Long haulers are those COVID-19 infected who “recovered” from their infection. However, I use the term “recovery” with much trepidation for about 65% of the lang haulers developed a myriad of side effects and even to this day we physicians are uncertain why these side effects arose. 38% of the vaccinated became long haulers.
The most common side-effect was some degree of cognitive impairment. For example, one of my colleagues had a patient that at one moment knew they had a dog then perhaps minutes later they had no idea what a dog was.
In some cases it was as if a stroke had crippled these unfortunate people with slurred speech and twisted and uncooperative limbs. Those already afflicted with cognitive impairment were sent quickly reeling into Alzheimer’s.
Those vaccinated with poor eyesight suddenly found themselves with glaucoma and those with essential tremor quickly developed Parkinson’s disease.
I won’t bore you with long list of side effects of vaccines which the politico-medico elite was crowing about but that elite knew not how to remedy their debilitating effects.
I mean at one point they were rejoicing at the bright light at the end of the tunnel being the vaccine but in the end it was not so bright for many. And the short-sighted politico-medico elite who were slapping themselves on the back for “creating herd immunity” quickly, as such elites are prone to do, failed to provide funds for rehabilitation clinics for millions globally that needed medical assistance. Ah like the short-sighted capitalist executive looking for short term gain (and huge incentive payments) they accomplished the goal wreaking anxiety, depression, sexual and physical abuse, substance abuse and suicide and possible permanent bodily damage to many of the vaccinated. But in the media it was all hail to the conquering heroes! And Big Pharma with a no liability for the vaccines granted to it by governments of countries where the vaccine was distributed was laughing all the way to the bank making even more money developing drugs to control the secondary plague they had created.
I can’t resist reminiscing to the 1970’s or perhaps the late 1980’s where in boxing there was the concept of the “Great White Hope” that fantasized a Caucasian could rise from the ashes of Jack Dempsey and override Cassius Clay and Sony Liston and defeat an African American (or negro as the term was used in those days) in the boxing ring for heavyweight champion of the world. Well the last great white hope to fight Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) was Jerry Quarry and he was knocked out.
Well if COVID was in the boxing world the great white hope would be a vaccine.
It never was developed for SARS or MERS both of which were corona viruses but somehow wistful thinking and billions of dollars were invested in the search for the vaccine and the fortunes it would bring to any successful developer of one and its investors! And the best thing for Big Pharma as that governments guaranteed them no liability for any negative consequences of the vaccine. A free ride to enormous profits.
Billions of people placed the hope a vaccine would be developed and in fact spurred on by optimistic medicos, politicos and with the media they almost expected it.
As a medico I note the bravado but look at it this way and that is billions have been spent for half a century looking for a cure to cancer without success. However people really couldn’t be willing to accept the miserably poor record of vaccines for the simple influenza. They exhibited a blind faith in medicine to “save the world”. Medical science was at a dead end to discover even a single effective drug for Alzheimer’s so why assume with certainty a vaccine could be developed for COVID? Perhaps for me as a physician was the public’s confidence in BIG PHARMA to deliver a BIG CURE! Perhaps this was a result of watching to many American TV channels that thrived and relied on Big Pharma for advertising revenue with its peddling of drugs for every ailment.
This was going to be a Big Pharma moment enriching them and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation beyond all belief.
Sadly despite billions filtered to Big Pharma for vaccine research they came up empty handed much to the despair of investors and a deluded population. Well sort of empty handed. A vaccine was developed that killed thousands in side effects as it was rushed to production throughout the world without full clinical trials. Yes initially it did have a good efficacy rate in the short term with a caveat that no long term study had been undertaken. It also dropped in efficacy to as low as 32% as 86 more mutations of the virus developed during the COVIDs. Within 2 years of vaccination a horrendous rash of cognitive failures afflicted the vaccinated and for the elderly or any one experiencing the beginning of cognitive decline the vaccines were a free pass into the world of Alzheimer’s.
Chapter 22 “Lessons learnt from the COVIDs; Aboriginals fall again to disease”
My knowledge of the aboriginal peoples of North America was perhaps greater than most as I did a research paper for the “Canadian Cardiological Review” on cardiac disease amongst the Canadian aboriginal community or First Nations” if that is more politically correct.
Cardiac disease was higher than the national average primarily caused by substandard housing, poor diet, substance abuse, lack of preventive medical care and contaminated drinking water all leading to a seriously compromised immune system.
