Religion and Vaccine Arguments

[tim]

AI:

Yes — there was a specific situation where China allowed German nationals in China to receive the BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA COVID‑19 vaccine while it still generally restricted mRNA shots for its own population — and the reasons are largely political, regulatory, and reciprocal rather than scientific or “China giving Germans better vaccines”.
1330 & 101.5 WHBL
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Here’s what happened and why:

What actually occurred

In late 2022, China agreed to allow the BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA COVID‑19 vaccine to be administered to German expatriates living in China at select international hospitals (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc.). This was part of a deal following a state visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and diplomatic negotiations between China and Germany.
1330 & 101.5 WHBL

At the same time, China had not fully approved BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine for the general Chinese population — meaning most Chinese citizens in mainland China could not receive it at that time.
euronews

Meanwhile, in Germany, Chinese expatriates and other residents could access Chinese COVID‑19 vaccines (e.g., Sinovac/Sinopharm) that had been approved there, as part of a reciprocal arrangement.
1330 & 101.5 WHBL

Why this selective policy happened
1. China’s regulatory approach

China initially prioritized domestically developed vaccines (e.g., Sinovac, Sinopharm) and was slow to approve foreign mRNA vaccines for the general population, even though BioNTech’s shot had been authorized in many other countries for years.

Regulators reportedly wanted to protect confidence in its own vaccines and allow local mRNA vaccine candidates time to advance before fully opening the market to foreign mRNA shots.
Reddit

This meant that while foreign vaccines weren’t generally approved, there was room to allow “special use” for specific groups under diplomatic agreements.

2. Diplomatic and reciprocal agreements

The arrangement with Germany was a diplomatic compromise:

China allowed the mRNA vaccine for German citizens in China.

In return, Chinese nationals in Germany could access Chinese vaccines like Sinovac there.

This kind of give‑and‑take helps both sides maintain face and reciprocity in international relations and was tied to broader negotiations beyond just health policy.
euronews

3. China’s stance on vaccine sovereignty

For much of the pandemic, Chinese policy strongly favored “self‑reliance” — using and promoting China‑made vaccines.

Full approval of a Western mRNA vaccine for the entire population was seen as undercutting that strategy, so limited, group‑specific authorizations were used instead.

Important Clarifications

This wasn’t a case of “China giving foreign residents better science.”
It was about diplomacy and regulatory caution within a specific context as China was revising its COVID policy in late 2022.
1330 & 101.5 WHBL

Eventually, China has taken steps to authorize mRNA vaccines more broadly, but the initial rollout was cautious and tied up with political negotiations.

Bottom line

China’s initial decision to allow only German nationals in China to receive an mRNA vaccine while Chinese citizens continued to use domestic vaccines was driven by:

Regulatory caution and preference for domestic vaccines

Diplomatic and reciprocal arrangements with Germany

A hesitant policy toward foreign mRNA vaccines that changed over time

So the policy was not about vaccine efficacy or nationality alone, but about how China chose to manage approval and international relations during a complex phase of the pandemic.

If you want, I can walk through how China’s vaccine approval timeline evolved over the pandemic (e.g., when mRNA shots eventually became available to the general public) — just ask!

[tim]

https://jonfleetwood.substack.com/p/the ... -infection

They Can't Tell If Measles Infection Is Caused by Wild Virus or Vaccine Virus

'BMC Infectious Diseases' journal publication confirms measles vaccine does cause measles infection—but most of the time, even genetic analysis can't determine where the infection came from.

In this video, we walk through a newly published BMC Infectious Diseases study showing that public health authorities often cannot determine whether measles-like illness in vaccinated infants is caused by a wild measles virus or the live virus contained in the measles vaccine itself

This raises questions about vaccine recommendations.

If genetic analysis can’t tell us whether a virus or a vaccine causes measles, why are we recommending vaccines?

[tim]

https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/all-12 ... vaccinated

All 12 Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Studies Found the Same Thing: Unvaccinated Children Are Far Healthier

Epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher on The HighWire

I joined Del Bigtree in studio on The HighWire to discuss what the data now make unavoidable: the CDC’s 81-dose hyper-vaccination schedule is driving the modern epidemics of chronic disease and autism.

