time for a cat video

you will need to watch it after reading the headlines.

It's not a bunch of angry truckers in Canada doing a peaceful demonstration. It is fascists, or maybe the Russians.

Latest report, unconfirmed, is that the antifa dressed in black have arrived to start a fight.

And no Ukraine war in sight: The europeans get one third of their natural gas from Russia, so hey wait til spring and we don't have to stay warm.

My son reports it is very cold in Florida. I told him to beware of falling iguanas.

women are now Menstruators. Well, that leaves me out.

And aged rock stars who no one under the age of 50 has heard about but who want publicity want to cancel Rogan from Spotify, a platform for the under 30 crowd.

16000 cases of covid, including 2000 in Manila and 20 new deaths, so keep the country shut down because omicron 2, which like omicron one is very infectious but doesn't make many people sick, is coming! the bundoks are up to level 4 although Manila is down to level 2 now.

Absurd stuff in the news

 Quote the statistics, and the BBC gets it's knickers in a knot.

How dare you use facts to criticize the propaganda.

..

awaiting Youtube to cancel him in 1...2....3...

 update:
This may be the reason for the BBC's anger: this is the original video where he asks: Where is the data on the vaccines, and why hasn't it been published?

-------------------------

and I see the Catholic bishops here want to divest their money from all those evil companies that log, mine, or produce petroleum based fuel.

uh, what is the alternative? Waterbuffalos for plowing, methane producing flooding of fields instead of herbicide and fertilizer? and only one crop a year, since we use diesel for irrigation pumps? And instead of trucks should we use horse drawn carts to deliver rice to the 20 million folks in Manila?

apparently they are not worried that eliminating LPG used to cook food (and producing pollution!) will mean people will have to use wood, leading to air pollution, or the rising price of petroleum will mean higher price for transportation to go to your job, or that high prices of diesel will affect the supply chain for all sorts of things, including a coming crisis in the price of rice, since the shortage of petrol and coal and supply chain problems have led to higher prices in many things, including causing the rising price of fertilizer to using handplows to transporting rice to market.

as for mining and logging: Yes, regulate it to stop deforestation and pollution. But when a small "gift" can make local officials look the other way, illegal mining will continue, and if you get rid of mines, then the dangerous unregulated "mom and pop" mining will lead to deaths from accidents and of course even more pollution of the area.

same thing happens in illegal logging: out of work men will cut trees without worrying that the denuded slopes will result in lethal landslide, because they are doing illegal logging to feed their families since there are no other jobs available.

And ignore that people need jobs that these industries could supply, again if it was regulated to pay them well and put up regulations to prevent accidents etc.

so how could the bishops encourage safe mining etc? Maybe stop taking money from rich politicians and business men who are corrupt, or maybe just criticize the culture of corruption that lets the environment be destroyed.

But issuing a nasty letter is just virtue signaling.

and they aren't the only ones: Japan tells the Bengalis they don't need cheap electricity from coal. The activist cite all sorts of statistics, but don't discuss what is the alternative: very expensive renewable energy that the poor can't afford, or going back to a carbon-free primitive lifestyle with all it's hard work, hunger, poverty and despair.

which, by the way, is why China is ignoring the green saviors and building more coal plants.

Yes, the pope and bishops are good at nagging the rich to help the poor, but by giving them money etc. but not by encouraging investment  (and discouraging the corruption that discourages investment). Giving people jobs makes them middle class, and often they become Protestant, because that culture encourages hard work and lets people meet others with a similar work ethic.

yes, Catholic charismatics, C2C league and other lay groups (including EWTN) are keeping the faith alive at the grass roots level. 

I can say such things since I was a missionary and am a believing Catholic who is being neglected instead of being allowed to attend church and receive the sacraments.

 

and don't get me started on the gobblygook nonsense of the latest synods which will discuss a lot of psychological nonsense instead of teaching people about God. LINK: Ecclesiastical newspeak, where words mean the opposite of what they mean to common people using the term. 

Sigh.