Well this poor immune system assisted COVID in decimating aboriginal populations in Canada and in New Zealand, Australia, Brazil and the United States.80% seemed to be the final COVID kill rate. At least intentional infection of the aboriginal community as was the case with smallpox genocide in Canada could not be blamed.
The result of the carnage was a rebirth of the traditional aboriginal way of life and customs which meant staying far away as possible from “civilization” which all said and done was a potential step in the right direction.
Chapter 21 “lessons learnt from the COVIDs: more domestic and sexual abuse and increased mental illness”
If you are being bashed around and sexually abused at home and COVID has you locked down at home you are really in a prison cell. My friends in our emergency ward at my hospital told me of increased admissions caused by domestic and sexual abuse.
Calls to abuse hotlines dramatically increased throughout any country having such lines. These increases were first documented with Ebola outbreaks in Africa and now in North America and Europe. And with nowhere for the abused to go the vicious circle spun around with more victims of the lockdown that singly focused on physical health ignoring until late in the game the horrific psychological trauma and mental illness triggered by the lockdowns. At what point did the victims of abuse figure in the statistical obsession with infections and deaths?
Those who are abused may not have access to cellphones or afraid to use them least they be caught and pummeled and mauled.
Another appalling statistic was the amount of mental illness cultivated by COVID lockdowns. Imagine being out of work because you weren’t working in an open essential business. Where is your next meal coming from, will you find a job again, can you pay your credit card bills and mortgage payments. And perhaps just too much time to think about these unpleasant thoughts. At one point in the tame initial wave of COVID-19 in Canada some 64% of respondents to a poll admitted they were frightened to leave their home. That rose to 96% as the second wave of COVID-19 in 2021 ripped through the country.
Isolation and quarantine also lead to increased suicides, panic attacks, post traumatic stress disorder and depression. At the end of the COVIDs the full extent of increased mental illness was perhaps as cruel and devastating as the physical statistics of deaths and infections. While governments spent to bankruptcy to placate social unrest at least liquor and cannabis sales soared bringing desperately needed revenue but creating the wreckage of substance abuse. Again not that readily calculable like infections and deaths it was largely ignored by the politicos, medicos and media but it left many mangled in its wake
Strikers at the locomotive plant and their comrades for nearby factories take to the street
I clicked with this movie very quickly just reading the promotional material send about it with a link to the film. You might say I have lived through part of it having spent about a year of my life in the Eastern Block or often referred to as the Communist Block of Eastern Europe. I have waited in food lines, been tailed by police, meet with families of defectors to the West, been to the Berlin Wall, had my Canadian passport thrown in my face by an East German border guard because my middle name is “Kennedy” and most importantly have seen the vast privileges given to Communist Party members. In Bucharest my student friend played tennis with the son of the Minister of Energy for Romania so we managed to be served East German beer in big tubs full of ice while less well connected citizens were only able to order vile Romanian beer.
In “Dear Comrades” the Russian Communist system is exposed to many viewers who may think it shocking and eye-opening. With my travel experiences and political science studies of Eastern Europe this film simply is an affirmation of what I have seen and experienced.
If you are a Communist Party member of high enough standing you received better housing, better access to food, good vacations and were members of a privileged caste.
Lyudmila (perfectly played by Julia Vysotskaya)is a devout Communist Party member working at the local committee in 1962 USSR in a smaller provincial town. And the unheard of happens. The local locomotive factory goes on strike. The higher ups are scandalized with a strike by workers in a Communist state where a supposed dictatorship of the proletariat existed but in reality it is the dictatorship of the Communist Party.
The workers are angered by increased food prices and a cut in wages and are not swayed by Party propaganda that this is temporary and will soon result in an abundance of food.
Lyudmila’s daughter Svetka works at the factory and gets caught up the strikers. Word quickly reaches Moscow and the military and KGB are sent in to control the matter but the strikers join with workers at other factories and march into town smashing and trashing the Local Committee offices.
Two higher up Committee members are sent into town under orders of Comrade Khrushchev and the army locks down the town. The KGB have a team of spies collecting information on the “instigators”. The mob is told to depart or they will be fired on by the army despite the fact the constitution of the USSR forbids the Soviet army to fire on its own citizens. We do see them firing in the air but there are countless dead and wounded. The KGB snipers were busy at work.
