In late February, I received an email from a Port Townsend friend about her 85-year-old aunt’s rapid decline following her first shot of Pfizer’s experimental mRNA vaccine.
“My mom and I have been taking care of my aunt. When she got the shot [on February 15], she had just graduated from physical therapy because she was so strong and able to get up from being seated without using her hands for help, walk with a cane for an hour slowly, feed herself no problem, talk about memories. Since the 15th she has been dramatically declining, especially in the last five days… to where she now cannot walk at all, she can’t really control movement of her torso, cannot feed herself, cannot discern reality from hallucinations, and is incontinent and can get very angry. We had to make the difficult decision to have emts come yesterday morning to take her to the hospital (she had slithered to the floor and we could not get her up) and we insisted they admit her because we cannot care for her safely in this condition.”
A week later, her aunt was dead. What my friend witnessed mirrors reports of devastating injury and death around the world from these injections, particularly among the fragile elderly.
The photo above shows carloads of people lined up outside Jefferson Healthcare to receive experimental vaccines. The picture is different outside Jefferson County. Half of America–including healthcare professionals–is refusing the jabs.
Is my friend’s aunt the first Jefferson County fatality from this global experiment? Or has our county already seen, in a matter of weeks, more death by injection—which you are not hearing about—than the virus itself caused here in more than a year?
Stories like my friend’s are being ignored, downplayed, or denied by the mainstream media. But for anyone who looks beyond the incessant propaganda from the pharma-controlled narrative that the new Covid-19 vaccines are “safe and effective,” a far different story has emerged about this unprecedented medical experiment.
The prevailing narrative tells us that injuries following the jab are exceedingly rare and deaths are coincidental. But thousands of doctors, scientists and other experts have been sounding the alarm about this reckless experiment, often at great personal risk. Despite heavy censorship, vicious attacks, shaming and shunning, truth is increasingly coming to light.
This article will examine the counter-narrative urgently calling for a halt to all mass experimental injections.
Ignored and denied by mainstream media, global death and injury abound.
Just a sampling of reports you will not see on mainstream news:
“While in January a group of independent doctors concluded that experimental COVID-19 vaccines are ‘not safer‘ than the virus itself, a new analysis of vaccine-related death rates in Israel demonstrates that this may indeed be the case to dramatic levels.” An analysis of data from the Israeli Health Ministry determined that “the mRNA experimental vaccine from Pfizer killed ‘about 40 times more (elderly) people than the disease itself would have killed during a recent five-week vaccination period’, and 260 times more of the young than what the COVID-19 virus would have claimed in the given time frame.”
Disturbed by a facility-wide vaccination drive with military soldiers present, and the distressing patient deaths that followed, a Berlin nursing home caregiver came forward to provide testimony to attorneys from the German Corona Investigative Committee. The whistleblower describes how rather than peacefully slipping away as was normally seen with elderly patients he cared for, after their first dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, seven of 31 residents with dementia died “as if they were tortured.” An eighth resident was near death at the time of the interview and died a few days later.
The long-time caregiver, sharing footage taken by a co-worker, says that reactions following the shot—“changes in behavior, strong fatigue, weakness, sudden gasping for breath with heart racing”—and the manner of the residents’ deaths were unlike anything he and his colleagues had ever witnessed before.
“Typically death was always peaceful for old people… their breathing was relaxed and their eyes stayed closed. This is very different death. It’s as if they cannot let go… their eyes are open, they are agitated, this strong tremor is changing their breathing. The pallor of their face is quite different. They are highly unsettled with this violent gasping for breath… a constant shaking of the upper body, this creepy, fearful gaze… it’s more of a struggle and it is not dying with dignity.”
When a second shot was forced on the 23 surviving residents just weeks after their first injection, another died and 11 more were seriously injured. (39 minutes, subtitled)
Prior to the rollout of the injections, it is reported that over the preceding year only 17 people in total had died from Covid-19 in the small British Colony of Gibraltar (population 32,000). Within 10 days of starting Pfizer mRNA COVID injections, 53 were dead. “Tiny Gibraltar is like a petri dish; in no other place has there been such a brutally clear relationship between vaccine roll-out and increased ‘Covid deaths’.” Local media blamed the deaths on the virus, not the vaccine.
In Andalusia, Spain, 46 of 140 nursing home residents died in the wake of a Pfizer vaccination campaign. As in Gibraltar, their deaths were blamed on a “coincidental” outbreak of the virus, not the shots. In another nursing home in the same province, 22 elderly residents died following injections.
Similar alleged Covid outbreaks and death clusters following vaccination in Norway, Germany, England, Sweden. Scotland, Canada, and the U.S. are described here.
Vaccine injuries and deaths in the United States have followed the same pattern being observed around the world.
Closer to home
Knowing he was risking his career, Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) James Develon could not remain silent after watching 14 of the nursing home residents he cared for die within two weeks after receiving the Pfizer experimental mRNA injections:
CNA Develon reports that in 2020 there were “zero deaths” from Covid the entire year at the U.S. nursing home where he works. Following the shots, not only was there a rash of fatalities, but many other residents were near death. He describes the same spiraling loss of function my friend saw her aunt experience:
“People who were once walking are no longer walking. People who were once talking can no longer talk. People who were once able to think, can no longer think properly… delirium, confused.”
The deaths were explained away as resulting from the Covid virus—not the shots—from an unidentified “superspreader”. But that story didn’t add up, Develon said. Residents who had refused the injections were not sick; only the vaccinated were injured and dying. (5 minute clip at above link; full 47-minute video here).
As described in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr,’s article, Death by Coincidence?, “An Auburn, New York nursing home reported, without any apparent irony, that 32 of 193 residents have died since the facility began administering the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 21. The company claims that its clients are dying of COVID-19 infections, not the vaccine.”
“Coincidence is turning out to be quite lethal to COVID vaccine recipients,” says Kennedy.
That is true not only among the high-risk elderly following vaccination, but in cases of healthy younger people dying directly after their shots as well.
Sara Stickles, a 28-year-old healthcare worker from Wisconsin, broke out in rashes immediately after her second Pfizer shot. Five days later, severe headaches led to loss of consciousness, hospitalization, and an initial diagnosis of a ruptured brain aneurysm. A week after her injection she died when all brain activity ceased. [source]
A 28-year old nurse’s aide in Iowa received a Pfizer vaccine at 11 am. He initially called in to work with a report of headache and dizziness, but decided to come to work anyway. He “was found down in a patient bathroom during his shift in our facility while taking care of a patient,” wrote a co-worker. He was coded, dying that day. [source]
Most recently, an 18-year-old Illinois teen with no pre-existing conditions experienced headaches, body ache and fatigue the day after receiving a Moderna Covid injection. Two hours after complaining of chest pain on day three, he was found unresponsive and pronounced dead. [source]
Miscarriages are also being reported following these injections. Among scores of reports are:
a 37-year-old woman in Washington state who lost her baby at 26 weeks the day after receiving her first Moderna shot; [source]
a 32-year-old New Mexican woman, 22 weeks pregnant, who began having abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding after a second Pfizer shot and miscarried the next day; [source]
a healthy Wisconsin woman, 29, just four weeks pregnant, who miscarried the same day she had her first Pfizer shot. [source]
None of these nameless statistics made the news. However, the miscarriage of Wisconsin doctor Sara Beltrán Ponce, did. Dr. Ponce’s high-profile tweets exclaiming that at 14 weeks pregnant she was fully vaccinated—and urging everyone else to do their part, get the shot, protect the community—caused a stir on social media: “I got the #CovidVaccine to protect myself, my baby, my family, my patients, and my community! When it’s available to you, I encourage you to do the same!”
