2022: the Year of the Omicron
This is a brief year in review article for 2022, to shed light on what are, from my perspective, the important developments of the year in terms of COVID-19 policy.
Note: there is a French version of this article at this link - version française à ce lien.
How best to remember the year 2022? Everyone has a take on it, and let me share mine.
Strangely enough, one of my first thoughts was the Year of the Cat! Why? Nothing to do with the great Al Stewart’s song.
It’s just that some of the independent analysts I find the most interesting regarding COVID-19 happen to love cats.
One is Walter M. Chesnut, who was among the firsts to warn us about the risks of repeated infections and the role of amyloid protein formation.
Another, maybe better known, cat lover is Gato Malo, who was among the first to inform us about the negative effectiveness of the injections.
And then there is the political yet funny Catturd showing up from time to time on my Twitter feed.
But was 2022 the Year of the Cat? Not really, even if no doubt among the plans of the “powers” that rule us is to ultimately get rid of domestic animals, seen, as most of us, to be “useless eaters”!
What brought a dramatic change in 2022 was, in my opinion, more than anything else, the Omicron.
This interview I did with Dr. Shankara Chetty, on December 22 2021, discussed this variant, which was first to hit Southern Africa, before it took over the world and made the previous dominant variant, the Delta, increasingly marginal.
In a nutshell, Dr. Chetty explained, from his experience and that of other Southern African doctors, that the variant was highly transmissible, yet much milder and inducing much lower rates of hospitalization.
What Dr. Chetty was seeing first hand was contrary to the narrative of most Western countries, presenting Omicron as a more transmissible but not less dangerous variant.
The variant was seen by Dr. Chetty and other analysts as kind of a live attenuated vaccine, providing natural immunity to those being infected.
What was not known at the time is that, much more than with the previous strains, repeated infections were more likely with Omicron.
We also discussed the origins of the variant, which remain unclear to this day. Like the original Wuhan strain, it might originate from a lab - something that is suspected but has not been confirmed.
While the evidence indicated that Omicron was indeed “mild” compared to previous strains, most governments and mainstream media warned the public about the dangers of the variant.
Despite repeated messages by the authorities to wear masks, respect social distancing etc. what then happened was critical: about everybody got COVID.
And it was not just the unvaccinated! While the governmental and mainstream media narrative had been that the so called “vaccines” were protective against COVID, and also preventing transmission, both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated got the disease.
And as it was in fact mild, in most cases, the symptoms were very similar for the unvaccinated and the vaccinated.
People who were not paying attention to the intricacies of the debates about vaccines effectiveness and how poor the protection was, to start with, realized that there was something very wrong in what they had been told.
The protection that was supposedly provided by the injections was essentially non-existent.
Omicron had for effect to wake up many many people. Because this absence of protection became pretty undeniable with the huge number of people being infected.
While most of the population, still to this day, consumes mainstream media and official narratives, and have no clue about any the COVID intricacies you can find on some social media, it became increasingly understood that the official narratives were largely BS and not believable.
This probably affected mostly the younger population, which overcame Omicron infections. Older people typically were more scared and less prone to be “red-pilled” - as the expression goes.
In Canada, a major event in February 2022 was the “Freedom Convoy” which was a reaction against vaccine mandates imposed to truckers to cross the border with the US.
That convoy did unite a vast majority of truckers, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, and got substantial support in the population. Without the “mild Omicron,” the event would probably not have occurred in a similar way.
The risk of the disease was by then perceived as minimal, as “just a flu.”
Again, for those not following the intricacies of the debates surrounding C19, it was mostly a reaction to 2 years of lockdowns, of numerous travel and other restrictions, of mandates that were not making much sense, and of continuous brainwashing in the mainstream media.
Why all of this fuss for just the flu? That was at the back of the mind of most people involved into these protests. And that could only happen in such a way with a clearly mild variant, which a large majority of the population had probably already contracted by then - February 2022 - and overcome.