=============

Biden wants war to protect the Ukraine, but the Ukrainian president tells him to cool it.

-------------------

woke hits the W.H.O. How dare one notice the culture of corruption or criticize your staff for being incompetent and make them cry! And how dare you ask them to come into the office and actually go to work!

so who would you want to run your health department? A competent dictator, or one who is nice?

 Being woke is more important than being competent nowadays.

/sarcasm.

But here it is about how Japanese, who are strict and work oriented, feel superior to the less work oriented people in poorer countries, who are family oriented and socially more competent with others.

so instead of telling the locals how to understand the culture of Japan, he will be punished for not respecting their culture.

-----------------------------

 Update:

First they came for wedding photographers and cake shops. 
Then they started suing Catholic schools.

Now: Why are trans activists "joining" small conservative churches and then coming out and demanding they be respected or they will sue you? LINK

alas too many pastors try to be nice and will end up losing the culture war because politeness.

A war here, a war there, and... who hacked the voting machines?

 A short lecture on what's really going on in the world:

..

.....Philippine and other Chinese aggession in Asia starts at 33 minutes...and this one from a couple months ago also discusses the big problems 

...........

here in the Philippines, Manila is lowering their quarantine level due to fewer cases. January 28 (GMT) Updates 18,638 new cases and 68 new deaths in the Philippines [source] This is good news. 

They are also letting people who are vaxed into the country without staying in quarantine: which ignores that the omicron variants don't pay attention to your vax status. But it might encourage tourists because hey it's nice here: No snow!

and it's not just the USA who are suspicious of voting machines being taken over : there was a report that there had been hacking of the election voting machines: They weren't hacked, they were compromised.... OK....

the electronic voting machines were purchased after the Hello Garci scandal made people worry that there might be boxes of ballots brought out of back rooms to change elections.

This is an old tactic to change elections: which is why seeing all those boxes of ballots being brought in after the watchdogs left had made the Trumpites think that something was suspicious, not to mention that the voting machines could not be checked for fraud, hacking or accuracy for some reason.

Here, stealing elections is traditional: as is paying for votes (the US equivalent is activists collecting ballots from people too lazy to vote, and some think they help them fill them out correctly (/s)).

Oh well: the problem is not so much the suspicion of voting irregularities in the USA: the problem is that it is larger than normal, and Trump, like AlGore and unlike Nixon, decided to make problems about the fraud... 

But the real problem is the destruction of rule of law in the USA: giving light sentences or none at all for peaceful protests that wrecked the small mom and pop stores mainly owned by minorities and immigrants in the inner cities of the US in the name of being anti racists.

So what comes next?

This protest is about how Canada's severe vaccine laws are disrupting the supply chain by marginalizing truckers who are anti vax. 

presumably they will be called far right extremists, and probably like the "yellow vest" protests in France, which have been going on for three years:  they will be ignored in the MSM. 

Just like the March for Life is ignored by the MSM every year, although this year they will give lots of publicity to this tiny group that is suspected of being feds and who disappear into UHauls after the press takes their picture to prove all the other 100 thousand pro lifers are racists. 

actual photo of the protests.

.....

Speaking of religion, a couple of faithful Catholics who up to now have supported Pope Francis are now wondering if they should join the opposition, since he seems intent on destroying the church from within.

The liturgy was sloppy, the catechesis sloppier; the young people continued to drift away. We waited, and hoped, and prayed for the time when all that clear papal teaching would filter down to the local churches. As indeed it must, we felt sure, because wasn’t the Pope the final authority on what the Council taught, and what the Church teaches? And then came Pope Francis. Slowly at first, and then at a frightening accelerated pace, the Pope undermined our confidence in papal authority. Again and again he threw his support toward liberal views and causes that we had dismissed as misinterpretations of Vatican II. The Pope showed no interest whatsoever in restoring reverence to the Catholic liturgy; in fact he regularly mocked those who did. ...

Sounds familiar. The joke among Catholics is: What is the difference between a terrorist and a liturgist? Answer: You can talk to and maybe change the mind of the terrorist. 