Just days later Dr. Ponce tweeted: “it’s with a heavy heart that I tell my #MedTwitter family that I’ve suffered a miscarriage at 14 1/2 weeks. My husband and I are devastated… Rest in Peace, angel… This is truly a sadness I didn’t know was possible to feel.”
Fauci: over 90% vaccine efficacy is “just extraordinary”!
Pharma’s Warp Speed trials prior to being granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)—not approval or licensure—were conducted on generally healthy people and were not transparent. The immune-compromised, those with co-morbidities, pregnant women, and children were excluded from the trials. Older adults and minorities, some of the hardest-hit populations, were significantly underrepresented, leaving many questions unanswered.
Investigators like British Medical Journal (BMJ) senior editor Peter Doshi are still asking for the raw trial data and challenging initial claims of efficacy based on the selective data hyped by the media.
“All attention has focused on the dramatic efficacy results: Pfizer reported 170 PCR confirmed covid-19 cases, split 8 to 162 between vaccine and placebo groups. But these numbers were dwarfed by a category of disease called “suspected covid-19”—those with symptomatic covid-19 that were not PCR confirmed. According to FDA’s report on Pfizer’s vaccine, there were ‘3410 total cases of suspected, but unconfirmed covid-19 in the overall study population, 1594 occurred in the vaccine group vs. 1816 in the placebo group’.”
Of the 43,448 low-risk trial participants who received injections, Pfizer used the minuscule subset of 170 symptomatic vacinees who were PCR confirmed to generate a media frenzy of headlines trumpeting an “extraordinary” 95% efficacy rate. Other vaccine developers followed their lead. Based on the far larger symptomatic Covid group that was revealed in the FDA report, Doshi calculates that there was an actual “relative risk reduction of 19%—far below the 50% effectiveness threshold for authorization set by regulators.”
He notes, “With 20 times more suspected covid-19 than confirmed covid-19, and trials not designed to assess whether the vaccines can interrupt viral transmission, an analysis of severe disease irrespective of etiologic agent—namely, rates of hospitalizations, ICU cases, and deaths amongst trial participants—seems warranted, and is the only way to assess the vaccines’ real ability to take the edge off the pandemic.”
Pharma’s trials, which were not designed to prove that the vaccines prevent infection, interrupt transmission, or reduce serious outcomes, appear to be an exercise in industry spin. The years of surveillance standard for licensing a vaccine have barely begun. An average approval process for any vaccine or biologic is normally between 7 and 10 years. The global campaigns underway, injecting nanotechnology never before deployed on human populations, are the true trials.
So how is post-vaccination damage from this giant experiment being monitored in the US?
Simple answer: it is not.
VAERS: Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System
In the first days of America’s Covid vaccine rollout, December 14-18, 2020, the CDC conducted “V-safe Active Surveillance for COVID-19 Vaccines.” According to the CDC’s website, V-safe is “a smartphone-based tool that uses text messaging and web surveys to… tell CDC about any side effects after getting the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Over those five days, more than 5,000 “Health Impact Events” immediately following injections were identified. On December 18 alone, 2.79% of people who received first dose shots—3,150 out of 112,807—used this smartphone app to report reactions so severe that they were “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, [and/or] required care from a doctor or other health professional.”
More than 60 million Americans do not own smartphones, and roughly half of senior citizens don’t use them. V-safe also excludes 25 million people in the U.S. with limited English proficiency; the app is only in English. Once again, two of the groups inadequately represented in pharma’s trials but being marketed to most aggressively—senior citizens and minorities—are also the most likely to not be able to use this reporting system.
So how many adverse reactions were NOT captured by this app-only surveillance?
Given the CDC’s reliance on a smartphone app for reporting vaccine side effects and injuries, the actual number of severe reactions might have been significantly higher. But the data gap gets even wider.
Despite being assured that this experiment would be closely monitored, our primary source of data since Dec. 18 has not come from V-safe Active Surveillance, but from VAERS—the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.
VAERS is a voluntary passive system, with no regulatory oversight, no requirement or incentive to report vaccine adverse events. The system is so flawed that in 2010, a Harvard study commissioned by Health and Human Services (HHS) determined that less than 1% of vaccine injuries and deaths are captured. Only a small percentage of the public, including those working in health care, even know it exists. And because adverse events are regularly attributed to coincidence or denied outright, even when medical personnel do know about the system, vaccine reactions regularly go unreported. Not only is there no incentive for health professionals to report to VAERS, it is notoriously difficult to use.
With the new, experimental Covid injections, there are further disincentives to attribute death or injury to vaccination and to file reports with VAERS. Families may not be able to collect on life insurance policies if a loved one dies by injection, or use their health insurance if injured. Not only is there complete liability protection from damages for vaccine manufacturers, health departments, hospitals and retail establishments, personnel who administer the shots, and policy makers, but many private insurers exclude coverage of these vaccines as well. Medical insurers have clauses such as “side effects arising from the COVID-19 vaccine are not covered under our exclusion for… experimental treatment.”
Among doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers, there is tremendous pressure to deny any damage from the shot. As described by Bernadette Pajer of Informed Choice Washington, “A lot of the medical community are afraid that if it [an adverse reaction] happened to them, to speak out and report—because they have to be part of the system that pushes the vaccines.” And when Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer questioned CDC Director Robert Redfield during a House Oversight and Reform subcommittee hearing on coronavirus containment, Redfield confirmed there were financial incentives to classify deaths as resulting from the virus, not other causes. Was there a “perverse incentive” monetary gain for hospitals to classify deaths as being coronavirus-related when the virus was not the actual cause of death?, asked Luetkemeyer. Redfield responded, “I think you’re correct in that.”
In my friend’s case, “This hospital [Jefferson Healthcare] has no way set up to document concerns and is not too interested from what I can tell.” She made the effort to report her aunt’s vaccine death to VAERS, but says the system was so difficult to navigate, “I couldn’t figure it out.”
She also asked her aunt’s attending doctor to report to VAERS and he said he would. If he did, she has received no follow-up. And it clearly was not reported as a Covid vaccine death—there is no mention of the vaccine as a causative factor on the death certificate or of the shot even being administered prior to her death. Her aunt’s cause of death is listed as “renal failure.” Our hospital and health department have not acknowledged it as a vaccine death, and the CDC has no record of it.… another vaccine casualty attributed to other causes, not captured by the system that we are relying on to assess safety of this new technology.
My friend’s experience is so common that organizations like Children’s Health Defense are offering additional resources to help people document vaccine injuries and deaths.
Even with the many disincentives and obstacles, as of March 19, VAERS data shows 44,606 reports of adverse events following Covid vaccines, including 7,095 serious injuries, and 2,050 deaths.
With 118.3 million vaccines administered, that is a 0.037% adverse event rate. Given that the initial V-safe Active Surveillance showed a “serious adverse reaction” rate nearly 100 times that—almost 3% (and that missed people who didn’t have the smartphone app)—the 1% capture rate found by the Harvard study would appear to be accurate. That would mean that in the past three months there may have been more than 4 million (4,460,600) actual adverse events, 709,500 serious injuries, and 205,000 deaths from Covid injections.