Canada’s freedom convoy was largely perceived as a threat to the government, which led to “emergency powers” to be briefly declared by the Prime Minister, a number of arrests, bank accounts frozen, etc. But ultimately, the protest came to an end, without any significant incident.
The restrictions on international travel for unvaccinated people were lifted subsequently, in September 2022 - following massive complaints about the “ArriveCan” app, the use of which was then made optional, and not compulsory any longer, by the authorities.
To this day, unvaccinated citizens from Canada, like from other countries, still cannot enter the US - the most important foreign destination for Canadians -, without a vaccine certificate.
This US mandate brought tennis player Novak Djokovic to withdraw from the US Open, after having been expelled from Australia earlier in the year and prevented from competing in the Australian Open.
Djokovic is expected to compete in Australia in 2023, as the 3 year ban he was subject to has been lifted. He actually has already arrived in Australia to prepare for the grand slam tournament.
It’s not clear at this point when the US will lift their ban on unvaccinated travellers and if Djokovic will be allowed to compete in the US Open in 2023.
What appears clear is that the credibility deficit of the authorities increased with the truckers’ protests. Why would you declare emergency powers in a country for a protest against mandates regarding a vaccine to (supposedly) protect you from a flu?
In the US, the most substantial development probably was the path that the State of Florida decided to take, challenging the official narrative of the federal government.
While Florida had already taken some steps, such as widely offering mono-clonal antibodies as an early treatment, it was the appointment of Dr. Joseph Ladapo as Surgeon General that accelerated the development of COVID policies independently from those of the federal government.
This culminated with the decision, now approved by the State Supreme Court, to have “a statewide grand jury to investigate criminal or wrongful activity in Florida relating to the development, promotion, and distribution of vaccines purported to prevent COVID-19 infection, symptoms, and transmission."
In Europe, with Omicron, and the important summer season for the travel and tourist industries, the vaccine passports, which were supposed to help those industries, were progressively dropped. Unvaccinated travellers were accepted in a growing number of countries. Again, why would you have a vaccine passport for the flu?
In Europe, like in Canada, the US and other industrialized countries, the appetite for boosters, despite the demands by the authorities for the people to be “up to date” with their vaccination schedule, substantially diminished.
Despite having urged their citizens to be vaccinated, two countries - Denmark and Norway - came forward with revised policies, limiting the recommendation of vaccines to those above 50 and 65 respectively, with in each case some exceptions.
https://www.sst.dk/en/english/Corona-eng/Vaccination-against-covid-19
2022 also saw recognition of early treatment, with the US authorities for example using the same kind of slogans in their advertising that the early treatment advocates used since early 2020.
But of course, early treatment drugs officially approved for COVID-19 are highly expensive patented drugs such as molnupiravir and paxlovid, and not the Trump Snake Oil (aka hydroxychloroquine) or the Horse Paste (aka ivermectin) used by most early treatment doctors since 2020.
With Omicron came also an unlikely reconciliation. In 2020, while initially having hydroxychloroquine in its treatment protocol, the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, led by Dr. Pierre Kory and Dr. Paul Marik, dropped it, as the drug had such bad reputation following all the bad press in mainstream media.
The other segments of the early treatment movement, led by the late Dr. Zev Zelenko, Dr. Fareed, Dr. Tyson, Dr. Gold, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Urso, Dr. Risch and others, continued to recommend the use of hydroxychloroquine, along with Ivermectin and other drugs.
This rift in the early treatment movement, which is little known, but was very substantial and toxic, unexpectedly found some healing through Omicron.
Indeed, it became clear that hydroxychloroquine was particularly helpful for the early treatment of Omicron, and hydroxychloroquine was rapidly reintroduced in the FLCCC guideline.
