COVID-19
CDC Quietly Admits to Covid Policy Failures
From the Brownstone Institute
Instead of admitting policy error that the Covid vaccines do not much control virus spread, our public health administration doubled down, attempting then to compel vaccination on as many more people as could be threatened by mandates.
In so many words—and data—CDC has quietly admitted that all of the indignities of the Covid-19 pandemic management have failed: the masks, the distancing, the lockdowns, the closures, and especially the vaccines; all of it failed to control the pandemic.
It’s not like we didn’t know that all this was going to fail, because we said so as events unfolded early on in 2020, that the public health management of this respiratory virus was almost completely opposite to principles that had been well established through the influenza period, in 2006. The spread of a new virus with replication factor R0 of about 3, with more than one million cases across the country by April 2020, with no potentially virus-sterilizing vaccine in sight for at least several months, almost certainly made this infection eventually endemic and universal.
Covid-19 starts as an annoying, intense, uncomfortable flu-like illness, and for most people, ends uneventfully 2-3 weeks later. Thus, management of the Covid-19 pandemic should not have relied upon counts of cases or infections, but on numbers of deaths, numbers of people hospitalized or with serious long-term outcomes of the infection, and of serious health, economic, and psychological damages caused by the actions and policies made in response to the pandemic, in that order of decreasing priorities.
Even though numbers of Covid cases correlate with these severe manifestations, that is not a justification for case numbers to be used as the actionable measure, because Covid-19 infection mortality is estimated to range below 0.1% in the mean across all ages, and post-infection immunity provides a public good in protecting people from severe reinfection outcomes for the great majority who do not get serious “long-Covid” on first infection.
Nevertheless, once the Covid-19 vaccines were rolled out, with a new large wave of the Delta strain spreading across the US in July-August 2021 even after eight months of the vaccines taken by half of Americans, instead of admitting policy error that the Covid vaccines do not much control virus spread, our public health administration doubled down, attempting then to compel vaccination on as many more people as could be threatened by mandates. That didn’t work out too well as seen when the large Omicron wave hit the country during December 2021-January 2022 in spite of some 10% more of the population getting vaccinated from September through December of 2021.
A typical mandate example: in September 2021, Washington Governor Jay Inslee issued Emergency Proclamation 21-14.2, requiring Covid-19 vaccination for various groups of state workers. In the proclamation, the stated goal was, “WHEREAS, COVID-19 vaccines are effective in reducing infection and serious disease, and widespread vaccination is the primary means we have as a state to protect everyone…from COVID-19 infections.” That is, the stated goal was to reduce the number of infections.
What the CDC recently reported (see chart below), however, is that by the end of 2023, cumulatively, at least 87% of Americans had anti-nucleocapsid antibodies to and thus had been infected with SARS-CoV-2, this in spite of the mammoth, protracted and booster-repeated vaccination campaign that led to about 90% of Americans taking the shots. My argument is that by making policies based on number of infections a higher priority than ones based on the more serious but less common consequences of both infections and policy damages, the proclaimed goal of the vaccine mandate to reduce spread failed in that 87% of Americans eventually became infected anyway.
In reality, neither vaccine immunity nor post-infection immunity were ever able fully to control the spread of the infection. On August 11, 2022, the CDC stated, “Receipt of a primary series alone, in the absence of being up to date with vaccination* through receipt of all recommended booster doses, provides minimal protection against infection and transmission (3,6). Being up to date with vaccination provides a transient period of increased protection against infection and transmission after the most recent dose, although protection can wane over time.” Public health pandemic measures that “wane over time” are very unlikely to be useful for control of infection spread, at least without very frequent and impractical revaccinations every few months.
Nevertheless, infection spread per se is not of consequence, because count of infections is not and should not have been the main priority of public health pandemic management. Rather, the consequences of the spread and the negative consequences of the policies invoked should have been the priorities. Our public health agencies chose to prioritize a failed policy of reducing the spread rather than reducing the mortality or the lockdown and school and business closure harms, which led to unnecessary and avoidable damage to millions of lives. We deserved better from our public health institutions.
Republished from the author’s Substack
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From LifeSiteNews
A judge ruled that the Ontario Court of Justice is already ‘satisfied’ with Chris Barber’s sentence and taking away his very livelihood would be ‘disproportionate.’
A Canadian judge has dismissed a demand from Canadian government lawyers to seize Freedom Convoy leader Chris Barber’s “Big Red” semi-truck.
