“You Are a Cretin”

Your editor — we regret to inform you — is a cretin.

This we have on the authority of reader Matt P.

Matt’s note lists credentials indicating he is a man of high finance. He is evidently a grandee at a New York financial concern.

From whom:

Brian Maher is a cretin. I just visited the website and saw his “The Most Dangerous Man” piece. Invoking bad statistics and the typical slew of denialist blather, he is clearly deficient in most intellectual respects. Thank you for sharing. Yep…

And we do thank Matt for sharing. We adore his ferocity, his heat, his righteous zeal to denounce our evils and to put us to rights.

We have no doubt that he is with the angels… and that they are with him.

Bad Statistics

Matt refers of course to Sept. 23’s Reckoning, bearing the title he cites above.

We do not know the statistics to which he refers — he did not specify our particular botchwork.

Here were the only statistics we cited. The first:

All evidence — we are told — indicates transmission is an indoor hazard.

Yet the state of Oregon requires facial coverings in most outdoor spaces where asocial distancing is not possible… including the vaccinated.

Our men inform us the same state of Oregon has endured a 73% increase in cases since the edict entered effect — incidentally.

That 73% is a figure plenty handsome. Would Oregon have endured an even greater increase absent the outside mask mandate?

We do not know how the figures would differ to any plausible degree.

Yet we are willing to take correction if facts warrant. Recall, we are clearly deficient in most intellectual respects.

Hopefully… by God’s grace… not all intellectual respects. Yet doubt haunts our sleepless and fitful nights.

But to proceed…

Great Britain

Here is our second mangled statistic:

In Great Britain, 75% of the deceased are vaccinated.

We received recent correspondence from an overseas colleague. He cited reasons why the statistics lean toward Matt.

That is, evidence why elevated vaccinated sicknesses and deaths do not equal vaccine failure:

Of course the percentage of vaccinated in hospitals goes up. The more people you vaccinated, the higher the ratio of cases that you see will be those that “break through” the medical barrier. Simply because the ratio of unvaccinated to infected has gone down, as has the overall pool of infected/hospitalized. The vaccinated cases are simply a larger ratio of a smaller pool.

Just so. Perhaps there is justice here. But the 75% statistic we cited represents far more than an increase — if accurate.

Of course… as we have argued previously, statistics are lovely liars. They often tell gorgeous tales.

In improper hands they are devils.

Thus we empty our hands of them… and place them into holier hands.

Higher Death Rate Among the Vaccinated

Here are two men alert to statistical wizardry, alert to statistical feints and ploys, alert to statistical fabulism…

Here Messieurs Norman Fenton and Martin Neil — both masters of the statistical arts and sciences — penetrate the British numbers:

It turns out that, even [accounting for this] age-adjusted mortality rate, the death rate is currently higher among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated… In contrast to the unvaccinated, the mortality rates for the vaccinated have initially increased from very low initial values, but then have increased, whilst that for the unvaccinated has decreased…

We can conclude that the Office for National Statistics’ own data does not support the claims made for vaccine effectiveness/safety.

Other professional statisticians may disagree. Yet we are fond of bad statistics. Thus these are the cherries we pluck from the branches.

Here is another fine cherry, another bad statistic…

95% of Hospitalisations Are Vaccinated

Victoria, Australia, reported 867 fresh COVID cases Tuesday.

And 375 require hospitalization. Of these, 81 require intensive treatment and 61 require ventilation.

Were the majority vaccination-free? They were not — emphatically not.

Victoria’s health minister claims: “Of the people who were in hospital yesterday, 78% were vaccinated and 17% were partially vaccinated”…

That is, 95% of these miserables languishing in Victorian sick houses are vaccinated — and 78% vaccinated to the brim.

The virus nonetheless has them by the throat. Now come home…

Some 70% of fully vaccinated inmates in one Texas prison suffered infection, says the Centers for Disease Control.

It is also true that 93% of unvaccinated inmates likewise suffered affliction. The potions skewed the odds in a favorable direction.

Yet is a 70% infection rate among the vaccinated a triumph?

A Hypothetical

If 70% of women taking birth control medicines soon began swelling in the abdomen… would the medicines be a success?