Like the death of my friend’s aunt, the vast majority of fatalities induced by the shot go unreported. They are instead attributed to infections from the Covid virus, or to heart attacks, strokes, or organ failure “coincidentally” following injections.
Likely causes for so much injury and death from this experimental injection will be explored in Part Two…. [which you can now read by clicking here]
The cries of the Worldwide Rally for Freedom were heard in Port Townsend on Saturday, March 20, 2021. About 40 people gathered on the plaza at Tyler and Water Streets without masks, but with musical instruments and songs and greetings on their lips. Others held signs encouraging people to think for themselves and be fully informed about lockdowns, vaccines, and what they say are overstated claims of the lethality of COVID-19.
The gathering was loosely connected to other Rallies for Freedom held in at least 40 countries. See below for links to some of the coverage. A friend from Albuquerque, New Mexico jubilantly informed me that they had over 200 people at their event
“It was fantastic,” said Hannah McFarland, one of the Port Townsend event’s organizers. “This was all word of mouth. We really don’t have an organization. It’s as grassroots as it can get.”
But an organization with the purpose of repeating the Rally for Freedom on a weekly basis is being born. Enough names and contact information were collected that this coming Saturday, March 27, 2021, at 11:30 a.m. the crowd will return to the same location. McFarland is hoping for an even better turnout.
In addition to those rallying on concrete, a Freedom Flotilla was in the waters off shore. One of the mariners came ashore to shake hands.
I participated as one of the musicians. I asked McFarland, a Port Townsend resident for 13 years, “Which is the real Port Townsend? Is it the people jogging by themselves, walking by themselves, biking by themselves and wearing masks, fearful of other human beings? Is it the harsh looks directed at someone walking along Water Street without a mask? Or is it live music performed on the street, with strangers greeting each other, happy to be around other human beings?”
That was a rhetorical question.
“We got multiple, ‘Oh, my gosh, thank yous!” from passerby,” McFarland said. “Or, “‘It’s a relief to see you out here.’ People are just so isolated. [Their] fear of death has been so exploited they stop using their rational mind.”
What are the goals and hopes for weekly Freedom Rallies? “We want to connect with people who have already seen through the misinformation, who have been able to study and learn about the issue for themselves without just accepting the word of big media and the medical establishment. And to others, we want to reach out and share in a loving, kind way what’s really going on. This virus is not as lethal as we’ve been led to believe. Shutdowns and masks are not needed.”
She’s worried the next move will be mandatory vaccine cards that will be required to be in the company of others. In fact, the topic arose at a meeting of the Jefferson County of County Commissioners. “It is extraordinary how people believe all this,” she said.
Port Townsend Free Press has been questioning the lock downs, highlighting the arbitrary and senseless nature of Governor Inslee’s orders–indeed the favoritism evident is many of his decrees, the unnecessary costs imposed on working families, the destruction of small businesses while large companies were never shut down. We’ve reported the good news on mortality rates from the CDC, and published thoughtful, carefully researched articles on the need to know precisely what those “case” numbers mean so we can determine whether infection rates are overstated and consequential fears overblown. We’ve been at it since April 2020. You can find our coverage using this site’s search function.
I will be at this week’s event, again with my guitar, joining other Port Townsend residents in enjoying life, and not being crushed by exaggerated fear. I worry about those gloomy, depressed people walking the Larry Scott Trail alone with masks, or hiking Ft. Worden trails and pulling on a mask when they approach another human at a distance of a quarter mile. Those people who drive alone with windows rolled up and wearing a mask and rubber gloves–I think they embrace the abnormalities of the past year. It gives them an excuse to crawl even deeper inside their own problems. I worry especially about the angry young people who wear their masks like uniforms or badges of conformity. I fear they’re more afraid of the pandemic ending than they are of a virus with a 99.7% survival rate, higher for those very same young people. A Pew study finds the lockdowns have caused “devastating” psychological problems among young people.
Just look at this headline from USA Today: “Why we’re scared for the pandemic to end: It feels strange, the idea of being together in the world again.” People need to see other people being normal. These Freedom Rallies are group therapy for a community that has lost its lighthearted joy, love of freedom and irreverence toward authority. It is past time to remember what it means to challenge the dominant paradigm.
Have we been lied to? Have we not been told the full truth? Has the story kept changing? Have government and “the experts” gotten it wrong? Have people been hurt unnecessarily? Has the suffering not been shared equally, and is there no just reason for those inequities? Are our fundamental freedoms being eroded by the exploitation of fear and acquiescence in authoritarian control? The need to keep asking those questions and seeking answers never ends, except by surrender. So bring on those Rallies for Freedom. We need them desperately.
Here is some of the coverage on Rallies from Freedom around the world. Just click on each highlighted word for the link. Thanks to PTFP contributor Stephen Schumacher for the research, and the photo:
Three former employees tried taking concerns about irregularities and ethical issues to the trustees and officers of Bayside Housing and Services. They were unsuccessful. Now one of them has taken their concerns to the Washington Attorney General.
Port Townsend Free Press has obtained a whistleblower complaint submitted for investigation to the Attorney General. The whistleblower has legal counsel. I have seen confirmation that a complaint was received and was being assigned. I have also been informed that an AG investigator conducted the office’s first interview on the matters raised in the complaint.
Bayside Housing and Services is a non-profit dedicated to providing transitional housing. It leases rooms in Port Hadlock at the Old Alcohol Plant, which is owned by Inn Properties, LLC., a for-profit corporation. Gary J. Keister owns 67% of and manages Inn Properties. Since July 2019 he has also been the acting managing director of Bayside Housing. His two partners in the Inn Properties are also Trustees of Bayside. Vince Verneuil is the Secretary/Treasurer. Christopher Eagan is a past president.
I wrote about these obvious conflicts of interest last week in “Cherry Street Handover: Red Flags About Bayside Housng.” Those red flags arise against Mr. Keister’s history for bank fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. The article asked whether taxpayers should be concerned about turning over the Cherry Street project to Bayside, which is essentially turning it over to Mr. Keister.
After that article was published I was contacted by another former employee of Mr. Keister’s. This person shared their concerns and knowledge about Mr. Keister’s operations. I learned he is involved in the failed development of the Hastings Building in downtown Port Townsend. I have been informed he serves as business consultant for that project and is a creditor. The address of one of the corporations in that project is the same as that of Mr. Keister’s offices in the Old Alcohol Plant in Port Hadlock.
During the conversation, while I was checking statements by the former employee on my computer, I stumbled across five Nevada corporations formed in 2000 for which Mr. Keister was listed as a director or officer or with which he had some other connection. This is in addition to the approximately 30 corporations mentioned in last week’s article. All those corporations were formed after he got out of prison, except one, Wescom Capital, which may have been started while he was still incarcerated.
This former employee said that Mr. Keister had claimed to have owned a fishing fleet but was put out of business by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. Indeed, in a promotional piece for a reading of his autobiography at Village Books in Bellingham, he says his commercial fishing career was ended by the Exxon Valdez disaster. But, from 1986 to 1988 he was committing bank fraud and money laundering running a construction-hardware wholesaler in Tukwila. 1989 was when that house of cards collapsed and he had to file for bankruptcy. In the course of those proceedings his crimes came to light and he was headed for 41 months in federal prison.
