From the Brownstone Institute

By  Ian Miller 

Accountability for those responsible for the disasters of global governments’ handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is nearly impossible. For several reasons.

Namely, that accountability would have to come from those currently in government. Many, if not most, of whom supported the mask mandates, vaccine passports, and other absurdities inflicted on the global public. It would also require those responsible to actually acknowledge their mistakes, then take responsibility for them. How often do we see politicians or influential public figures admit that they were wrong?

Especially when the consequences were, and are, so severe.

It’s refreshing when we see the rare blissful examples of people in charge, those who will influence decisions, admitting that mistakes were made. That absurd policies with no basis in science were forced on the public. And apologize for their role in it.

Former Australian Premier Admits Vaccine Mandates Were Wrong

Dominic Perrottet is the former premier in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state and home to Sydney. Australia, infamously, was one of the most prolific spreaders of Covid misinformation during the pandemic, while also being home to some of the world’s most restrictive policies and mandates.

While Daniel Andrews from the state of Victoria often receives most of the criticism, and rightfully so, for his extremism during the pandemic, New South Wales was nearly as restrictive.

The state under Gladys Berejiklian banned gatherings of 500 people or more in March, with the order enforced by state police with punishment including prison time, fines, or both. They closed their borders, even to other Australians, from July 8th, 2020 to November 2020, then again from January 2021 to the middle of February 2021. Even after the borders opened, visitors returning to the state from Victoria were forced to quarantine.

NSW made QR code check-ins mandatory in 2021 for “contact tracing,” a laughable, futile attempt to track a highly infectious respiratory virus. Retail stores, taxis, offices, and many other locations required individuals to scan a QR code upon entry.

In March 2020 they also made it illegal for more than two people to gather at a time, as well as banning people from leaving their own homes without a “reasonable excuse.” That’s not an exaggeration; the law quite literally states “that a person must not, without reasonable excuse, leave the person’s place of residence.”

Masks were mandated, including at outdoor events, well past 2021 and into 2022. In fact, as late as August 2021 NSW enforced curfews from 9 pm to 5 am and made masks mandatory anytime someone left their home. In late September, some restrictions were relaxed, allowing residents to create a 3-person “friend bubble” where leisure activities were permitted.

By October, the state reached an 80% full vaccination rate, allowing for the vaccinated to regain a small measure of freedom.

As with the rest of Australia, none of it worked. Lockdowns, mandates, an 80% vaccination rate, restrictions on the unvaccinated — none of it mattered.

Even more hilariously, New South Wales’ vaccine passport system came into effect directly before the state saw its highest rate of Covid spread during the pandemic.

And Perrottet, who presided over the period of vaccine mandates, passports, and unrestrained Covid spread from 2021 into 2023, has now admitted that he and the state were wrong.

“If the impact of vaccines on transmission was limited at best, as is now mostly accepted, the law should have left more room for respect of freedom,” Perrottet said in a recent speech, according to ABC Australia.

“Vaccines saved lives, but ultimately, mandates were wrong. People’s personal choices shouldn’t have cost them their jobs.”

“When I became premier, we removed [vaccine mandates] or the ones we actually could, but this should have happened faster,” he told the legislative assembly this week.

“If a pandemic comes again, we need to get a better balance encouraging people to take action whilst at the same time protecting people’s fundamental liberty.”

This isn’t nearly enough, but it’s still startling to see someone from one of the world’s most authoritarian Covid countries admit that their policies were ineffective and harmful, as well as being an infringement on fundamental liberties.

For perspective, has Joe Biden or Kamala Harris admitted that their illegal vaccine mandate was a mistake? That it was a mistake to bar unvaccinated visitors like Novak Djokovic from entering the country based on misinformation from Dr. Fauci?

Has the CDC acknowledged that their recommendations were arguably wrong, that their claims of vaccine efficacy against infection or transmission were a world-altering, historic failure? What about the media and their role in promoting that misinformation? Have they apologized?

Of course not. Politicians and their media partners don’t acknowledge mistakes; they don’t take responsibility for their actions. Especially when their actions have disastrous consequences. The only way these policies ever permanently end is if more people in positions of power such as Perrottet admit they were wrong.

Fauci, Biden, and Harris never have, and never will. This raises the disturbing thought that they’d easily reimpose those same restrictions again if given the opportunity.

It’s reassuring to see at least one prominent politician admit they were wrong. But there should be more.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

Ian Miller

Ian Miller is the author of “Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates.” His work has been featured on national television broadcasts, national and international news publications and referenced in multiple best selling books covering the pandemic. He writes a Substack newsletter, also titled “Unmasked.”

From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

” the federal government has failed to provide sufficient data to support the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 boosters, or acknowledge previously demonstrated safety concerns “

While most state health bureaucracies prepare for the fall flu season with fresh encouragement to take COVID-19 boosters, the Florida Department of Health (DOH) is instead urging residents to stay informed about the reasons not to take them.

On Thursday, Florida Health released its Updated Guidance for COVID-19 Boosters for the Fall and Winter 2024–2025 Season, which opens with a reminder of the “importance of remaining up to date with current literature related to COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, and the importance of providing patients with informed consent.”

It then notes that while the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved updated mRNA COVID shots last month for those 12 and over plus emergency use authorization for those as young as six months, the Omicron variant they are meant for “is not causing a significant number of infections” and, more importantly, the “most recent booster approval was granted in the absence of booster-specific clinical trial data performed in humans,” does not protect against the most dominant current COVID strain, and that the “federal government has not required COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to demonstrate their boosters prevent hospitalizations or death.”

“Additionally, the federal government has failed to provide sufficient data to support the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 boosters, or acknowledge previously demonstrated safety concerns associated with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, including: prolonged circulation of mRNA and spike protein in some vaccine recipients, increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections, and increased risk of autoimmune disease after vaccination,” it continues.

The guidance additionally “advises against the use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines” and urges providers of patients 65 and older with underlying health conditions to prioritize access to “non-mRNA” treatment.

“Improving habits and overall health help manage and reduce the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity, risk factors for serious illness from COVID-19,” it concludes. “The State Surgeon General and the Department continue to encourage Floridians to prioritize their overall health by: [s]taying physically active, [m]inimizing processed foods, [p]rioritizing vegetables and healthy fats, and [s]pending time outdoors to support necessary vitamin D levels.”

Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has taken the lead on defying the COVID-19 establishment, disavowing lockdowns and mandates the most aggressively out of any state before moving on to challenge the shots themselves, most recently with a grand jury impaneled by DeSantis to investigate their manufacturers.

In February, it released its first interim report on the underlying justification for the shots, which determined that lockdowns did more harm than good, that masks were ineffective at stopping COVID transmission, that COVID was “statistically almost harmless” to children and most adults, and that it is “highly likely” that COVID hospitalization numbers were inflated. The grand jury’s report on the shots themselves is highly anticipated.

A large body of evidence identifies significant risks to the COVID jabs, which were developed and reviewed in a fraction of the time vaccines usually take under former President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative. Among it, the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 37,910 deaths, 217,931 hospitalizations, 21,917 heart attacks, and 28,602 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of September 6, among other ailments. U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than over-reporting.

An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published February in the journal Vaccine “observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID jabs, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” In April, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 shots and offered several theories for a causal link.