The year 2022 was also the last one lived by Dr. Zev Zelenko, who developed an early treatment protocol for COVID-19. He played an immense role in the US to get early treatment embraced by many frontline doctors, despite the considerable opposition.
https://www.frontline.news/post/dr-vladimir-zev-zelenko-passes-away
Another rift that occurred in the early treatment movement relates to the “mass formation” theory of totalitarianism by Belgian psychologist Mathias Desmet. His theory, that seeks to explain why a majority in the population blindly abode to mass vaccination, lockdowns and other restrictive measures, was endorsed by the prominent Dr. Robert Malone but harshly criticized by psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin.
The conflict has unfortunately led the former to sue the latter - who is 86 year old - and his wife for a whopping US$25 million. This is one of several sad, and perfectly avoidable, developments plaguing the “medical freedom” / early treatment movement.
https://www.americaoutloud.com/robert-malone-sues-the-breggins-for-25-million/
To attempt understanding what is really at stake, I conducted an interview with a French expert in totalitarianism, Ariane Bilheran, PhD, and you are invited to read her extremely elaborate (and scary) perspectives in this two part article.
The year 2022 saw attempts, in a range of countries, often through legal means, to drop vaccination mandates. Such mandates to this day remain however very common. They are not always imposed by governments. For example, some of the top universities in the US continue to require vaccination and booster shots both for the staff and the students, who typically are at extremely low risk because of the mildness of Omicron and their low age.
Harvard for example “requires all students to be “up-to-date” on their COVID vaccinations per the Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidance and to receive an annual flu vaccine prior to the start of Spring (this includes January term) enrolment. Students who are not up-to-date on their COVID vaccinations per the CDC definition and have not received a flu vaccine will have a registration hold on their account.”
At MIT, “All MIT faculty, staff, and enrolled students must receive all doses in the primary series of the Covid-19 vaccine plus one booster when eligible, or have received an exemption …”
Not only do you have to pay hefty fees for higher education in these top universities but you are also mandated to take an injection that is not only ineffective but also puts your health and even your life at risk!
Currently, the risk of serious adverse events in relation to the mRNA injections is estimated at around 1/800, which is considerable.
Ironically, despite these considerable risks associated with vaccination, many health institutions, in the US, Canada and elsewhere, continue to require that their personnel be vaccinated. For example, the Cleveland Clinic, with some 75,000 care givers worldwide, announced on Jan 28 2022 that:
“The COVID-19 vaccination mandate … requires all of our U.S. employees and those who provide services with us to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 … they must receive their second dose by February 28, 2022 … Employees who have not begun the vaccination process and do not have an approved exemption or an exemption pending, have been placed on an unpaid leave of absence (LOA) beginning today.”
There were some substantial legal victories. In New York, a judge stroke down the vaccines mandate for city workers, which he found arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional!
A major development was that the US Secretary of Defence rescinded the COVID-19 shot mandate for all military service members.
In France, the vaccination mandate for health care personnel remains enforced by the authorities, which were otherwise pretty swift at lifting the vaccination passports requirements and even the testing requirements for international air travel.
France has substantial shortages of health care personnel, yet the authorities continue to refuse rehiring the non-vaccinated personnel. Some of these health care workers have been over a year without any income. There may be some 15,000 of them (estimates vary). Some have left the profession, disgusted by the governmental measures.
In this recent interview, France’s health minister argues, to defend his position to not reinstate non-vaccinated workers, that vaccination prevents transmission and that it would be unethical for a non-vaccinated worker to be allowed to work, as it would expose patients to an additional risk!
Both arguments are known to be false, yet they continue being used to deny the reinstatement of these workers, even if the health system is crumbling.
Awkwardly, a vaccinated health care worker who has COVID is allowed to work, but a non-vaccinated health care worker, who has no COVID-19 symptoms, and who is probably as immune, or even more immune to the disease, than a vaccinated worker, thanks prior infection(s) and to natural immunity, is not allowed to work.
