r/LockdownSkepticism 21d ago

Monthly Medley Monthly Medley Thread, for sharing anything and everything

11 Upvotes

As of 2024, this thread is auto-generated at noon on the first day of every month. Continue to share as the spirit moves you!


r/LockdownSkepticism 1d ago

News Links Rand Paul releases database of records related to his COVID-19 pandemic origin probe

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justthenews.com
30 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 1d ago

Economics Feds Struggled to Claw Back Covid Fraud while Schemers Put Down Payments on Yachts, Lamborghinis

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openthebooks.substack.com
20 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 1d ago

Second-order effects The mental health benefits of going to work

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theglobeandmail.com
0 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 5d ago

Public Health Abolish mandatory vaccines for school attendance

72 Upvotes

I am continuing my efforts to advocate for what I believe is an important change in the way government policies affect our personal health decisions. I believe every American should have the freedom to make informed choices about their own body and, as parents, about their children's healthcare.

Every day we are exposed to countless environmental and lifestyle factors that can affect our health—from the food we eat and the air we breathe to the products we use. Because of that, I believe decisions about medical treatments, including vaccinations, should be made by individuals and families in consultation with their healthcare providers, rather than being mandated by the government.

I am concerned that current school vaccination requirements can place some families in the difficult position of choosing between following their personal convictions and accessing public education. I believe every child deserves the opportunity to receive an education without their family feeling that they must compromise their deeply held beliefs.

This movement is about protecting informed consent, personal freedom, and parental rights. Whether or not you agree with every aspect of this issue, I hope you will support respectful dialogue and the right of individuals to make their own medical decisions.

If you believe in protecting personal choice and encouraging thoughtful discussion about these policies, I invite you to join this effort. Together, we can advocate for laws that respect individual liberty while working toward a better future for our children, our families, and generations to come.


r/LockdownSkepticism 6d ago

Public Health What we truly know about the huge US Cyclospora outbreak—and what we don’t

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cidrap.umn.edu
6 Upvotes

Why aren’t the Democrats screaming all day about Trump/RFK cutting the systems that were in place to monitor and prevent this parasite from making us sick?


r/LockdownSkepticism 6d ago

Vaccine Update COVID jab/spike protein now lasts many years?

13 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 6d ago

COVID-19 / On the Virus I thought this was pretty interesting. Having never left usa it’s difficult to tell how much the whole world actually went along with the Covid event.

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18 Upvotes

V


r/LockdownSkepticism 7d ago

News Links Covid PPE fraudsters spent money on cars and watches

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bbc.co.uk
12 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 7d ago

Meta Lockdown Lunacy: A retrospective from a socially anxious person

17 Upvotes

INTRODUCTION

I entered adulthood during the lockdowns -- I was the class of 2020. Because of this, I never got to experience my High School graduation or prom like how most people did. I never looked forward to any of these HS events, because I myself never wanted to grow up -- it was one of my greatest fears as a child.

SOCIAL ANXIETY & SOCIAL ISOLATION

I grew up with neglectful parents, they paid very little attention to my mental wellbeing during my childhood and adolescence. I had very few friends during childhood, often avoiding socialization due to fear of judgment and rejection. I never participated in school sports or clubs (avoidance defence mechanism). It wasn't until months after I graduated High School, I reflected on these behaviours and how empty it made feel. Knowing that young kids teens were forced to experience what I did (or what I didn't) saddened me -- difference was that I voluntarily isolated, whereas they missed out on these events and milestones due to government policy. Weeks before my 19th birthday, I went to therapy discussing and mourning my poor social life during my childhood, wanting to correct my past behaviours. However, due to the current conditions at the time, it was not possible, for it was either A: against the law or B: people were overly-cautious and did want to do it. At the time, riding the bus made me feel uneasy and I was too scared to leave my own city without my parents driving me -- I couldn't even ask employees at a grocery store questions without being stuck in the throat.