It is quite clear Moscow is running the show. Even the casualty count is officially 8 but scores of other bodies have been whisked to other towns and buried in unmarked graves. The entire town is forced to sign “secrecy documents” more or less saying if you tell anyone about what happened in this town you are as good as dead. The dictatorship of the Party is absolute so the Party thinks. But when a student came up to me in a bar in Poland and whispered to me, “I love Capitalism” he wasn’t telling me anything new. The tired sarcasm and sickness of being lied to and cheated by the Communist Party acts like a glaring spotlight from the Berlin Wall at night.
How would I describe this film aside from a scathing attack on communism it might be a bit of comedy, sarcasm, mockery and a very great tragedy. Russians murdering Russians is not the direction Lenin and Karl Marx could have envisaged neither could they foresee the rise of dictator and mass murderer Stalin.
Is Lyudmila’s experience and incorrectly perceived strategy open her eyes to the corruption of the Communist Party? While swigging vodka and lamenting her perceived tragedy she states she wished Stalin were still alive as “We can’t do it without him.”
Remember when the Berlin Wall fell and the property of the state mysteriously ended up in the hands of the oligarchs there were many older Russians wishing for the “stability” of Stalinism.
One wonders now with a President in perpetual power and opposition members and journalists murdered or poisoned has anything changed from Tsarist days which brought about such desperate political conditions it gave rise to Communism.
A stark black and white film well directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. Would a movie about current political conditions be made these days in Russia?
The film is the Russian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy awards. It opens virtually on February 5th at TIFF Bell Lightbox and then as of February 12th at select cinemas throughout Canada.
Grab your oaked Chardonnay and buttered popcorn and settle down for a two hour film in Russian with English subtitles. On the other hand if you have some caviar and vodka on hand……..
Now than Pence and Trump are gone is good news but hours in front of CNN anti-Trump television spews it’s not normal suddenly seeing an absence vitriol and hate my poor mind feels like it is being flushed down the sewer grate it’s back to murder and wars which for me is the bores hopefully my mind will become used to all the American calmness and civilities at least there are reruns of the “Beverly Hillbillies ”
to refocus by attention for if not I’ll be subject to mental detention in the meantime I’m praying that tubby little golfer won’t be back in 2024 I suppose I have had too much negative excitement and can’t take more
Chapter 20 “lessons learnt from the COVIDs: sick seniors get slammed in long-term care”
After 65 years of age COVID found many victims so many so it virtually cleaned out long-term care homes. The worst hit were in privately run senior’s residences and long-term care facilities. The profit motive and proper senior’s care were not a good fit. As more of these facilities were inspected a whole raft of shocking stories emerged. Residents abused. Residents overly drugged up. Rotten and mouldy food. Poor cleanliness. Residents not bathed. Residents in soiled clothes for days. Rampant bed sores. And in many countries this had been the norm for years.
Workers at these facilities were so poorly paid they had to take multiple jobs setting them up to become super spreaders in an environment where the COVIDs were not terrible illnesses to struggle through but an invitation to the pearly gates.
These horrific conditions were the subject of countless exposés for over 40 years and political promises to reform the management of these facilities abounded but talk was cheap and action was too expensive. So many wonderful seniors needlessly died and the result other than grief for many families and disgust of the general population was a commission of inquiry about long term care in Ontario after the COVIDs. I sat on this commission because of my voluntary work at these facilities. So we developed a set of recommendations most of which were common sense and not costly fixes but our Ontario government clapped and applauded but forgot. Bankrupt governments have so little to offer medical and social reform causing so many of us simply to cry and ask God to forgive us and mourn the loss of so many valuable souls. Seniors have so much wisdom and experience to offer us but ageism and a tight budget and in some cases the profit motive shunted aside a rich vein of our cultural life. There were some that said the high mortality rate for seniors was a merciful act of Darwinism. Yes I think there was some truth to that as so many of these seniors, particularly those with debilitating illnesses, were suffering terribly and kept alive through modern pharmacology living a meagre and horrific existence but if you have worked with seniors like I have beneath that suffering and illness is a person fighting to survive and to politely ignore their death as “the fittest survive” doesn’t cut mustard. I think sometimes it was not the COVIDs that killed them but negligent management of long-term care and senior’s facilities. If there was any good to come out of this bad it was that bereaved and outraged families litigated against the privately operated facilities and basically shut them down globally with governments taking over their management so that in effect they became hospitals:Chapter 20
Chapter 19 “lessons learnt from COVID-19: civil rights on hold”
Historians looked back on the COVID-19 days and remarked about the abrogation of civil rights of course justified by the violating governments under the guise of emergency orders all about protecting the greater civil good and “public safety”. Strange of the incredible increase of wealth that happened to the 1% during the COVIDs. It almost seemed like a plot to destroy small and medium sized businesses.