Conspiracy theories is that Francis was chosen by McCarrick and the St Gallen Mafia, and they are pushing the ideas of the Bologna school of theology, that saw Vatican II as a break with the past and that the reformers were the good guys getting rid of all those old fashioned fogies.

These reformers ignored the actual VII documents and instituted their own ideas as being "in the spirit of Vatican II" so they could silence those who objected. 

when I make the sarcastic remark that Cardinal Tagle,who used to be in charge of Manila, is being pushed as the next pope, it is not because he is essentially Chinese (and sucks up to the Pope by supporting the Pope's destruction of Catholicism there) or because he was known for working with the poor, but because he espouses the School of Bologna ideas.

as for the blurbs that he supports the "new evangelization": well, then why did the bishops here shut down the traditional fiestas and essentially make it impossible for us to go to church during the quarantines? I haven't been to church in two years because elders were told not to go inside the church and those allowed inside during mass were limited in number.

the lay catholic groups are still strong, but too many bishops and intellectuals and students in Manila seem more worried about pushing green policies or protesting police shooting criminals (but not criminals shooting civilians) than about corruption in their favorite politicians or that the increase in the price of fertilizer and diesel are going to make the price of rice skyrocket, causing bankruptcy in farmers and hunger among the city poor who won't be able to afford to eat.

As for evangelization: Like Latin America, a lot of Christian Catholics are going to Evangelical and Pentecostal churches now.

Family news: Show me your vax card (and no we can't be bribed)

After a week, they stopped giving out the vax and boosters at the city plaza down the street, and are now going door to door checking your vax card. I suspect they will come here and give it to you whether or not you want it. 

this is one of the side effects of having a good mayor: we got the vaccine for our elders in May, earlier than a lot of areas, but now it means You will get vaxxed and protected one way or another.

 And with Duterte cleaning up the cops etc. it means a small gift won't work to make them look the other way. 

yes, I am being sarcastic: To remind folks that although corruption remains a major problem in the Philippines, that not everyone is corrupt and that a lot of our officials try to do their best to protect folks in the epidemic.

 No problem: most of us in our home and our employees are double vaxed: we elders with the AZ and the drivers who were not high risk and at the time were low priority only got the Sinovax, which doesn't work well against the ordinary Covid or Delta, and doesn't work at all against the Omnicron. Which is why most of the boosters being given out locally are the Pfizer vaccine, which has shown to boost immunity including against Omicron, (partial but a lot less sick): one study showed it even worked if your primary vaccine was Sinovax, which gives poor immunity against later variants.

 Heck, no vaccine works well against the Omicron: the good news is that if you get it, you are now immune to all the covid. 

And the gov't is busy pressuring vaccines but a lot of folks might not get the vaccine because they figure they prefer to get a cold not a shot: (And the fact a local dentist's husband, who was only in his 50s, just died after getting the vaccine is not going to make people eager to get the shot).  

mixing vaccines, i.e. getting a different vaccine as a booster, is important here, because most of those vaccinated early in the year or who were considered lower risk got the Chinese shot early in 2021, before there was enough western vaccines to go around.

 The newspapers report breathlessly that we had three Omicron covid deaths (all elderly with health problems). Ah, but how many are dying of cancer because they delayed getting seen? or from stroke or heart attacks because they couldn't afford their medicine? 

It's complicated: Covid will put a frail person over the edge and kill them, but this can also happen with the weaker omicron variant that is going around now.

and to make things worse, there are limited covid beds in hospitals: so if you go into the hospital for something else but test positive, you need to go into a covid designated bed... and now with omicron, a lot of staff are getting sick.

Sigh.

 There are reports of kids/todders with a respiratory problem that is being blamed on Dengue... but is it omicron or is it just the nasty RSV virus and the kid just happens to have a positive test for covid?

But of course one could say that for a lot of folks in the hospital.

one poor neighbor whose husband left her is asking for money for a second daughter hospitalized with dengue... so are we having a dengue epidemic? it's the wrong season (it usually spreads in the rainy season) but who knows.