A Cherry Street handover would deliver millions of dollars of assets and more than $300,000 to entities under Mr. Keister’s control. He is already involved in receipt and disbursement of public funds, including a $18,550 grant from Jefferson County and a $169,000 grant from the Washington Department of Commerce, both to Bayside Housing. There are other financial dealings with Jefferson County, including a contract for meals for the homeless/transient camp at the Fairgrounds. The county pays Bayside, but the funds pass through to Inn Properties.
Let’s turn to the allegations (I repeat, allegations) of the whistleblower complaint.
Fraud
In April 2020 Jefferson County awarded $18,550 to Bayside Housing to add an additional ten rooms to their lease with Inn Properties. Those rooms would serve low income individuals who might otherwise be homeless. The whistleblower alleges that all of those rooms paid for by the county were not made available to Bayside clients but were, instead, leased to Inn Properties hotel customers. Nonetheless, Inn Properties continued to charge Bayside for those rooms.
Keister has publicly talked about how Bayside has a waiting list of people needing transitional housing but it lacks the rooms to serve them. The whistleblower alleges that Keister took rooms that should have gone to help those people and instead rented them to higher paying Inn Properties customers. The whistleblower further alleges that Keister kept Bayside case managers and others in the dark about this. Eventually, after a bookkeeper complained about what was going on, he did agree to rebate to Bayside some portion of the lease payments for these rooms but has still overcharged Bayside by tens of thousands of dollars.
It is under Keister’s direction that invoices from Inn Properties are prepared and delivered to Bayside. It is Keister who essentially receives those billings and it is under his direction that Bayside pays Inn Properties.
The whistleblower alleges that Keister is “the only person outside of accounting who sees lease and expense invoices, approves them, and signs checks/transfers money from Bayside to Inn Properties.”
The whistleblower also alleges that Keister has increased the rent charged Bayside by 30% with the approval of Keister’s two partners in Inn Properties who are also trustees of Bayside. As mentioned, one of those men is also Bayside’s secretary/treasurer. Keister’s wife is also a Bayside trustee.
The whistleblower claims that Inn Properties (Keister) opened two accounts at the same financial institution as Bayside, with those accounts having the same online banking profile as Bayside. “Internal online banking transfers could be made between the two entities with no oversight whatsoever, and they were.”
Compromising Bayside’s Tax-Exempt Status and More Conflicts of Interest
Keister saw to it that an employee of Inn Properties was added as a check signer on Bayside’s accounts, according to the whistleblower complaint. “At Gary’s direction, she wrote checks in amounts ranging from $10K to $25K with no invoices to pay against to cover Inn Properties cash shortages.” (This is not likely a permissible transaction for a federal tax-exempt organization–Editor). Lease invoices from Inn Properties to Bayside were used to offset these payments. “The overpayment was so great it took several months of lease invoices to fully apply the overpayments correctly,” according to the complaint.
In December 2020, the whistleblower complaint alleges, the Bayside Board voted to “take over” Inn Properties’ for-profit restaurant and hotel business. (Again, possibly a questionable undertaking for a federal tax-exempt organization whose tax-exempt purpose is not making money in the hospitality industry–Editor).
Possible Abuse of PPP Funding and More Fraud
The Federal Paycheck Protection Program of 2020 loaned funds to businesses to help them keep their employees employed. The amount loaned was determined by the amount spent on payroll, generally speaking. The whistleblower alleges that Bayside stopped covering Inn Properties cash shortages when a PPP loan was obtained. But, the complaint alleges, the Inn Properties application for the PPP loan included employee time reimbursed by Bayside. “Inn Properties received their PPP loan based on the inclusion of reimbursable payroll expenses and continued to bill Bayside for the covered payroll,” according to the complaint.
Where Does This Go From Here?
The complaint raises other concerns, including questions about relations with local governments. Bayside is becoming increasingly more involved with government funding as, under Keister’s direction, it has expanded its operations beyond providing transitional housing at the Old Alcohol Plant to involvement with homeless camps and tiny homes villages. Keister has stated in a fundraising video released by Bayside that the group is adding permanent housing as one of its focuses. Keister has sought to obtain use of Chimacum Park, the Fairgrounds and other properties in the area.
The AG won’t be talking about its investigation. Keister has stopped responding to our questions.
Perhaps governments that have been paying Bayside will audit those transactions. Perhaps Bayside’s trustees will act. But three of them–Keister’s business partners and his wife–have financial interests in seeing Inn Properties make money off Bayside. Three employees–all of them key people–have already tried and gotten nowhere.
The City of Port Townsend in September 2020 directed its City Manager, John Mauro, to enter exclusive negotiations with Bayside for handover of the Cherry Street Project. He ignored a $1 million cash offer for the project because he had been authorized to talk only with Bayside, which he said was being represented by Gary Keister. The information reported here at Port Townsend Free Press may help inform the city on how to proceed. I emailed Mauro to ask if he had been contacted by the Attorney General’s Office. I also asked if he had been informed of Mr. Keister’s history of conviction for bank fraud and money laundering and how he might be taking that information into account in negotiations. He has not responded.
Bayside is required by the IRS to file an annual return, called a 990. One can study those returns through the Guidestar service. As I wrote in the preceding article, Bayside’s returns showed skyrocketing income that turned out to be a pledge that has never been paid. Yet, that pledge continues to be carried as an asset and makes Bayside look like it is doing much better than it is.
The 990 does report that three of Bayside’s trustees (Verneuil, Eagan and Susan Keister) have financial interests in Inn Properties, though the form does not explain in any way the enmeshed relationship between the for-profit Inn Properties and tax exempt Bayside Housing. The 990 does not disclose the conflict of interest of Bayside’s managing director. It discloses nothing about Gary Keister’s control over Bayside Housing as its “acting” managing director at the same time he is the majority owner and manager of Inn Properties. Bayside’s 990 for the past year should be filed soon, but won’t be publicly available until Guidestar releases it online.
Banned for encouraging people to never forget 9/11.
Sanctioned for mentioning Jefferson County’s terrible meth problem, chronic unemployment, shrinking job base and high poverty rate.
That’s what I’ve learned about how Jefferson County operates the public forum of it’s official Facebook page. Thanks to the people who sued President Trump and won when he blocked them from his Twitter feed, the law is clear that the First Amendment governs the actions of public officials in how they manage their official social media forums. They cannot engage in content-based discrimination. They cannot retaliate or punish. They cannot suppress speech that does not fall into one of the very limited exceptions of the First Amendment.
Encouraging people to remember the terrorist attacks, deaths and heroism of 9/11….definitely protected speech. Speaking out on our county’s drug and economic problems….definitely protected speech. But it is for expressing those opinions that I was sanctioned by whichever public official made those decisions.
So I sued Jefferson County in federal court for these First Amendment violations.
Thanks to the answer filed by Jefferson County in the case, I saw where I had incorrectly reconstructed what I believed happened on 9/10/20, where I thought this story started. I had believed that a comment about COVID issues had been deleted. I was wrong. The county has the activity log that shows they “hid” my comment that linked to a video about 9/11. That video is a gut-wrenching thing to watch, because what happened on that day was and is forever a nightmare to anyone with an ounce of love for life, liberty and this nation of ours.
Why would the Jefferson County government not want people remembering 9/11? What was so objectionable about that video that I was later banned from participating in discussions on this public forum?
What I learned is that the county will make invisible comments it does not want other people to see. The author may see the comment and does not know that it has been made invisible to most everyone else. You could be seeing a comment from someone that has been made invisible to others because you happened to have “friended” that person (though you may not actually know them). You will have no idea that you could be alone in receiving what that person has to say about matters of public concern and county business.
