By Nancy Thorner -
Faulty information and mistakes in the middle of a crisis, such as the coronavirus pandemic, are to be expected.
For this pandemic, it has been something more. What happens when your own people exaggerate circumstances and repeatedly provide fraudulent data?
Host Scott Barbour, M.D. examines the hoaxes surrounding COVID-19 in The Doctor's Lounge podcast program of July 23, 2020, Hoaxes Abound, who along with Hal Scherz, M.D., both Docs 4 Patient Care doctors who appear on American web radio.
Listen to the July 23, 2020 PODCAST HERE of Dr. Barbour's presentation of COVID-19 hoaxes.
For those who doubt the validity of Dr. Barbour's presentation, having listened to and believed what the media and government sources have been telling you for almost five months, Thorner includes hyperlinks of articles that dovetail with the COVID hoax messages presented by Barbour.
As Dr. Barbour initially explained, the number one issue that is affecting every corner of our lives is COVID-19. Originally common mistakes were made. Now political interests are driving policies, not medical facts on the ground, terrifying Americans.
Hoax #1 - The efficacy of masks
Before this outbreak, the consensus literature was exactly what Dr. Fauci said it was originally. There did not appear to be any studies that demonstrated the efficacy of masks in the transmission of what we call influenza-like illnesses, which are the types of viruses that are spread in respiratory droplets and cause respiratory illness. Why now are masks being mandated?
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) changed its own mask recommendations regarding influenza-like illnesses after the coronavirus outbreak. When the pandemic first made its appearance, the CDC basically stated that masks have not been shown to be effective at preventing the transmission of influenza-like viruses. Now the CDC recommends mask-wearing.
Barbour is fine with people mandating a mask in their private homes or businesses but believes there is no need for government to be mandating that we wear masks when the data is unclear whether masks prevents the transmission of this virus.
The psychological aspect of making us wear masks is to keep forefront in our minds that we are in deadly danger from coronavirus, making it easy for us to be influenced into more lockdowns and more Jacobian measures.
Hoax #2 – The Lock Downs
Said Barbour: “The whole point of lockdowns came from the 2011 movie,
Contagion. Lockdowns have no basis in science and were done despite some economists warning about negative effects on the economy. The lock downs have continued because of faulty information.”
Initially, the idea of lockdowns was to flatten the curve so hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed with an influx of Coronavirus-19 cases. Lock downs were never meant to stop the transmission of the virus. This is not possible. A super majority of patients are asymptomatic. These people are out in the population, so the virus is going to spread throughout our country just as viruses typically do. Nothing we do will put the genie back in the bottle again.
As to reporting deaths, CDC reported in May 2020 that 60,000 people would die. After one weekend the figure dropped to 30,000. How was this possible? When coming in from behind trying to justify the lowering of deaths by half, defenders of the CDC claimed the numbers were somehow misunderstood; however, the 60,000 number of deaths had already accomplished its purpose, that of maintaining lock downs.
As for the CDC, claimed was an accidental conflation of the numbers. All people who had already been exposed to the disease, a super majority of patients who didn't even know they were sick, were combined with those who were sick with the virus. This combined number was then presented on the news every day as the number of new coronavirus cases.
A fair question to ask is if the conflation of numbers was really a mistake or politically motivated to drive up numbers to make us hysterical and to repeat lockdowns not based on science?
Evidence is clear that lockdowns don't work. In America, the virus continues to spread, despite a much more severe lock down than Sweden and a much longer one than nearly every European country.
Hoax #3 - Using HC to treat COVID-19
As COVID-19 was spreading throughout the world, around the same time the use of hydroxychloroquine was being discussed, a drug approved by the FDA 65 years ago. HC was known to work with other coronaviruses by preventing people from contracting the coronavirus. Doctors around the world, using already known information, were talking about using HC with positive results.
Data out there also reported that HC when combined with Zinc was effective in treating COVID-19 patients, especially if patients were treated early in the disease. HC with zinc is a simple, safe, inexpensive and rational way to treat people with the disease. HC that allows zinc to get into the cells, and it's the zinc that prevents the replication of the virus.
Hoax #4 - HC first deemed ineffective, then was killing people
The New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet, both prestigious medical journals, came out with a study calling HC unsafe and ineffective. When asked for verification of the data, there was none, so the journals had to retract their stories. It is notable that the false study used by the medical journals was produced by Zengisphere, a company that no longer exists.
Even though the journal articles were proved false, they provided the FDA with the excuse needed to ban the use of HC with Zinc in the middle of a pandemic. Also prevented were further studies on the use of HC. This resulted in many community doctors no longer prescribing HC for their patents, especially when the media falsely accused HC of further killing people.
The FDA decision was viewed as a favorable outcome for those seek to keep the lock down in place.
Said Barbour: “The FDA doesn't have the power to tell a doctor when to use a medication. Doctors use 40-60% of all medications off label. A drug prescribed for one purpose is used for something else because it is found to work.”
Barbour questioned why Trump isn't making HC an over the counter medication, so patients can make their own decisions like free people. It has a 65-year track record for safety, especially when we don't have lots of good options at the present time.
Hoax #5 - Fudging number of deaths
Early on and until recently a majority of deaths recorded in the media were in NY, NM, PA, CA. Fewer deaths were recorded in TX, FL, and Az. It was unthinkable to Trump's opponents that blue states with lock downs and masks were doing worse than red states with no masks or lock downs. The predictable happened. There was a spike in red state deaths.
Worldometer evaluates number of deaths in every country, new cases, and discharge of people who get better. for the U.S.
Doctors, including Barbour, observed how the numbers presented on Worldometer were starting to get fudged. Crazy graphs depicted the flattening of the curve in blue states, evidence that deaths were decreasing, but a big increase of deaths in red states, convenient for those who wanted lock downs to continue.
Clarification came from John Sullivan with an article on his Just the News website. It set forth the following: “On July 7, Arizona reported a new record number of 117 new deaths. What the news media failed to report was that most of those deaths were deaths that had occurred much earlier but had just been logged on that day. The real number of deaths was 53. The record number of AZ deaths had been recorded on June 30, before the July 7th mandate for lock downs and face masks.
Sullivan's report also stated facts about Florida's death counts. Reported by the media was that Florida experienced the single most deaths on July 15, 156 deaths, when the actual number was 58.
Sullivan called and tried to find out what was going on but was told it was just a computer glitch.
Said Barbour: "It has gotten to the point where numbers are completely untrustworthy and difficult to evaluate. CDC has already admitted combining patients who have the virus with those who tested positive for antibodies but didn’t have the virus. As a famous motorcycle case demonstrated, coronavirus was diagnosed as cause of death instead of the motorcycle accident itself."
Hoax #6 - Coronavirus is overwhelming hospitals
A narrative being promoted by the media is the overwhelming of hospitals because of a surge of COVID patients. This is happening at a time when many hospitals have had to lay off workers, many have gone out of business, and some have suffered financially.
It is a combination of decreased hospital staff and people coming back for surgeries put off for several months that is creating the illusion of overwhelming the system.
Said Barbour: “It is difficult to evaluate the level of a new coronavirus threat, because numbers are so impossible to evaluate. There is one statistical manipulation after another to keep us afraid and believing that the pandemic is out of control and lock downs must continue.”
In closing
Dr. Barbour asked for an honest discussion about the facts to decide the best way forward and what is also best for our children, not to engage in cancel culture.
The research is clear on children that they are of minimal risk of catching the disease and are not transmitters of the disease to their parents.
A recent interview of five out of five pediatricians said they would send their children back to school, as would Dr. Scott Barbour.