This was not a philosophical debate or a clash of opinions. We walked through irrefutable, peer-reviewed evidence showing that whenever vaccinated and unvaccinated children are compared directly, the unvaccinated group is far healthier—every single time.

[tim]

https://jonfleetwood.substack.com/p/usd ... tches-bird

USDA’s Bird Flu Test Matches Bird and Cow DNA, Not Just Viral DNA: BLAST Data

Are we spiraling toward a false pandemic because PCR tests are detecting host DNA instead of virus?

The genetic sequence of the forward primer in the PCR test used by the government to detect bird flu matches sequences in cow and bird genomes, raising questions about how many reported “positives” reflect true viral detection or nonspecific amplification of host DNA.

The revelation comes after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently gave bird flu permanent emergency status.

Dairy cattle and poultry remain the primary animals at the center of the ongoing H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI) situation.

Positive PCR test results are used to justify how many bird flu cases are reported, which in turn drives public health responses, trade restrictions, and emergency policy decisions—like declaring pandemics.

But if the PCR test is detecting bird and cow host DNA, not just viral genetics, how many reported bird flu cases are actually false positives and therefore shouldn’t be counted?

We plugged the PCR forward primer sequence into the U.S. government’s BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) software.

[tim]

https://www.malone.news/p/stanford-led- ... east-20000

Stanford led study: at least 20,000 global deaths from COVID jabs

New COVID Vax Paper Breaks with the Narrative

In a high-profile analysis published in JAMA Health Forum, a team from Stanford University, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS led by John P. A. Ioannidis set out to answer one of the most contested questions of the pandemic era: How many lives did COVID-19 vaccination actually save worldwide? The study estimates that COVID-19 vaccination averted approximately 2.5 million deaths globally between 2020 and 2024, with a wide uncertainty range of 1.4 to 4.0 million, and saved about 15 million life-years, though results depend heavily on modeling assumptions. Nearly 90% of deaths averted occurred in adults aged 60 years and older, while children, adolescents, and young adults contributed a negligible share of the total benefit. Compared with earlier pandemic models, these findings suggest a far more limited, age-concentrated mortality benefit, particularly during the Omicron period and among those vaccinated before first infection.

A Quiet but Explosive Admission
Dr. Ioannidis and colleagues make an unusually candid concession for a high-profile vaccine-benefit paper: they do not separate deaths averted by vaccine effectiveness from deaths caused by vaccine-related harms. In fact they explicitly acknowledge that randomized trial data are insufficient to quantify vaccine-associated mortality and that estimates derived from registries and observational sources carry “substantial uncertainty.”

This is not a minor caveat—it is a structural limitation of the analysis. The authors further note that, depending on ethical framing and risk aversion, a death caused by an intervention may not be considered equivalent to a death averted by it, particularly when harms cluster in specific subpopulations.

To put bounds around this uncertainty, the authors turn to eAppendix 2 (Supplement 1), where they restrict analysis to widely recognized and accepted fatal adverse events: thrombosis with thrombocytopenia after adenovirus-vector vaccines, myocarditis following mRNA vaccines (primarily in younger males), and deaths temporally associated with vaccination in highly debilitated nursing-home residents.

Using global administration data (~13.64 billion doses) and conservative risk assumptions, they estimate roughly 20,000 vaccine-associated deaths worldwide, while an independent extrapolation from Qatar’s national mortality review suggests a broader range of approximately 16,000 to 48,000 deaths.

Compared with the study’s central estimate of ~2.5 million lives saved, this supports the authors’ statement that vaccine-related deaths were “probably” about two orders of magnitude lower than benefits at the population level.

The critical word is “probably.” The authors explicitly state that these adverse-event death estimates carry “very large uncertainty” and emphasize that the margin between benefit and harm may be substantially smaller—or even reversed—in specific subgroups where risks are concentrated and benefits are limited, such as younger males or frail elderly residents.

In effect, the paper concedes that while COVID-19 vaccination likely reduced mortality overall, net benefit was neither uniform nor guaranteed across populations. A bombshell acknowledgment—confined to the supplement rather than the abstract—directly challenges any absolutist claim that vaccine harms were negligible or irrelevant and represents a rare moment of methodological and ethical candor in the COVID-19 vaccine literature.