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY & QUESTIONING THE EXPERTS

As a kid, I (incorrectly) believed that adults knew everything and were infallible. It wasn't until when I became an adult, I realized that nobody ever truly understood what they were doing -- they were simply doing things as they went along, and that some people were just better at hiding their cluelessness than others. During the pandemic, we were constantly being told to just 'trust the experts' and 'believe the science', yet silenced and berated scientists and medical doctors who held differing opinions. Knowing that even so-called 'experts' were only human and also had their personal biases, it made me question the whole narrative that was being pushed by governments and big media outlets -- perhaps, they had their own agendas and conflicts of interest.

POST-LOCKDOWN

I have recovered significantly from my social anxiety, thanks to my years of therapy and life experiences. I do not fear socialization like how I once did, and I have fully adjusted to adulthood. Simply exposing yourself to the real world is enough to help overcome fears that prevent you from living, breathing and enjoying life. Government responses to the pandemic ended up prolonging my anxiety, and hopefully will never happen again.


r/LockdownSkepticism 7d ago

Serious Discussion Revisiting the concept of Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR), Relative Risk Reduction (RRR), Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNV)

9 Upvotes

I had made a post on here and the same post in an another similar subreddit regarding the ARR, RRR and NNV. A vaccine apologist replied to my post on the other subreddit and said the following:

You are not giving the whole definition of ARR.

The ARR during the Pfizer trial was the absolute risk reduction for those participants in that RCT time window.

The average time for efficacy analysis was 2 months so even just keeping everything the same (lockdowns, social distancing, no school, remote work, etc) the ARR for a year would be ~4% (0.71% x 6). But the world didn’t stay the same after the vaccines came out, the country opened up and the infection rate went way up (mainly driven by unvaccinated in 2021).

Within a year or two, all basically all unvaccinated people had gotten covid (~100% risk). When the control group risk is 100% then the ARR becomes equal to the RRR.

The RRR efficacy was still high during that period (95%-50% depending on if it was Alpha, Delta or Omicron). So the ARR was somewhere in the middle of that range for that time window, not 0.71%.

It is true that for this study, the Pfizer trials used a two-month efficacy analysis window. It is also true that when the control group risk is 100% then the ARR becomes equal to the RRR; but that never happens during the vaccine trials. However, I’m not buying some of the other things this guy is saying especially in regards to the calculation of the ARR.

Is the vaccine apologist actually right particularly regards to the calculation of ARR? Or is he is lying?


r/LockdownSkepticism 8d ago

News Links PPE failures left NHS staff poorly protected and wasted £10bn, UK Covid inquiry finds

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bbc.co.uk
11 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 8d ago

Public Health UK children will be one of unhealthiest generations in decades, doctors say | Children's health | The Guardian

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theguardian.com
9 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 9d ago

News Links The New York nurses replaced by AI: ‘It should concern every patient who cares about quality of care’

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theguardian.com
34 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 8d ago

Public Health Outbreak of diarrhea caused by parasite jumps to 3,000 cases. Here’s why it’s so hard to identify the source

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cnn.com
0 Upvotes

Thanks to Elon and Doge for dismantling the CDC so much so, that we can’t track this menacing parasitic infection. Great job! So. Much. Winning. 🏆


r/LockdownSkepticism 9d ago

Serious Discussion Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR), Relative Risk Reduction (RRR), Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNV): How people are mislead about vaccine and drug efficacy

21 Upvotes

On another similar subreddit, I recently stumbled upon a few comments in interactions pertaining to the fact that the RRR was solely used to tout Covid vaccine efficacy and that the ARR was completely left out of the picture. This is when I decided to study the concept of ARR, RRR and later the NNV. I feel compelled to pass on this knowledge because even though I never took the damn shots, I was unaware about the concept of ARR, RRR and NNV. I know that others are not knowledgeable about these concepts as well so it makes so much sense as to why countless people have been deceived by the medical establishment especially during Covid. Before I discuss about RRR, ARR, and NNV, I have to cover Absolute Risk (AR) and Relative Risk (RR). 

