blood or a saliva sample. It doesn’t matter how many companies manufacture them. There are only three different kinds of tests: PCR , antibody, and antigen.

PCR (ploymerase chain reaction) detects fragments of nucleic acid that supposedly belong to the genome of SARS-Cov-2, the virus that they claim causes COVID-19. It is used for patients that have an active infection. Antigen tests detect proteins that are supposed to belong to the virus’s outer coating and are also used for patients that have an active infection. Antibody or serologic tests detect B cell proteins (antibodies) that, if present, identify people who might have been infected in the past who were asymptomatic or got better after being sick. There are numerous problems with all of these tests.

On May 21, CNN cited a study on COVID-19 antibody tests conducted by a research team at the University of Minnesota. It states: “Right now, testing is not accurate enough to use alone to make most decisions, including who should go back to work or to school.” The team of infectious disease experts further recommended against antibody tests being used for “Universal testing in hospital settings,” “Widespread community testing,” and, pay close attention to the last one: “Immunity passports.”

CNN reported in a May 26 article that COVID-19 antibody tests “might be wrong up to half the time.”The CDC website explains why under Limitations of Serologic Tests: “Some tests may exhibit cross-reactivity with other coronaviruses, such as those that cause the common cold. This could result in false positive test results.” Of course! Antibody tests are non-specific —all of them for any disease. And none of them are FDA approved.

Antigen tests are no better. FDA website: Page 1: “The Sofia SARS Antigen FIA does not differentiate between SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2…Positive results do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease.” Page 27: “In the USA, this test has not been FDA cleared or approved;” The LumiraDX antigen test on the FDA website says the same thing (see Page 1).

The Rolls-Royce of all COVID-19 tests is PCR because it’s supposed to be more accurate or highly specific. Or is it? FDA website: Page 38: “Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms…The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of 2019-nCoV…This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.” And the cover page states: “For Emergency Use Only.” Meaning, it has not been FDA approved.

Also understand that all COVID-19 tests are qualitative rather than quantitative. The difference is: qualitative tests provide a yes or no answer to something. In the case of COVD-19, either you have antibodies, antigens or a certain type of RNA or you don’t. But they don’t tell you how much actual virus a person has in their body. For that, a quantitative test is needed because it’s objective—it counts how much of an actual something there is. There is no room for interpretation as with a qualitative test.

Don’t be fooled by the term “viral load” when it comes to PCR. It doesn’t mean how much pathogenic virus is in a person’s body. All it means is how many copies of a single snippet of nucleic acid are produced after a certain amount of cycles are run in a PCR machine in order to produce a measurable signal. To quote Dr. Ian M. Mackay, PhD, Associate professor of Virology, University of Queensland, 2019 article: Side note #1: “…A positive PCR result does not prove active replication of a virus. It does not prove infectious virus is present.”

Bottom line: in order for a virus or any pathogen to cause disease, it has to be active and replicating in someone’s body in massive quantities to be able to infect and kill cells faster than the body can replace them. None of the COVID-19 tests can tell us this because they don’t look for the actual virus. Instead, they detect non-specific biological markers and declare the virus present by proxy. It’s like finding footprints of Bigfoot in the woods and declaring you have found the actual creature. No, you haven’t and the footprints are probably fake.

Claim the Usual Is Unusual

Another sleazy ploy being used to keep us all scared is to claim things that happen all the time are unusual and never seen before. Frantic reports of overflowing hospitals, weird skin conditions, COVID-19 causing cardiac arrest and kidney failure, a doctor who committed suicide because she couldn’t face the horrors of COVID-19, etc. What makes this tactic so effective is people’s need for a bumper sticker one-size-fits-all answer. No need to think. No need to contemplate that there may be more to something than meets the eye. People need certainty. They need a culprit, a villain, a causative agent—they need to believe that a single virus is the cause of COVID-19. Don’t believe it. Look at the evidence. Don’t let them manipulate you into focusing on the cucumber.

Fact: there is nothing new about hospitals being overwhelmed. Example: 2018 Time Magazine article entitled: “Hospitals overwhelmed by flu patients are treating them in tents.”

Last March, Newsweek reported that morgues and health institutions in Italy were collapsing and that the army was called in to transport coffins of the dead to crematoriums because there were too many to bury due to, you guessed it, COVID-19. Not unusual according to to Dr. Stefano Montinari, a nanopathologist: “…all these coffins are part of the 650,000 deaths we have every year in Italy. There’s no increase in mortality…We are talking about nothing and, as I said, you know that it is possible to manipulate images and content to achieve the impression you wish to convey.”