And what if it sickened them — or murdered them? According to bad statistics disseminator and “cancelled” Dr. Joseph Mercola, the vacciness just may sicken and murder:

As of Sept. 3, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) had received 675,591 reports of adverse events following vaccination. Of these, there were 14,506 deaths, 6,422 heart attacks and 5,371 cases of pericarditis or myocarditis.

It is important to note that the VAERS has tracked adverse events since 1990. In 2019, there were 605 reports of deaths from all vaccines given. In 2021, there were 14,594 deaths reported in nine months.

What if the numbers are far, far greater?

Although these numbers are significant, a 2010 Harvard study commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services revealed data demonstrating the VAERS likely only represents approximately 1% of those who are injured.

Next we come to our third statistical example, the Israeli example. From the Sept. 23 Reckoning:

In Israel, perhaps the most vaccinated nation of Earth, the vaccinated are likewise being savaged.

The medical director at Jerusalem’s Herzog Hospital claims 95% of severe cases therein are vaccinated — fully vaccinated.

Yet perhaps Jerusalem’s Herzog Hospital fails to represent the Israeli scene in its totality.

“Most of the Hospitalized Patients Are Actually Vaccinated”

Science magazine nonetheless reported that… through Aug. 15… 59% of hospitalized Israelis had been fully vaccinated.

A certain Uri Shalit — bioinformatician at the Israel Institute of Technology — claims “most of the hospitalized patients are actually vaccinated.”

Meantime, The Times of Israel reports “the current wave of coronavirus infections is surpassing anything seen in previous outbreaks.”

Yet 84% of Israelis aged 12 and over are inoculated. Still the nation “boasts” being among the world’s highest number of cases per capita.

We expect to land in Matt’s canine house for peddling additional bad statistics.

Then let Dr. Leana Wen join us. Dr. Wen is a CNN medical analyst. She is a vaccination enthusiast.

Yet she concedes the vaccinated are presently more vulnerable to the Delta variant. They haul around a larger cargo of virus than the unvaccinated.

And so she maintains the vaccinated hold the unvaccinated at gunpoint.

Vaccinated People Are Dangerous to Others

Perhaps it is the unvaccinated who should shun the vaccinated… rather than the reverse.

Here is Dr. Christian Perronne — fellow of France’s renowned Institut Pasteur — and former vice president of the WHO’s European Advisory Group:

Vaccinated people are at risk of the new variants and transmission. It’s been proven in different countries… Unvaccinated people are not dangerous; vaccinated people are dangerous to others. It’s proven in Israel now, where I’m in contact with many physicians in Israel. They’re having big problems now; severe cases in hospitals are among vaccinated people. And in the U.K. also, you had a larger vaccination program and also there are problems.

Perhaps this fellow stretches the facts. We do not know. Yet of this we are presently confident:

A “pandemic of the unvaccinated”… is a fabulous fiction.

Denialist Blather

What of Matt’s claim that we spew “denialist blather”? What are we in fact denying?

We have never denied the virus is a potential murderer. We never denied it is a menace to many.

The aged, the existing sick, the obese… all of these suffer elevated risk… as we have acknowledged.

We have never counseled against vaccination — only that readers should arm themselves with a full magazine of facts — to arrive at an informed decision.

Yet what about the robust? What about the young?

The odds favor them to astonishing degrees. Very few end up in the hospital or over the rainbow.

Why should they require vaccination… especially with vaccines that may not be formidable?

And why should the naturally immune require vaccination when studies indicate their armor is perhaps 27 times thicker than the vaccinateds’?

We nonetheless acknowledge Matt for his high service to the human species… by exposing our villainies and declaring us infamous.

In token of his high service…

We are dispatching Matt, by way of United States mail, a preliminary draft of a book we are currently preparing.

We trust the high quality of the statistics therein will astound Matt and gobsmack him. They will knock him over. And they will persuade him. He will take our conclusions aboard.

The book bears this tentative title:

Trump Was Right: Drink Bleach, Cure COVID.

Cretinously yours,

Brian Maher
Managing editor, The Daily Reckoning