The county says they made my 9/11 video link invisible because it was “off topic.” I am not aware that “off topic” is a recognized ground for government to censor or sanction speech. I know of no case at this time holding that “off topic” is an exception to the First Amendment. But “off topic” is their excuse.
I posted the video about 9/11 on 9/10 for good reason. The county’s Facebook page has published proclamations on other things, such as Earth Day. It had made no mention whatsoever of any commemoration of 9/11. My comment was intended to correct that omission. It was a protest of the county’s failure to honor that day and those who died and an attempt to bring attention to that failure. Protesting and bringing attention to a government’s failure is pure political speech that cannot be censored. The county saying it was “off topic” (it wasn’t) doesn’t outrank the First Amendment. The City of Port Townsend at the time was embroiled in a growing controversy because it had cancelled the annual ringing of the old fire bell at the hour the first plane hit the Twin Towers. The county was not indicating it would honor that day. It was silent about 9/11. So I posted that “Never Forget 9/11” video. This is pure political speech protected by the First Amendment.
The next day, 9/11, came and went without any mention by the county of the events of that day in 2001. Courthouse bells rang, but without any explanation by the county.
Sometime after that I was banned from participating in the public forum the county created with its official Facebook page that allows comments (except those it disagrees with). I could not comment. I could not even “like” or “dislike” a pronouncement or news development published by the county.
I had received no notice that I had been sanctioned or why. That is something else I’ve discovered since I filed suit: the county sanctions people–deleting or “hiding” their comments, banning them from commenting–without any notice or explanation. As I mentioned, if you receive the sanction of your speech being “hidden” you have no idea that has happened. You have to sit down with someone who is not a Facebook friend and ask them if they can see on their computer what you wrote. If they cannot, then you just learned you have received the official sanction of having your speech censored.
There is no appeal process. You can sue, though you shouldn’t have to.
After my lawsuit was served on the county, they seem to have lifted (without notice to me) the sanction that prevented me from expressing opinions and sharing information to others viewing their Facebook public forum.
Then they again sanctioned me without notice, without explanation. I discovered that a comment I made in January 2021 about the county’s terrible meth problem, chronic poverty, shrinking job base and severe poverty resulted in the county sanction of making the comment invisible. The sanction was curious, because I was responding to a comment by another person about some of the same problems, particularly the drug problem right now at the County Fairgrounds where a young woman, a meth user, was found dead, lying face down on the ground in the open where in happier times children have played and people have enjoyed rides and 4-H animal exhibits.
I don’t know if my comment about our terrible meth problem was made invisible by county officials before or after the campground manager came across this poor woman’s stone-cold body and called police.
The county says it prohibits profanity, but now that I’ve examined the entire history of comments I see an F-bomb and other profanity. The county says it prohibits promotion of business and political candidates, but I’ve found examples of that. The county says it prohibits insults and personal attacks, but I’ve found plenty of those. The county says it prohibits comments that embed images from external sources or that contain copyrighted material. I’ve also found plenty of examples where they don’t enforce that rule, either. But the county sure is good at prohibiting my speech when it disagrees with the narrative they want enforced in that public forum.
I intend to amend my complaint to include these facts and others I’ve learned since our initial pleading. There will be a bit of a delay. My attorney suffered a health crisis requiring emergency surgery. The county’s attorney has graciously agreed to push things back 90 days. I also still hope we can settle this.
Given the pesky First Amendment, running an official government social media site is fraught with problems. Every decision the county makes about its Facebook page is state action triggering First Amendment review. As I’ve learned, it also triggers rights of due process. I hope my attorney and I in cooperation with the county can find a solution that cures the currently unconstitutional and illegal manner in which the county is managing this public forum.
A curious thing occurred recently. In response to publication of a proclamation by the Board of County Commissioners in January about the Port Townsend Women’s March, I posted in a comment the same “Never Forget 9/11” video that got me banned after I posted it on 9/10/20. Nothing happened. The comment was not made invisible and my First Amendment rights to participate in the public forum were not taken from me.
Like I said, one shouldn’t have to file a federal lawsuit to prevent the government from censoring his political speech. But apparently going to court does improve how a citizen gets treated.
Annette Huenke through a public records request discovered that Jefferson Healthcare’s Covid testing protocols may run samples through so many amplifications that the result may be a false positive or otherwise meaningless. We were pleased to publish the results of her inquiries,“Is Jefferson County Health Department Overstating COVID Numbers?”
Huenke has continued to try to nail down the scientific data behind claims made by the Jefferson County Health Department to determine if they are accurate and should be relied upon by policy makers and citizens. Recently, claims about the benefits of double-masking have been asserted. Huenke wanted to know what there was in the way of scientific studies and data to back those claims up. Following is her exchange on the subject with Dr. Thomas Locke, Jefferson County Health Officer.
You may ask, Where does Ms. Huenke get off investigating statements by Dr. Locke? How dare she question “the science”? Isn’t Port Townsend Free Press contributing to unscientific “pandemic denialism” by giving her a forum? After all, she is not “an expert.” Are we not just spreading “disinformation”?
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Those are the sage words of Nobel-winning physicist and philosopher of science, Richard Feynman. He was referring to “science” which determines policies through the weight of expert and political consensus. This is the stuff we get on the evening news and what is being forced upon us by Facebook’s, Twitter’s and YouTube’s–and our local newspapers’–censorship of anything that might cast doubt upon the establishment consensus, even if those doubts are raised by people who happen to be scientists and rigorously employ the scientific method in their research.
Feynman said, “Learn from science that you must doubt the experts.” We return to Feynman at the end of this article, and link one of his famous lectures on the scientific method.
Here follow Ms. Huenke’s efforts to get the empirical science on the political science of double-masking. Much more comes to light than the simple answers she sought.
From: Annette Huenke, 2/8/21, to Jefferson County Board of Health and Dr. Locke
Subject: re: this morning’s BOCC meeting.
Good afternoon, all. This morning Dr. Locke said that “there is a lot of evidence” to support double-masking.
Kindly provide that evidence in a reply to this email at your earliest convenience. Thank you.
Annette Huenke
_______________________________________________
Dr. Locke’s reply, 2/8/21:
The rationale for double masking (spun polypropylene inner mask, two layer cotton outer) is based on an enhanced mechanical filtration effect (extra layers) and an electrostatic charge being generated (triboelectric effect) by dissimilar fabrics. CDC is conducting comparative studies of masking efficacy but this will likely be confined to filtration measures. “Hard data” (epidemiological studies demonstrating decreased transmission and/or acquisition of infection) are much more difficult and raise ethical concerns (re: control groups use of substandard or no PPE). And no amount of data will convince people who are consumed by pandemic denialism and wish to rationalize their pseudoscientific, sociopathic beliefs.
Tom Locke, MD, MPH
Jefferson County Health Officer
Huenke’s 2/14 response to Locke’s 2/8 letter:
Ad hominem attacks are unbecoming a man in your position, Dr. Locke, and says a lot more about you than it does about those you are eager to insult. Pathologizing dissent is not a new tactic for marginalizing unwelcome voices. So-called ‘witches’ were similarly outed in their communities and burned at the stake for such digressions. The strategy was perhaps perfected by the Soviets in the mid-twentieth century, deployed against anyone who deviated from the official narrative.
For ten months now a handful of concerned citizen researchers have been highlighting bona fide studies from reputable sources to broaden the perspective of local policy makers. Those sources include the CDC, WHO and top scientists and universities around the globe.