Sure is! Example: Fox News report: “CBS News admitted to a mistake on Monday after airing footage of an overcrowded hospital room that was allegedly in New York City but was actually from a hospital in Italy.”

A few months ago two hysterical articles made their debut.

Scientific American, April 6 article: “…doctors on the front lines are grappling with a new medical mystery. In addition to lung damage, many COVID-19 patients are also developing heart problems—and dying of cardiac arrest.”

MSN, May 11 article: “We don’t know why there are so many disease presentations…No one was expecting a disease that would not fit the pattern of pneumonia and respiratory illness…It attacks the heart, weakening its muscles and disrupting its critical rhythm. It savages the kidneys so badly some hspitals have run short of dialysis equipment. It crawls along the nervous system, destroying taste and smell and occasionally reaching the brain. It creates blood clots that can kill with sudden efficiency and inflames blood vessels throughout the body.” It’s also faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Fact: Respiratory diseases have always caused cardiac arrest and organ failure. CDC website: “Other possible serious complications triggered by flu can include inflammation of the heart (myocarditis), brain (encephalitis) or muscle (myosistis, rhabdomyolysis) tissues and multi-organ failure (for example, respiratory and kidney failure). Flu virus infection of the respiratory tract trigger an extreme inflammatory response in the body that can lead to sepsis…Flu also can make chronic medical problems worse.”

CHEST Journal, June 2012: “Pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of death…Recent data suggest that cardiac arrest may also be common.”

Skin conditions can be caused by so many different things there’s no point in addressing the claim that COVID-19 causes them. It’s just another manifestation of the prevailing blame it on the virus mentality.

As for the Doctor who committed suicide, her name was Lorna M. Breen, Medical Director of the Emergency Department at New York Presbyterian Allen Hospital. She allegedly took her life due to the pressure of her job. She had also tested positive for COVID-19. Dr. Breen’s death was tragic but not unusual. A July 2018 article in NPR reported: “An estimated 300 to 400 doctors kill themselves each year, a rate of 28 to 40 per 100,000 or more than double that of the general population. That is according to a review of 10 years of literature on the subject presented by the American Psychiatry Association annual meeting in May.”

The Facts Are In

On May 29, Real Clear Politics published a scathing commentary by Timothy Allen, a governor of the College of American Pathologists and who chairs the Department of Pathology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He explained that the actual COVID-19 death rate is more like a bad year of the flu. For example, 61,000 Americans died during the 2017-2018 flu season. But following rules laid down by the Federal Government, medical examiners are classifying deaths as COVID-19 if the postmortem test is positive. The cause of death doesn’t matter–even suicides and automobile accidents as well as people who tested negative but had symptoms are classified as COVID-19 deaths. Allen went on to say: “Public health officials need to face a lot of serious questions about how they counted coronavirus deaths… It’s clear the inflated numbers have helped mislead people into a state of alarmism.”

Last August, the CDC released new data. Comorbidities: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.” In other words, 94% of all COVID-19 deaths in the US had other fatal chronic diseases. To name some: “Respiratory failure,” “Diabetes,” “Heart failure,” “Renal failure,” “Cardiac arrest,” “Sepsis,” “Alzheimer disease,” “Intentional and unintentional injury, Poisoning and other adverse events.”

At a press conference last month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the CDC revised COVID-19 survival rates by age group on its website (see Table 1.) showing that the chances of dying of COVID-19 are virtually nil for people under 70. Here are the numbers:

0-19: 99.997%
20-49: 99.98%
50-69: 99.5%
70+: 94.6%

White House coronavirus response director, Deboah Birx said it best after hearing people tell her how tired they were of COVID-19 restrictions when she was in Little Rock, Arkansas last August:

“When people start to realize that 99% of us are going to be fine, it becomes more and more difficult” to get people to comply, she said.”

But they are going to keep trying.

Conclusion:

Take a whole bunch of vague symptoms that can be caused by just about anything and that can occur in every human on the planet, put them all into a made-up umbrella term called COVID-19, claim that it’s caused by a virus, real or fake doesn’t matter, include even healthy people with no symptoms as cases, use deeply flawed inaccurate tests, and presto: you have a global pandemic.

Don’t fall for it.

Copyright Michael J. Talmo