[tim]

https://jonfleetwood.substack.com/p/flu ... at-trigger

Flu Vaccines Contain RNA That Trigger Positive PCR Test Results: 'Journal of Medical Microbiology'

Is the "chilling" rise in flu cases nationwide attributable to PCR tests detecting vaccine RNA, not wild virus?

Mainstream news outlets are broadcasting that there is a “chilling” rise in flu cases, with Colorado, Louisiana, and New York experiencing the “fastest increases in influenza cases.”

However, the rise in cases follows flu vaccination campaigns in those states, which raises questions about vaccine efficacy.

But it also raises questions about whether the vaccinations themselves are contributing to the increasing case numbers.

For example, the New Orleans Health Department (NOHD) launched a flu vaccination campaign in early October.

NYC Health Department similarly launched an October push urging all residents 6 months and older to get flu shots.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s (CDPHE) influenza webpage was updated the same month to promote flu vaccination.

These campaigns are meant to increase flu vaccine uptake.

Now there’s a rise in influenza cases, which are counted using positive PCR test results.

[tim]

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defe ... d=20251211

Offit Lied to CNN About ACIP Meeting, Hepatitis B Data. CNN Didn’t Fact-Check Him

Dr. Paul Offit told CNN that the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices didn’t invite him to speak at their meeting last week. However, internal documents show the CDC contacted him by email and phone, and sent him a speaker-request form. Offit also falsely claimed that “50% of people in this country” are chronically infected with hepatitis B without knowing it.

When Dr. Paul Offit appeared on CNN on Dec. 5 to discuss the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) contentious hepatitis B meeting, he spoke with the certainty that has made him one of legacy media’s go-to commentators on vaccines.

Offit told viewers he had not been invited to speak at the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting that was unfolding in Atlanta that very day.

That claim was false.

CDC officials had contacted him repeatedly — via emails, phone calls and a speaker-request form — inviting him to present at the upcoming meeting.

Offit acknowledged receiving a request, but then told the audience he was not invited to attend.

From there, the misinformation only escalated.

He warned viewers that “millions” of Americans were silently carrying hepatitis B, claimed that “50% of people in this country” were chronically infected without knowing it and suggested newborns were at risk through everyday contact with nannies, daycare workers and family members.

None of those claims was true.

But the CNN host did not challenge him. No fact-checker intervened. And once again, a highly amplified “expert” delivered a series of false statements that left the public with a distorted picture of the facts.

[tim]

https://dailysceptic.org/2025/12/20/the ... r-maskers/

The Bizarro-World of the Forever Maskers

The Telegraph has a story about the ‘Zero Covid’ zealots refusing to re-enter society. Not only that, but these forever maskers want everyone else masked up in perpetuity too. It’s a remarkable instance of the emergence of a new form of cult based on a surreal new ritual. And just for good measure, it seems that those leaning Left are most likely to be on board:

The claims of links to Covid circulating online amid the deadly chaos were not always proved beyond doubt, but in this climate of fear and confusion, a determined ‘Zero Covid’ community emerged. Co-opting a phrase that was originally an official public health policy, the ‘Zero Coviders’ believed they were watching a massacre in real time, and the maskless – especially those who were unvaccinated – were to blame. As governments relaxed the restrictions, they felt they needed to step up.

“I was like, ‘Okay, this is not right. This is f—–,'” says [Alyson] Hardwick, a second-year university student who does not have any underlying health conditions. The last time she ate indoors at a restaurant was in October 2022 for her 31st birthday. “I felt sketched out [uneasy],” she recalls. “I was leaving every place I was going inside without a mask, wondering, ‘Did I get it?’”

Hardwick began wearing a respirator mask – specialised, disposable facepieces called N95s or N99s which offer more comprehensive protection than a surgical mask – and spending most of her time alone.

She’s ostracised herself from other people and posts thousands of clips online and argues that it’s everyone else, not her, who is living in fear. “Denial is a fear response,” she insists.