Absolute Risk (AR)

For example, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) method was applied to a Pfizer vaccine trial, 21,720 individuals were vaccinated and 21,728 individuals were unvaccinated. Eight Covid cases were uncovered among the vaccinated and 162 Covid cases among the unvaccinated. The Absolute risk (AR) is a measure of the risk of an event occurring in a specific population.

AR for treatment group (vaccinated group): 8/21720 = 0.000368 or 0.037%

AR for control group (unvaccinated group): 162/21728=0.00745 or 0.745%

Interpretation: The vaccinated are at a 0.037% risk of getting Covid while the unvaccinated are at a 0.745% risk of getting Covid.

Relative Risk (RR)

Relative risk (RR) is a measure of the risk of a certain event happening in one population compared with the risk of the same event happening in another population.

Formula for RR: AR for control group/AR for treatment group 

RR: (0.000368/0.00745)= 0.04832  or 4.832%

Interpretation: The vaccinated group is 4.832% less likely to get Covid than the unvaccinated group.

Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR)

The Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR) measures the *actual decrease* in the risk after applying a preventive or treatment measure. 

Formula for ARR: AR control group-AR treatment group 

ARR: 0.00745-0.00036= 0.00709 or 0.0709%

Interpretation: The vaccine reduces the actual risk of getting Covid from 0.745% to 0.036% or simply by 0.709%

Relative Risk Reduction (RRR)

The Relative Risk Reduction (RRR) measures the proportion of risk reduction. There are two ways to compute the RRR.

Formula 1 for RRR: (AR control group-AR treatment group)/AR control group

Formula 2 for RRR: 1-RR

RRR: (0.00745-0.00036)/0.00745=0.9516

Interpretation: The vaccine reduces the risk of getting Covid by 95%. 

Number Needed to Vaccinate(NNV)

The Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNV) is the number of people that must be vaccinated to prevent one case of an illness. If the intervention had been drugs instead of vaccines, it would be called the Number Needed to Treat (NNT)

Formula for NNV: 1/ARR

NNV: 1/0.00709=141 people

Interpretation: 141 people need to be vaccinated to prevent one case of Covid 

How Relative Risk Reduction (RRR) is misleading 

As I stated earlier, the calculated RRR for the Pfizer vaccines was 95%. This RRR is what was reported as the efficacy for both vaccines and drugs. This is misleading because it exaggerates the effectiveness of vaccines and drugs by comparing the percentage change in outcomes between the two groups rather than absolutes. The ideal thing would be state both the RRR and ARR, but it is very unlikely that the medical establishment is going to do that anytime soon. 

I got the Pfizer vaccine trial example from here. If you would like to familiarize yourself more with concepts of ARR, RRR, NNV and even RR, you can go here


r/LockdownSkepticism 10d ago

Scholarly Publications Trump's 2020 pivot on face masks changed Republican behavior but not their medical beliefs

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psypost.org
0 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 11d ago

Second-order effects Believe the Hype About Teen Takeovers - The Atlantic

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archive.is
24 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 12d ago

Economics [K-Shaped economy] US airlines are betting big on premium cabins (and chasing wealthy people) to deliver profits (post-lockdown)

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apnews.com
8 Upvotes

Thanks to k-shaped economy that was formed post lockdown, travel is getting unaffordable unless you have a credit card or klama.


r/LockdownSkepticism 16d ago

News Links Toronto wraps up official FIFA hosting duties with little economic gain, data shows

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cbc.ca
21 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 18d ago

News Links Norovirus outbreak on Princess cruise affects more than 120 passengers

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globalnews.ca
10 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 20d ago

News Links WHO declares cruise ship-linked hantavirus outbreak over

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medicalxpress.com
37 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 22d ago

Opinion Piece Britain’s heatwave response was straight from the Covid playbook

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spiked-online.com
22 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 22d ago

News Links A surprisingly strong summer box office could mean Hollywood's first $10 billion year since the pandemic

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cnbc.com
11 Upvotes

r/LockdownSkepticism 24d ago

News Links Millions drop Obamacare health coverage after subsidies expire and costs rise

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apnews.com
33 Upvotes