 The news is that there is now a second Omnicron variant that is so infectious that if one person has it, then everyone in the household will get it, which is good news for the healthy (who will end up immune to covid) but could kill the old and vulnerable. Hence the push to vaccinate with a booster the elders in our area.

The Inquirer noted that this means some families are all in quarantine at the same time, so no income. This, by the way, was not true for the earlier (Delta) variants: JoJo, Joy's brother, got a severe case and was on oxygen at home for a week and recovered, but no one else in the household got it (and yes they were tested). 

But I suspect a lot of folks mildly sick with colds are not getting tested.

But officially numbers are down:

15,789 new cases and 66 new deaths in the Philippines 

so numbers are going down, but since most of the statistics are from the Manila area or other urban centers, the bad news is that the omicron is going through our rural areas, where statistics may not be as accurate.

and the real problem is economic: But it's election year, so the politicians are giving out rice to help.

Dr. C gives the latest report on the new variants, which are spreading much more quickly than earlier variants but not killing as many, and may result in herd immunity and end the epidemic.

because it's about family

 

 commercials from the Philippines. The first one is about Valentine's day

ethics in the service of bullies/narcisists

 Ethics in the service of bullies/narcissists:

..

Ethicists insist that you obey the narcissist or you are the bad person...

I saw this in my son's therapist, who told me that I was a bad mother and my son got the message that it was okay to be abusive to me. (no I didn't obey the therapist: I called the cops on him when he started to hit me).

Hmm.. wasn't the story of a narcissist manipulating his son to get a kidney one of the plots in the TV series Lost?

and then we have this discussion: Why are we pretending bullies be allowed to boss us around, under the threat we are evil if we don't go along with them?

.

............. you know things are bad when the main moral voice in the world is an agnostic professor from rural Canada, not the Pope. a lot of the trans agenda is more about denying biological gender and destroying the family, not about being charitable for gender confused people.

and now a newspaper actually published an opinion that children should be taken from parents. Michael Barone comments on this LINK

But his argument misses the point: It denies the reality of biological evolution, where parents care for children because they gave them birth and because the sexual act that begets them is usually is associated with love.

But of course, anyone who knows history knows that this proposal actually echoes the communes in Russia and China. 

the idea that schools, not parents, have the right to teach your children what they need to know to be sucessful in today's world has some good points, but in reality it can mean not easing their transition into society but in remaking the child according to the ideology of the state (or the elite who have infiltrated the teacher's unions and universities), not the parent. (This, by the way, is one reason that Catholics started their own school system in the 1840s: because they were being taught anti Catholicism in history and had Protestant bible reading in school).

But children in schools for 8 hours a day will also go home, and their parents can correct what they "learn"...this is not true if you remove them from the influence of their parents.

Indeed, it resembles the scandal of the residential schools for the Native Americans, who were taken from parents to reeducate them to fit into white society: and the removal of Muslim Uighar children from their parents in China today.

The main problem with political correctness/wokeness or what ever you may want to call it, is that it does not conform to reality.

---------

It's the economy stupid.

update: the hysteria in the Philippines continues, so we see bans on unvaxed on public transportation (i.e. poor people) and talking about boosters (when almost half of the people didn't get vaxxed). We see the shutdown of an economy that was starting to recover (never mind that famine is coming).

and we see headlines shouting a surge of 36,000 cases, but unless you go to the bottom of the page you might not notice: 98 deaths.

Vaccinate: Fine. Modify the number of folks inside. Fine. But the shutdown and paying the cops to screen travelers is costing a fortune that we don't have, and with the omnicron it might not work, especially since one survey showed ten percent of those on public tranportation test positive.

With a weak Biden, the Philippines will be left for China to take over, and spending money on a couple of frigates to try to stop them is like using a fly swatter to stop a rottweiler... So who is going to stop them from pushing out fishermen and destroying the ecosystem of the west Philippine sea(not to mention stealing the natural gas that is underneath that area).

and since we get most of our medicine (and a lot of other stuff) from China, it's only a matter of time until the supply chain shuts down (a good way to pressure the new incoming president, whoever he or she may be).