Contrary to France, in Italy, the new government of Mrs Giorgia Meloni has immediately taken steps to allow the non-vaccinated health care workers to resume work.
When it comes to the bigger picture, and the role of COVID-19 in the current “globalist politics”, a noteworthy statement came from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who lamented that “sadly, the virus itself, particularly the variant called Omicron, is a type of vaccine” … “and it’s done a better job at getting out to the world population than we have with vaccines.”
The relative mildness of Omicron doesn’t seem to have changed, however, the plans that the globalist elites have for us, including the so called “great reset.”
But the mildness of Omicron has made this plan a bit harder to accept, as so many now understand that one of its key components, mass vaccination & boosters, don’t make sense with the current variants and the currently available vaccines.
Even the latest iteration of those injections - the “bivalent booster” - does not appear to bring any improvement, either for efficacy or safety.
A recent study “found that the current bivalent vaccines were only about 30% effective overall in protecting against SARS-CoV-2 infection when the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 lineages were predominantly in circulation in Ohio. Furthermore, the data reveals the greater number of mRNA doses, the greater the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
With billions of doses of vaccines ordered, at a cost of billions of dollars / euros, by various governments to “protect” the population from the (mild) Omicron, there are investigations ongoing and calls for resignations. Many of the ordered doses have expired or will not be used, and most of them are ineffective anyway, against the current Omicron strains.
There are also various allegations of fraud in the clinical trials that led to the emergency use authorization of the vaccines in the US. This has important implications for the continued immunity of pharmaceutical companies regarding the adverse events generated by the injections.
In this regard, it is worth noting that the US government, via it’s Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) had asked for 75 years before releasing the clinical trial data that led to the emergency use authorization - and through a lawsuit led by attorney Arron Siri, this was reduced to 8 months.
While the Omicron variant offered an opportunity for the FDA and other agencies to put a stop to the mass vaccinations and mandates, no such thing occurred. In fact, the FDA pushed for the vaccines to be recommended for younger and younger ages, apparently with the goal of having them part of the childhood immunization programs at the State level.
To this day, the official line in the US and elsewhere largely remains that the vaccines are safe, effective (and free, even if their price tag to the taxpayers has been substantially hiked). This narrative continues despite the major issue with adverse events, well known by the authorities for over 2 years now.
Let’s remember that in October 2020, before the emergency authorization, the infamous “Slide 16” appeared in an FDA presentation, with the cited adverse effects materializing big time afterwards once mass vaccination started.
A “post-marketing” report leaked and then officially released in late 2021, which we analyzed, showed by the end of February 2021, there were already massive number of reported deaths and serious adverse events associated with the injections. There were already reported 1223 fatalities, while it was just the beginning of the mass vaccination campaign.
The report also listed numerous adverse events, in nine dense pages.
We covered this report in this article in December 2021:
A more readable list can be found on this Substack
Despite the massive safety issues, the report, produced not by a fringe group but by one of the manufacturers, essentially suggested there was nothing to be seen, that it was all normal.
“Review of the available data for this cumulative PM (post-marketing) experience, confirms a favorable benefit risk balance” says the report.
Of course, any independent safety monitoring mechanism may have concluded exactly the contrary and immediately suspended the campaign because of the high rate of serious adverse events, including deaths.
But this did not occur. There is no independent safety mechanism. Moreover, the FDA derives substantial revenues from the sales of the vaccines, which puts the agency in conflict of interest, in a state of “capture” - as it’s sometimes referred to in rent economic theory.
And unfortunately, none of the subsequent “post-marketing” reports, which are supposed to be monthly, have yet been made publicly available. These report would be expected to provide a wealth of additional evidence about (lack of) safety beyond February 2021.
https://phmpt.org/pfizers-documents/
The serious adverse event that probably got the most attention is myocarditis. This cardiac adverse effect, as many other serious adverse events, was expected by the authorities. The above FDA “Slide 16” listed it as a possible adverse event even before the emergency authorizations were granted.