Hardwick’s stance exemplifies the increasingly fraught Zero Covid movement – a citizen-led campaign across the Western world to keep the air clean. She is just one of thousands of geographically disparate people, many of whom are not immunocompromised, who are still living in their own self-imposed lockdowns, fearful of becoming one of the millions to suffer with serious long Covid symptoms, or anxious about transmitting the virus to someone less fortunate. Zero Covid has adherents across North America and Europe, including some in the UK, but followers from the US and Canada are the most visible online.

The charged movement to end ‘pandemic denialism’ has some high-profile advocates, including Left-wing US journalist Taylor Lorenz. “If ur [sic] not masking ur absolutely facilitating eugenics,” Lorenz posted to her 350,000 followers on X on December 6th.

“Refusing to mask during an ongoing pandemic is absolutely violent and it’s undeniably participating in social murder,” she said in another recent post, as well as calling out Leftist “super spreader” events. “You are actively *killing* and maiming people around you by intentionally spreading airborne disease during an active pandemic.” (Separately, she pilloried non-maskers for “raw-dogging the air and spewing ur disease laden breath all over ur elderly neighbours”.)

By 2022, the pandemic and the panicked measures were retreating into the past:

But the cautious, despite getting vaccinated and then boosted, couldn’t move on. Online communities became lifelines as in-person social circles frayed. Campaigners pushed ‘clean air’ as the next public-health frontier, and offered seatbelt analogies for masking: mildly inconvenient, obviously protective.

Masking was increasingly framed as an act of love, and it was overwhelmingly Left-wing groups which encouraged – even mandated – their continued use. Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac encouraged continued mask wearing. “I f—— hate the masks, but I wear them,” she said. “People give you dirty looks. I dare anybody to give me a dirty look. I would just say, ‘Hey, you know what? I’m Stevie Nicks.'”

That would presumably be the same Stevie Nicks who reportedly blew a hole through her nose from snorting cocaine. By 2023 mask use was largely discredited, but the Telegraph quotes a Mayo Clinic source:

“People who rebuilt their entire lives and recast their identities around reducing the risk of catching Covid to zero couldn’t deal with this,” one former ardent Zero Covider recalls, speaking to me on condition of anonymity. “The movement devolved into a massive online circle-jerk where members blindly validate each other on taking disproportionate precautions.

One ardent proponent of masking says that’s the way he’ll spend the rest of his life:

“I don’t just, like, go out the way I used to,” says Evan Sachs, who is in his early 30s and lives in New York with his three cats. He always wears a mask outdoors.

“Sometimes it’s a bummer.” Not because masking is keeping him from living his life, he adds, “but because other people [selfishly] aren’t doing the ‘wearing your pants’ levels of easy things” to keep everyone safe. He runs a ‘bloc’ in the Washington Heights area of New York which distributes personal protective equipment (PPE) to less well-off communities. “I do not have Long Covid, thank goodness,” Sachs adds. “I am very, very lucky on that front.”

He doesn’t want to get it either. “I honestly think I would [mask forever],” he says.’

An Austrian doctor called Spela Salomon has no time for non-maskers:

Outside work, she does not spend time with people who do not take equal precautions. “I just don’t feel like I get anything out of hanging around the maskless masses,” she says. “It’s sad and isolating.” In an article published by the World Health Network earlier this year, Salomon predicted that a rising toll of Covid complications would lead to a societal shift in which air quality is recognised as an essential public health priority like potable water. “It is those who persist in denial who are truly living in fear,” she wrote, echoing Hardwick’s sentiment in her social media video.

It appears that the forever maskers have become so dedicated to the cause that they are even fetishizing masks:

US college student Bela waxes lyrical about her powered air-purifying respirator, certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. “It blows air out so that no outside air can get in through the edges from a poor fit or seal,” she told campaign group MaskTogetherAmerica.

Meanwhile, Alyson Hardwick is increasingly focused on her “new passion for Covid”:

Getting a booster jab at least every six months is, for her, a necessary response to what she calls a “mass disability event in slow motion” that has completely transformed her life. “I’m rarely ever sharing air with people,” she says. If she does meet up with anyone, it will be other Covid-safe people, outdoors. “I feel safe around them, because they’re also masking everywhere.”

Worth reading in full if only to explore the infinite capacity of human beings to turn any cause into a cult, however bizarre the rituals and customs devised to pursue their beliefs.