Deaths with covid, Deaths from covid, and deaths due to medical delay due to covid

--

--actual deaths from only covid is much much lower than the official numbers.... most had other diseases that might have caused their deaths.

I wonder: If you have other diseases, test positive, have trouble breathing, and die of respiratory failure, I would count it as a covid death. Ah, but what if they die of a heart attack because covid caused low oxygen and stress?

Not easy.

But what no one wants to say: Covid is mainly a disease of old people near the end of life and not life threatening to ordinary folks.

 But shutting down the economy of the world, increasing unemployment, and causing economic problems will destroy more lives of normal people.

and then you see that delay in cancer diagnosis may have caused 50 thousand deaths.

We had two elderly friends die at home in the last week: one with prostate cancer and another neighbor who was 88. Neither had covid symptoms.

so if hospitals in the USA are paid better if people have a covid diagnosis, does it mean they might put this as the first cause of death, not as a comorbidity?

and that doesn't include the 100 000 deaths from illegal opioids, mainly Fentanyl.

ah, but they arrested 800 people for distributing these drugs. Huh? 

No mention in the article that maybe the open border has something to do with it, because hey pointing that out means you are an anti Hispanic bigot. (personal note here: Half my family is from Latin America).

Essentially Dr. C is saying the numbers might not be accurate.

Here in the Philippines, you have to go way down past the scary graphs to find what is going on:

January 20 (GMT)

Updates

• 31,173 new cases and 110 new deaths in the Philippines [source]

this is out of a population of 100 million. But may not be accurate, since as I noted, old folks die at home of "old age".... and with the omnicron virus, many are just staying home and not being tested.

for a country where the statistics might be accurate:

Japan reports a huge surge (46 000) but few deaths (9)

War War War War

 wtf is going on in the Ukraine vs Russia? 

USNI analysis it's about keeping the Ukraine out of NATO, which they see as the enemy threatening to encircle them, and also about intimidating Europe. And to make matters worse, it's about Turkey, a traditional enemy of Russia and a NATO member:

they link to this article.

Russia’s threats against Ukraine are more dangerous now because, ultimately, its public threats earlier this year failed. … First, it was a reminder to Washington of Moscow’s military power and forced dialogue with the Biden administration to clarify the U.S.-Russian relationship. Second, the buildup occurred just a month after Ukrainian President Zelensky decided to shut down three television channels controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of President Vladimir Putin. … The third factor explaining the timing of the spring buildup was Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2nd Nagorno-Karabakh War. Azerbaijan won with critical support from Turkey, which included Turkish officers operating the TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles that played such a crucial role.

Strategypage analyzes Russia vs her neighbors.

when the Ukraine became independent, there were a lot of Russian nukes left behind there. They agreed to give up these nukes if the west promised to defend them against Russia.

also note more is involved: Russian hackers, pipelines bringing natural gas to keep Europe warm in the winter, the trade routes in the northern Baltic area, -----------

 Up until 2014 Ukraine trusted Russia and the 1994 treaty. That is all gone and NATO nations, especially the new East European NATO members, will support Ukrainians against any Russian invasion, including support of Ukrainian resistance fighters in newly occupied areas. Putin could make a case for seizing Crimea but not so much Donbas and none at all for the rest of Ukraine. Were another Russian operation in Ukraine fail, Putin would lose much credibility inside Russia. He has already lost a lot of that because after 2014 Western economic sanctions pushed more and more Russians into poverty and convinced many Russians with exportable skills to move to the West. East European NATO members, especially the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Poland, Denmark and Germany have another reason to stand firm against Russia. They want to keep Russia from disrupting commerce in the Baltic, ..........

and the problem of the southern "stan" countries that worry about Islamic terrorism spreading there (from Afghanistan), and might chose China to defend them instead of their traditional helper in Russia.

Kazahkstan used to be a joke in the USA, but now it is another place war could start.