Today, there are hundreds of publications highlighting myocarditis, pericarditis and other adverse events. There is also lots of confusion, that seems to be geared at leading people to believe that one can get those adverse events with a similar frequency when getting COVID-19 if not vaccinated.
Taking a step backwards, it looks like myocarditis is playing a bit, for vaccination, the role ivermectin played for early treatment.
There are many generic early treatment drugs and supplements, but the sharp focus on ivermectin, even if it may have been detrimental from medical objectivity viewpoint, may have helped to have more people understanding the importance of early treatment.
With vaccination, there is a growing number of people knowing that myocarditis is a possible adverse event of the vaccines, even if these people may not be able to mention any other serious adverse event, while there are hundreds of them, including death.
Today, most of the prominent members of the early treatment movement do now agree. Do not take more vaccines, do not take more boosters.
Even Dr. John Campbell, well known for his YouTube segments since early in the pandemic, with a massive following of 2.6 Million people, and himself a pretty staunch vaccine advocate, just called for a pause of the mass vaccination program in the UK, in this December 28 video. He explains the obvious: the risk / benefit balance is not there.
He says: “The overall risk from COVID-19 infection with SARS coronavirus 2 is significantly less than it was when the vaccination programmes were first instigated. However, risks associated with ongoing vaccination are probably the same as they were in the early stages of the pandemic and mass vaccination programmes… This means that the risk of COVID-19 infection has gone down, while the risk of vaccination remains the same. This fundamentally alters the risk benefit analysis of this vaccination programme. I therefore consider that the UK government authorities should pause the current covid mass vaccination programme, until a full, population scale risk / benefit analysis is carried out.”
The year of 2022 will also be remembered for its, still ongoing, epidemic of sudden deaths and excess all causes mortality. As the typical official narratives by governments and mainstream media remains “safe & effective,” this remains largely ignored in the general population.
Yet, there are substantial signs of awareness of this happening. For example, prior to being taken down by Facebook, a group called “Died Suddenly News” had some 300,000 members.
Since then, other groups were created on the platform, such as this one.
There was also a widely watched “Died Suddenly” documentary, that has now been shown to present not only very serious facts but also falsehoods. So best is probably to read this review of the documentary, which includes video excerpts of its most interesting (and credible) parts.
Here is Dr. Ryan Cole’s take about excess mortality and sudden deaths, which affect not only older people but also younger ones, who are in the prime of their lives.
There are more and more reports from various high vaccination countries. For example, here is a recent report produced in Germany that shows a sharp rise in sudden & unexpected deaths.
There is clearly something very wrong happening, and as I argued in my France Soir interview in August (in French), there is a need for systematic autopsies and an in-depth, independent, investigation of this phenomenon, including possible cures to prevent it.
How to conclude this brief review of the year 2022?
Well, while we thought we were mostly out of the woods regarding COVID-19, with the milder Omicron variant, we may also be living the biggest health policy blunder in history, with this unprecedented rise in overall mortality and sudden deaths.
While a large share of the population has now realized, with Omicron, that the vaccines were not what they were supposed to be, as they typically got COVID once, or even a few times, there is now a slow realization, despite the censorship, by word of mouth, doctors’ interviews on social media, etc. that there is something very wrong with the safety of the mass vaccination.
Unfortunately, most governments worldwide are not even contemplating the necessary steps to correct this considerable policy blunder, which may unnecessarily cost the lives of numerous innocent people, which is an unspeakable human tragedy.
So let’s hope that 2023 will rapidly bring clarity about all these extremely disturbing trends and that policy makers will show the courage to rapidly implement the required policy changes.
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This is a brief year in review article for 2022, by Jean-Pierre Kiekens, an engineer and economist and a former university lecturer, who has monitored C19 developments since early 2020. The article intends to shed light on what are the important developments of the year.
See analysis from December 2021 of the likely policy implications of Omicron