Last Monday you stated publicly that “there is a lot of evidence” to support double-masking. ‘A lot of evidence’ turns out to be a NIH ‘commentary’ that purports to “summarize the evidence on face masks for Covid-19 from both the infectious diseases and physical science viewpoints.” Similar to the ‘evidence review’ you provided the board on May 21st last year, this one manages to summarize evidence that supports the goals of its funders while ignoring the plethora of research that does not. It is a text book example of cherry-picking.
“A lot of evidence” for double-masking is actually several small mechanistic experiments conducted with manikins. Manikins don’t breathe. Employing the tired “it would be unethical” trope, in this case to deny proper PPE to a control group, rings hollow when we know full well that there is a sizable portion of the population that can’t or won’t wear masks.
In an AFT Fireside Chat on January 28th, just over two weeks ago, Anthony Fauci said “There’s no evidence that indicates that that [2 masks] is going to make a difference. And that is why the CDC has not changed their recommendation.” He’d advised double-masking shortly before that, surely aware that this ‘commentary’ was soon to be released.
You have steadfastly rejected the research we’ve supplied that demonstrates known harms from masking. You haven’t expressed real concern about improper use and care of the masks you relentlessly promote. Sadly, you’re now encouraging people to further reduce their oxygen supply and increase their own carbon dioxide intake.
You and your colleagues do not have a corner on valid science. You are not all-knowing, all-seeing, infallible. Thousands of experts with credentials that exceed yours, John Wiesman’s and Anthony Fauci’s disagree with you. That they are being censored and you are not is the reveal. Censorship is employed by authorities to conceal the truth.
I offer you a table turned — “no amount of data will convince people who are consumed by pandemic” propaganda “and wish to rationalize their pseudoscientific, sociopathic beliefs.”
Annette Huenke
___________________________
Huenke’s comment for 2/17 Board of County Commissioners meeting:
At last week’s BOCC meeting, Dr. Locke said that “there is a lot of evidence” to support double-masking. I wrote to ask for that evidence. I received a pdf of a 4-page paper and a brief reply that ended with “no amount of data will convince people who are consumed by pandemic denialism and wish to rationalize their pseudoscientific, sociopathic beliefs.”
For ten months now a handful of concerned citizen researchers have been highlighting bona fide studies from reputable sources to broaden the perspective of local policy makers. Those sources include the CDC, WHO and top universities and scientists around the globe. Are those premiere virologists, pathologists and epidemiologists pseudoscientists because they’ve arrived at different conclusions than Dr. Locke about the crisis that is consuming us? Are we sociopaths because we consider the research and opinions of those experts?
What Dr. Locke called “a lot of evidence” for double-masking is actually several small mechanistic experiments conducted with manikins, reported in a NIH ‘commentary’ that summarizes studies which clearly support the goals of its funders while ignoring the plethora of research that does not. It was not peer reviewed. It is data-deficient.
During a fireside chat on January 28th, Anthony Fauci said “There’s no data that indicates that that [2 masks] is going to make a difference. And that is why the CDC has not changed their recommendation.” He’d advised double-masking shortly before that, surely aware that this NIH paper was in its final stages.
In a recent interview, Dr. Michael Osterholm, a top health adviser to President Biden, warned that double-masking could be counterproductive and harmful. “If you put more of it on, all it does is it impedes the air coming through and it makes it blow in and out along the sides. The fit becomes even less effective,” he said. “Double masking could be a detriment to your protection.”
Legitimate research we’ve supplied that report known harms from masking has been categorically rejected. There has been scant attention paid to the near-universal improper use and care of masks, which has been proven to increase risk of infection. And now, based on experiments with manikins, we’re being told to wear two masks, which will further reduce our oxygen supply and increase our own carbon dioxide intake.
A true cost/benefit analysis of these extreme masking policies has not yet been conducted. Neither has the rigorous scientific research required to support them.
Annette Huenke
___________________________
Dr. Locke’s reply to Huenke’s BOCC comment, 2/17:
Ms. Huenke,
All science-based information has elements of uncertainty and is subject to challenge and, hopefully, increasing reliability. This is how the scientific method works. I agree it is wrong to pathologize dissent or to marginalize unwelcome voices. Just as there is science, which seeks to establish the true nature of things, there is also pseudoscience, which perverts that process by selectively citing supporting information while ignoring or distorting non-supporting information. It can be difficult for the general public to distinguish between the two. The COVID-19 pandemic is the worst public health crisis that the U.S. has faced in the past 100 years. It’s management has been seriously compromised by those who embraced and promoted “alternative facts” to support their views that non-pharmacological mitigations like masking, distancing, and restricted gatherings are a fundamental violation of human rights. The Great Barrington Declaration and the ongoing pseudoscientific opposition to mask use are examples of this phenomenon and pit individual liberty against public health. The CDC reliably estimates that 59% of SARS-CoV-2 infections are transmitted by asymptomatic cases (35% presymptomatic, 24% never symptomatic). Universal masking is the only viable strategy to interrupt this transmission pathway and has a growing evidentiary base. Attached are some additional links from recent CDC publications. Based on what we currently know, the refusal to wear masks in public settings at times of high COVID-19 prevalence is truly sociopathic — antisocial behavior characterized by the willful disregard of the welfare of others. It is also illegal. I do not think it is not too much to ask to prevent a potentially lethal infection in someone else.
I am sorry that you took personal offense at my statement that “no amount of data will convince people who are consumed by pandemic denialism and wish to rationalize their pseudoscientific, sociopathic beliefs.” In this statement I am referring to the well recognized phenomena of the “unpersuadable” (The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science by Will Storr (goodreads.com)<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114379-the-unpersuadables>), those who reject scientific information because it is in conflict with their fundamental, non-rational worldview. No amount of information will change the mind of someone who is unpersuadable. This worldview drives the “anti-vaxxer” movement and has been dramatically amplified by the ubiquity of social media and the ability of people to curate their own reality by selective exposure to only those facts that support their worldview. I am always happy to consider alternative views but have come to recognize the futility of arguing with those who only seek the confirmation of their own beliefs. My prime responsibility as the county health officer is to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in this community and to reduce morbidity and mortality to the greatest extent feasible. This battle is very real and we deal with individuals and families who lives are profoundly disrupted by this pandemic every day. As a nation we have paid a terrible price for pandemic denialism — a very high death rate (currently at 485,000) and a case rate (27 million) far in excess of what a country with our resources and technology could have achieved. These are not just harmless differences of opinion, they have real world consequences.
You cite Dr. Anthony Fauci, a distinguished infectious disease specialist, but you do so out of context. In other public statements he has supported masking, including improved mask design and the benefits of “double masking”. Double masking is not a panacea for the problem of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but is one more option. The takeaway from the CDC information and similar research to date is that people should use high quality masks and use them in situations where asymptomatic transmission can occur. If we fail, once again, to make reasonable personal sacrifices for the common good, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 variants will spread faster than vaccination efforts can suppress them, necessitating renewed school and business closures.
While your comments to the Boards of Health and County Commissioners are always welcome, I am unable to continue to respond personally to your statements due to time limitations. I regard the CDC as an authoritative source of information, especially under the leadership of the Biden administration and refer you to their various websites and publications for the latest research on the topics you are interested in.
Sincerely,
Tom Locke, MD, MPH
Jefferson County Health Officer
“Science says….”