Nazarbayev saw this possibility early on and sought to avoid a successful popular uprising by having Kazakhstan join several economic and security agreements with Russia, and a few with China. Tokayev invoked the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) agreement. CSTO was formed in 2002 with Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia agreeing to support each other in security emergencies. Within a week a CSTO peacekeeping force of 2,500 troops began arriving in Kazakhstan. Most of the CTTO forces were Russian and all of them were used to replace Kazak troops who were protecting economic and military installations.

oh well... Russia is weak, but it remembers it's old empire and empires tend to want to reform in today's post American world, where the Team America World Police got tired of being the scapegoat for European snobs. So I figure few Americans will be willing to send their sons to die for Hunter Biden's friends.

And no one wants to talk about it, but the woke has hit the military, so I suspect many will not be willing to join it. The latest? Trying to allow non bianary folk in the military, which means you could lose your job if you get his/her/their pronouns wrong.

Sheesh.

it takes competence not political correctness. and as wokeness hits medicine and the STEM, the USA is in danger of losing it's ability to do basic things. JPeterson on the destruction of the university system notes the problem.

It is an intellectual problem when those in charge don't know anything except PC history and ignore the rest of the story, because history and basic cultural knowledge gives insight into what is going on.

AustinBay explains why Russia wants a viable empire back

The common economic interests linking Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan were a potential post-Cold War positive. Russia needed Ukraine's immense agricultural productivity." RUBK explained: "Rubik" as in the puzzle Rubik's Cube. RUBK is Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan. The demographics, natural resources and economic capacities these four nations possess is a geostrategic formula for a global power.

and he also  notes how the hubris of the Biden administration led to the disasters of the Afghanistan withdrawal: there was a plan to do this, but hey, we know better than those with expertise in the matter.

sardonically  notes that the reason that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was botched is that no one bothered to read how to do it.

All the essential operational details (based on hard lessons learned) are laid out in a Joint Chiefs of Staff pamphlet titled Joint Publication 3-68. Anyone literate may read the "Joint Pub" on the internet, all seven chapters.

Sigh.

I hate to think of how these bozos plan to defend the Philippines (or Taiwan) against China. 

Probably send them a nasty letter.

Family news: protests against mandatory vaccine cards

 Joy is busy getting her organic farms certified by inspectors.

The Mama dog had five puppies.

Kuya is having trouble getting paid for his rice: hopefully this is temporary but here fraud and corruption is rampant...

I am being lazy so no posts. I am not sick, but when my asthma acts up, the medicines give side effects. When it gets really bad, I take prednisone, and feel great, but that is not a long term option.

The shut down is continuing to the end of the month, something that will ruin the economy but never mind: place virus porn meme here.

CNN (May 2021)warns of a coming famine and more recently, Michael Yon warns to stock up because he senses not only famine but wars are going to start to break out all over. Heh. China already is planning their next war. First Taiwan then Luzon? 

 Well, Lolo promised me if I moved here I would always have rice to eat, and he would know about such things since he lived through both the depression and WWII...

Right now we haven't heard of covid deaths...There is a virus going around making toddlers sick, but one suspects it is not covid but a virus like RSV. 

They are trying to force mandatory shots on everyone, requiring it to go into some businesses here. But can they do this legally, by fiat, without bothering to pass a law?

in Manila there were protests from human rights groups when they said anyone taking public transportation will need a vax card: essentially saying that the unvaccinated cannot work, since poor people can't travel to their jobs. This discriminates against the poor, since the rich can travel in their own cars, and of course a lot of people don't have their full vaccinations. (54 percent).

official report on numbers here, which I don't believe. Nearly half of those tested were positive.  I am not sure who they are testing: in the past, our drivers got tested when they entered Manila to deliver rice, but now with their vax card they aren't being tested.... so are the percentages of those tested now higher because only those suspecting they have the virus are asking to be tested?