On Friday, Ontario Court of Justice Judge Heather Perkins-McVey denied the Crown’s application seeking to forfeit Barber’s truck.
She ruled that the court is already “satisfied” with Barber’s sentence and taking away his very livelihood would be “disproportionate.”
“This truck is my livelihood,” said Barber in a press release sent to LifeSiteNews.
“Trying to permanently seize it for peacefully protesting was wrong, and I’m relieved the court refused to allow that to happen,” he added.
Criminal defense lawyer Marwa Racha Younes was welcoming of the ruling as well, stating, “We find it was the right decision in the circumstances and are happy with the outcome.”
John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), said the decision is “good news for all Canadians who cherish their Charter freedom to assemble peacefully.”
READ: Freedom Convoy protester appeals after judge dismissed challenge to frozen bank accounts
“Asset forfeiture is an extraordinary power, and it must not be used to punish Canadians for participating in peaceful protest,” he added in the press release.
As reported recently by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian government claimed that Barber’s truck is an “offence-related property” relating to his involvement in the 2022 protests against Canada’s COVID mandates.
At this time, the court ruling ends any forfeiture proceedings for the time being, however Barber will continue to try and appeal his criminal conviction and house arrest sentence.
Barber’s truck, a 2004 Kenworth long-haul he uses for business, was a focal point in the 2022 protests. He drove it to Ottawa, where it was parked for an extended period of time, but he complied when officials asked him to move it.
On October 7, 2025, after a long trial, Ontario Court Justice Perkins-McVey sentenced Barber and Tamara Lich, the other Freedom Convoy leader, to 18 months’ house arrest. They had been declared guilty of mischief for their roles as leaders of the 2022 protest against COVID mandates, and as social media influencers.
Lich and Barber have filed appeals of their own against their house arrest sentences, arguing that the trial judge did not correctly apply the law on their mischief charges.
Government lawyers for the Crown have filed an appeal of the acquittals of Lich and Barber on intimidation charges.
The pair’s convictions came after a nearly two-year trial despite the nonviolent nature of the popular movement.
From LifeSiteNews
Protestor Evan Blackman’s legal team argues Trudeau’s Emergencies Act-based bank account freezes were punitive state action tied directly to protest participation.
A Freedom Convoy protester whose bank accounts were frozen by the Canadian government says a judge erred after his ruling did not consider the fact that the funds were frozen under the Emergencies Act, as grounds for a stay of proceedings.
In a press release sent out earlier this week, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) said that Freedom Convoy protestor Evan Blackman will challenge a court ruling in his criminal case via an appeal with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
“This case raises serious questions about how peaceful protest is treated in Canada and about the lasting consequences of the federal government’s unlawful use of the Emergencies Act,” noted constitutional lawyer Chris Fleury. “The freezing of protestors’ bank accounts was part of a coordinated effort to suppress dissent, and courts ought to be willing to scrutinize that conduct.”
Blackman was arrested on February 18, 2022, during the police crackdown on Freedom Convoy protests against COVID restrictions, which was authorized by the Emergencies Act (EA). The EA was put in place by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, which claimed the protests were violent, despite no evidence that this was the case.
Blackman’s three bank accounts with TD Bank were frozen due to his participation in the Freedom Convoy, following a directive ordered by Trudeau.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, in November of this year, Blackman was convicted at his retrial even though he had been acquitted at his original trial. In 2023, Blackman’s “mischief” and “obstructing police” charges were dismissed by a judge due to lack of evidence and the “poor memory of a cop regarding key details of the alleged criminal offences.”
His retrial resulted in Blackman getting a conditional discharge along with 12 months’ probation and 122 hours of community service, along with a $200 victim fine surcharge.
After this, Blackman’s application for a stay of proceedings was dismissed by the court. He had hoped to have his stay of proceedings, under section 24(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, allowed. However, the judge ruled that the freezing of his bank accounts was legally not related to his arrest, and because of this, the stay of proceedings lacked standing.
The JCCF disagreed with this ruling, noting, it “stands in contrast to a Federal Court decision finding that the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and violated Canadians’ Charter rights, including those targeted by the financial measures used against Freedom Convoy protestors.”
As of press time, a hearing date has not been scheduled.
In 2024, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that Trudeau was “not justified” in invoking the Emergencies Act.
In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Trudeau’s federal government enacted the EA in mid-February.
After the protesters were cleared out, which was achieved through the freezing of bank accounts of those involved without a court order as well as the physical removal and arrest of demonstrators, Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23, 2022.
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