The Great Barrington Declaration that Dr. Locke dismisses as “unscientific” and “pandemic denialism” is a declaration of concern about Covid policies signed by infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists from around the world. It advocates a “focused protection” approach to those most at risk and seeks to avoid the many serious problems caused by general Covid lockdowns. Dr. Locke’s glib dismissal of this challenge to Covid policies–challenges based on these individuals’ work and learning in their fields of scientific and medical expertise–brings us back to Feynman’s definition of “science” and why we are pleased to give people like Ms. Huenke (and Dr. Rob Rennebohm, Stephen Schumacher and Ana Wolpin) a forum for their questions about prevailing Covid policies and liturgies.
In closing, here’s more from Feynman on why science is “belief in the ignorance of experts”:
When someone says, “Science teaches such and such”, he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, “Science has shown such and such”, you might ask, “How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?” It should not be “science has shown” but “this experiment, this effect, has shown”. And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments–but be patient and listen to all the evidence–to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at…The experts who are leading you may be wrong…I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science…Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.
“Locke…is concerned about a Jefferson County group that may be spreading misinformation concerning the accuracy of the tests, claiming incorrectly that up to 90 percent of COVID-19 tests provide false positives.” [Peninsula Daily News, 2/7/21]
“Public naysaying on the spread of COVID-19 continued at Monday’s meeting of the board of county commissioners, with the public comment period being marked by more claims of false positive COVID-19 tests by some Jefferson County residents… ‘That kind of denialism is becoming more dangerous,’ Locke said.”[The Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader, 2/3/21]
Who are these citizens being called dangerous by Jefferson County’s Health Officer, Dr. Thomas Locke? They are concerned citizens being censored by all media on the peninsula except the Port Townsend Free Press.
I am among them.
Dangerous Misinformation?
Over the past year, a group of local researchers has diligently examined data and analyzed information driving the global policies now devastating our world. Independent of our efforts, Stephen Schumacher was also deeply researching, coming to similar conclusions that much of the fear narrative being broadcast didn’t hold up to scrutiny.
In July 2020, Schumacher submitted a letter to the Port Townsend Leader citing statistics related to COVID-19 (Covid) lockdowns. His letter was withheld from publication for nearly a month, but eventually ran.
The following month, the Leader flatly refused to print his next letter. Unable to participate in the community opinion forum which “welcome[s] letters from our readers,” Schumacher then paid $500 to purchase ad space to share his information. A second ad, at the end of August, costing $550, warned about problems with the now-infamous discredited models Dr. Locke was citing to justify lockdowns. This was followed by two more ads regarding lockdowns in September and October.
In November, the Leader took censorship to the next level. After first accepting a paid ad about concerns over PCR tests, the publisher emailed Schumacher to inform him that they would not be running it. His ad featured a graph from a Harvard epidemiologist, and cited the Journal of the American Medical Association, the CDC, and other mainstream sources. In an email exchange asking why he was being censored, the publisher wrote, “We need to make decisions based on the best interest of our business.”
Was the payment Schumacher offered to exercise his right for freedom of expression insufficient when weighed against the newspaper’s role as a propaganda arm of Dr. Locke?
Schumacher took his rejected ad to the Peninsula Daily News. The PDN first agreed to accept his $530, then balked. The ad ultimately ran on Nov. 22. Several weeks later he attempted to buy ad space there a second time, but was told the publisher had rejected it. “When I asked if there was something specific I could have tweaked to make the ad acceptable, the answer was negative,” he said. “The content was verboten.”
PCR tests come into focus
While local censorship was ramping up, many scientists were expressing concerns that the PCR tests, responsible for exploding “case” counts and continued lockdowns, were not reliable. In some experts’ words, they are “not fit for purpose.” Most of this information was also being suppressed.
But on August 29, 2020, the New York Times published the story, “Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.” It quoted Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina: “from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold [Ct] of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles.”
Evidence mounted that cycle thresholds are critical, confirming the New York Times story.
In a September article in Clinical Infectious Diseases, a French team looked at more than 100 studies on PCR tests. All studies found that above 30 cycles “patients could not be contagious as the virus is not detected in culture above this value.” They then performed 3790 of their own tests, reporting similar findings—of the samples that tested positive after 35 PCR cycles, 97% were negative upon viral culture. And of samples testing positive after 37 or more cycles, 100% were culture negative.
The lack of PCR reliability was reinforced in November by an international group of experts who formally challenged these tests as a valid diagnostic tool for identifying Covid cases. In their extensive report—“External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results”—the authors contend that serious defects in the test have “led to worldwide misdiagnosis of infections.” They conclude that the test is “completely unreliable” and “unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”
In December, an Italian team documented that when the Covid PCR test is positive only at a high Ct value, the incidence of false positivity is at least 70%. Their article in the Journal of Clinical Virology warns that the detection of viral RNA at a high cycle threshold “needs to be interpreted with caution.”
Revised guidelines from the World Health Organization followed in January. All parties agree that beyond 30-35 cycles, the PCR test cannot reliably provide accurate identification of a Covid case, calling into question case figures worldwide.
Is this incontestable global consensus—that at high cycle thresholds PCR tests yield mostly false positives—the “misinformation” thatLocke speaks of in the PDN quote above?
As revealed by Annette Huenke in her Port TownsendFree Pressarticle, “Is Jefferson County Health Department Overstating COVID Case Numbers?,” the cycle threshold of the PCR test being used in Jefferson County is not 30 or 35 or even 40. It is 45. No scientist disputes that with a positive result at 45 Ct, the chance of infection is zero.
Our test results do not report the cycle count; they merely declare a binary positive or negative. Without the Ct information there is no way to judge viral load, or if the test simply picked up dead viral debris; if the person is contagious, or if the result is a false positive.
Locke has yet to disprove any of this information.
Censorship and Demonization: the New Normal
For several months I have been among the citizens writing to our county commissioners about this concern. In response, the commissioners repeatedly defer to their expert, Locke. He waves off any responsibility, passing the buck to state authorities—not my problem—while insulting the citizens bringing these issues to light.
Locke’s attacks have grown increasingly shrill and aggressive towards residents challenging his pronouncements. In a response to a brief request from Annette Huenke asking for data he had referenced in a weekly report broadcast on KPTZ, Locke concluded his email with:
“And no amount of data will convince people who are consumed by pandemic denialism and wish to rationalize their pseudoscientific, sociopathic beliefs.”
In addition to the “pandemic denialism” pejorative he has been using for months, the county’s Public Health Director is now calling citizens who ask relevant, important questions “sociopaths”. It is no wonder that increasing divisiveness is pervading our community.
Our voice is censored by all local media except this online publication. When some of us raised the issue with our county commissioners of free speech being denied by the mainstream press, Commissioner Greg Brotherton rationalized that it was important to have “a unified approach” in messaging the public. That is a euphemism for “official propaganda only.”
The newspapers not only refuse to investigate valid citizen concerns, they allow no right of rebuttal to Locke’s messaging and name-calling.
On February 10, I submitted this letter to theLeader:
To date, theLeader has not run my letter.
12/23/20 protest outside office of PT Leader
Nor has a letter about PCR tests from Dr. Robert Rennebohm been published, submitted a week prior to mine. An MD who has extensively researched Covid issues, Rennebohm stresses the importance of disclosing Ct values in reporting new Covid cases, underscoring the need for and responsibility of public health departments to change course:
“Medically, morally, and ethically—individuals with positive PCR tests, as well as physicians, epidemiologists, public policy makers, and the public—deserve to know, and need to know, the Ct value at which a SARS-CoV-2 PCR test is positive. Without Ct information, interpretation of the number of “new COVID cases,” “new COVID hospitalizations” and “new COVID deaths” is severely compromised, as is public policy and the care of individual patients.”