Ah, but how many with cold symptoms didn't bother to get a test because they weren't very sick? Remember: if you test positive you have to stay home from work for a week in isolation (as if you could really be isolated in your crowded home in the slums of Manila or even in the working class homes that house extended families) and many can't afford to take a week off of work if they are not sick.

Ditto for the two "omnicron deaths in seniors" who had other diseases. Did they die of covid pneumonia, or die with a positive test? No information. 

Is there an anti vax movement here? Yes there is: they used water cannons to dispense an anti vax demonstration in Manila. 

Camille Samonte

@camillesmnte

Nagsagawa ng kilos protesta ang isang grupo sa Liwasang Bonifacio sa Maynila ngayong araw. Iginiit ng grupo na hindi dapat gawing mandatory ang pagbabakuna. Ang ilang miyembro ng grupo, hindi rin naniniwala sa COVID-19. Ito kahit na marami na ang namatay sa virus.

@News5PH

Translate Tweet

3:44 PM · Jan 11, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

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And the PhilInquirer did have a photo of an anti vax demonstration in Iloilo.

I support vaccinations, but with the omnicron variant going around, it sort of makes the imposition of mandatory vaccinations look stupid: The vaccinations don't stop the omnicron variant, and the article a few days ago that notice ten percent of those tested at random had covid

 

MANILA, Philippines — The independent analytics group OCTA Research on Sunday estimated that Metro Manila’s actual COVID-19 cases could be six to 15 times higher than the official numbers being reported by the Department of Health (DOH) in its daily case bulletins. OCTA Research fellow Guido David said they reached this estimate based on the random rapid tests conducted by the Department of Transportation on railway passengers on Jan. 12 and Jan. 13 wherein 12.4 percent of those tested were positive for the virus."

The problem is that the continued shut downs are destroying the economy, and the increase in the price of diesel/gas/LPG and the huge increase in the price of fertilizer suggest that the price of food will soon go up. In the meanwhile, many overseas workers lost their jobs.

Famine is coming and one hopes the government will notice this is a lot bigger problem than covid, which mainly kills the elderly, and now is only killing dozens of folks, not thousands of folks.

In other words, lots of statistics and numbers out there, but this ignores the problem of GIGO: Garbage in, garbage out. If your input data is not reliable, the conclusions are not meaningful.

I suspect the covid data is similarly unreliable all over the world: and you know, as docs we used to have meetings where we analyzed articles and often found errors or exaggerations in the medical literature.

The difference now is that questioning authority gets you fired or reprimanded. 

question: if ivermectin doesn't work, why does a JAMA article complain that insurance companies were paying for it? The estimate was for 88 000 prescriptions, in one week.

To assess the potential magnitude of US insurer spending on ivermectin prescriptions for COVID-19, we estimated private and Medicare plan spending on these prescriptions during the week of August 13, 2021, the most recent week for which dispensing data were available.2 We assumed that all 88 000 ivermectin prescriptions dispensed that week were for COVID-19

they lament the waste of money of course because they insist it doesn't work. 

But did anyone analyze the data here? If 80 thousand people took ivermectin in one week, how many of them tested positive, how many of them were hospitalized, and how many of them went on to die? Were they given the medicine early, or late in the course of their treatment? 

And of course, the missing data is the number of folks who simply bought the horse version from vet stores or Amazon. Yes, I know: Vet medicine is not as high quality as people medicine. But in the rural areas where I worked, farmers used animal antibiotics all the time, because they simply could not take a day off of work to travel 50 miles to the doc, sit in the office for two hours, and then pay $50 for the prescription that they could have bought for ten dollars at the animal supply store ( since back then most medical insurance didn't cover medicine.)

as for Ivermectin, I suspect like most of our anti viral medicines it needs to be given early to work, and doesn't work perfectly. But statistically it has helped slow epidemic spread in third world countries:  American Greatness article discusses LINK.

One more note: you know, for an article to be published in medical journals, it has to be approved by the editors. And alas, many of our major medical journals (JAMA, NEJM, BMJ, Lancet) have long been politicized and published articles to push various agendas, not to mention the bias from drug companies paying for research.