Freedom of assembly was tossed aide under the moniker of social distancing. Quarantine and isolation under the wheels of “public health”. Union busting under the guise of flexibility in managing the healthcare system. Fines, imprisonment and public shaming under the moniker of the public good. Surveillance of citizens by “contact tracing” justified under the guise of public health. And the poor deluded population voluntarily surrendering even more rights by downloading tracing apps on their beloved mobiles. Give anti-libertarians an inch and they will take a mile. Millennials and their fucking phones gladly waving good-bye to democracy by downloading intrusive tracing apps to the applause of the politicos.
What was temporary lasted far longer than necessary and left the sweet feeling of power like Hawaiian garlands looped around the necks of politician-violators.
Those who resisted were labelled as thugs, looters and just selfish. The masses seemed to have been trumped under the mass propaganda campaign focused on public good. Perhaps there was justification in this but aide from the violation of civil rights what was more disturbing was the sheep like obedience of millions of people. Unfortunately, those protesting the violation of civil rights were most often right wing open carry Trumpists or skateboarding, bun headed, tattooed youth whose knowledge of politics was more focused on fascism or anarchism than on democracy. And of course, the far-right Christians moaning about the closing of their churches. There were so few civil rights in China almost all of the population felt no pain and, in this regard, suddenly Western democracies fell within the same ambit as totalitarianism exhibited in China. How quickly can “democracy” resemble totalitarianism!
Let a dog kill and maim and it often develops a taste for the same.
Chapter 18 “Lessons Learnt From the COVIDs: collateral damages; the death of employment and the rise of extremism and violence”
The closures of the economies led to the “root of all evil” and that was the closure of the economy aside for what might be called an “essential business”. The effect was mass unemployment. This created enormous anxiety amongst the working population in Western countries that were already living on the edge with a huge debt to income ratio. Yes there were governmental programs that offered financial assistance which was far less than the lost income. A gigantic wave of anxiety swept the working public. Yes, the banks were understanding initially then they moved in like sharks ripping the indebted into bloody shreds. Seems they failed to understand that you can’t draw blood from a stone.
Even the reopening of economies could not replace the jobs that were lost. Simply because the economy reopened did not mean businesses reopened. There was enough government money to power through to the end of the COVIDs but after the well ran dry by the time Virus # 26 started to rip through the globe the government rescue taps were starting to turn off.
A gigantic wave of mental illness roared through the working population. Anxiety was off the scale. Depression mounted. Suicides became a regular occurrence. Big Pharma was raking it in with anti-depressants and amongst those hardworking people all hope seemed to have been robbed.
Extremism started its foundational growth initially with a whole series of “Fuck The Vulnerable” movement and then a similar “Fuck the 1 %” movement. Break-ins of the upper-class mansions were common and increasingly violent. There was a near coup in the United States in 2021 by right wing nationalists and extremists led by Kim Jong Trump. People started dressing down and selling off luxury cars to avoid being attacked. Biker gangs were employed by neighbourhood groups for protection. The 1% were quaking in their boots and were organizing themselves into “Save Capitalism Militias”. The W From Home mentality now turned into a necessity as a trip downtown to the office invited armed robbery in metropolitan centres.
The 1% looked increasingly to the military for protection. Several Amazon warehouses in the United States were torched and firebombs lobbed at Walmart headquarters in the United States. But as the military had been largely reduced to due lack of funding and decimated because of its forced conscription into long term care facilities it looked as if a military coup to protect the 1% was not coming too soon.
You are now the President of the United States a welcome blessing from the former President that was replete with hates you have a very tough job ahead of you with a fractured America left and created by your predecessor who failed his attempt at a coup but for most of us history knows he’ll slip up in a pile of his poop we pray he won’t be back in 2024 that son of a bitch and a political whore packing his family pea brained as they were with the only qualification should have been their disqualification So Biden good luck in repairing a Trump ravaged nation he left behind in tatters for you that he was an asshole was true calling you Sleepy Joe when so many of us wished he would simply go and never return in 2024 however even if impeached he can run through his family as we may suffer yet more
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