But not even a credentialed physician, one who I daresay has greater understanding of PCR’s uses and limitations than Locke, is permitted to offer a professional perspective in the Leader if it diverges from Jefferson County’s Public Health Director. Rather than requesting interviews or promoting healthy debate on an issue that is profoundly impacting every one of us, there is only the silencing of any viewpoint that does not support the official narrative. A “unified approach.”
Valid, scientifically confirmed concerns should generate robust public discussion in our community. Instead, county residents are deluged with one-sided information that is often inaccurate and falls significantly short of adequately educating the public. Area newspapers, the local radio station, and other media provide a bully pulpit for Locke to disseminate what many scientists around the world would argue is misinformation.
Reporting all sides of a story is the fundamental purpose of journalism, the recognition that a fully informed citizenry is the foundation of democracy. That has been suspended in our New Normal. Allowing diverse voices to engage in civil discourse is deemed dangerous.
Cycle threshold values are only a small part of the PCR story, the one that has gotten the most attention. Equally critical is the clear instruction—in accordance with the PCR test’s authorized labeling—that its use should be limited to symptomatic individuals… not inflicted across entire communities of people who, for the most part, are not sick.
On January 4, the Food and Drug Administration released “Risk of False Results with the Curative SARS-Cov-2 Test for COVID-19: FDA Safety Communication.” The FDA’s direction to healthcare providers, patients and caregivers is that PCR test use should be “limited to individuals within 14 days of COVID-19 symptoms onset.” Use on asymptomatic people or outside the two-week window was likely to produce false results, or at least inadequately interpretable results.
The story in Jefferson County
Of more than 18,700 tests administered in Jefferson County since March 3, 2020, over 300 cases have been identified as “positive” to date.
This includes symptomatic people—those with Covid symptoms like fever, body aches, and sore throat—who may have been tested within the 14-days-of-onset window.
It also includes people tested who had NO Covid symptoms—those who are in facilities or jobs that require testing; who go to the hospital for unrelated elective procedures; who are admitted to the ER after a heart attack, stroke, or accident; and those who ask to be tested out of fear, or curiosity—some of them getting multiple tests. None of these meet the criteria of showing symptoms in a 14-day window. Most of those tests are inadvisable and prone to false positives.
The only people with positive tests who can arguably be called legitimate cases are the first group—those who presented with Covid symptoms. As Dr. Tom Jefferson, the FDA and others have warned, PCR tests were not designed to be used randomly across general populations.
And these tests are not always reliable even in diagnosing symptomatic people. Without knowing the cycle threshold values of tests conducted, we have no clear data to identify true cases.
Over nearly a year, only two dozen of our Covid “cases” have been hospitalized. And even the people in that category likely included false positives. If a person was admitted to the ER due to a heart attack or stroke but tested positive for Covid, they were added to the county “case” tally and put in the Covid ward.
What is the real picture of Covid in our community? Of the 330 “cases” who received only a yes/no result from a PCR test that ran up to 45 cycles, how many test results were false positives? If the majority of people tested here were asymptomatic, how many of those with positive results were actually contagious?
Based on testing data the New York Times obtained from three states, only a tenth of the people counted as cases were true Covid positives; 90% were unnecessarily forced to isolate and submit to contact tracing. Jefferson County’s percentage of false positives may not be quite as high as those in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada. But without reviewing the Ct values of our test results, we simply do not know.
Why accurate case counts matter
In practical terms, being erroneously identified as a Covid case can have serious consequences. A false positive could result in your healthy teenager being quarantined for no reason, leading to suicidal ideation. Suicide rates have risen dramatically, especially among youth, since lockdowns were imposed.
Your own false positive might mean lost wages or damage to your business. Perhaps most harmful, though, is being stigmatized as a threat to other people’s safety. I know of people who felt perfectly healthy, but tested positive—likely false positives—and even after two weeks of quarantine, were treated like lepers by friends and co-workers afraid to be around them.
In a Daily Mail article, Dr. Tom Jefferson of the internationally acclaimed Cochrane Collaboration gives many examples of how people’s lives are being ruined by a similar testing regime in the UK:
“Last week I received an email from someone whose results have flip-flopped from positive to negative four times over two months, and another from a man who has been unable to see his elderly mother, isolated in a care home, because she continues to test positive week after week.” People, he says, “are at their wits’ end because they are testing positive for Covid-19 despite having recovered from their symptoms. Some never had symptoms in the first place but are still being told they have the virus long after any possible infection. They are anxious and confused. Their lives are on hold.”
At the extreme, being wrongly labeled a Covid case can kill you.
Say you are the person described earlier with no Covid symptoms and you have broken a bone. You are rushed to the ER and required to have a PCR test. A false positive result at a 45 cycle threshold places you in the Covid ward next to a contagious true-Covid-positive patient. Whereas your only actual medical issue is from your broken bone, you are now at risk of contracting Covid. And of dying— like the 80-year-old woman being counted as a Jefferson County Covid death. She was put in a Seattle hospital for complications due to surgery and is reported to have died from catching the virus there.
What has all this cost?
How much time, energy and resources have been spent for this massive testing program and the relentless propaganda campaign of ever-rising case numbers used to keep the public in fear?
What has been the true cost in Jefferson County? Much more than the money expended on 18,000+ tests and all the personnel involved. The impact on our community’s mental health, economic stability and social fabric is incalculable.
Dr. Tom Jefferson calls this deeply flawed testing program a “hugely expensive blunder”:
“I’d have to conclude that the official coronavirus figures have been grossly overstated, with all the damage that entails. Where appropriate we should carry out tests, but only in the context of symptoms, the date they first emerged, a history of recent contacts and any pre-existing medical conditions. I believe that Britain’s new-found testing mania is a retreat from properly conducted clinical medicine as well as from common sense. And that we are witnessing a triumph of herd thinking – an expensive one at that.”
Citizens have been terrorized week after week with alarming headlines about new case numbers, urging them to get their tests. Officials who have promoted this fear are deeply invested in the false story they have spun and the resources that have been wasted. No one wants to hear that they are responsible for such a massive error.
So the response is to shoot the messenger. Voices revealing the truth are censored, insulted, and vilified. In Jefferson County that is a coordinated effort between local media, the board of health, and our public health director.
We are now being told that censorship—the prohibition of free and open dialog—is justified. It’s for the greater good. These people are dangerous. And the more indefensible the narrative becomes, the more the censorship and attacks intensify.
PCR tests are being misused “to justify excessive measures such as the violation of a large number of constitutional rights,” writes Belgian physician, author and public health analyst Dr. Pascal Sacré. The assumption that a “positive RT-PCR test means being sick with Covid” is misleading, he says. Falsely equating positive tests with Covid cases is “the starting postulate, the premise of all official propaganda, which justifies all restrictive government measures: isolation, confinement, quarantine, mandatory masks, color codes by country and travel bans, tracking, social distances in companies, stores and even more importantly, in schools.” [source]
Are our leaders going to permit this misguided testing program to continue to fuel fear and inflict untold harm in our county? It is long past due for our local officials to put an end to this costly mistake.
