TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee")

At the break of dawn [on] July 8, 2020, as police helicopters circled overhead, a SWAT team appeared in armored vehicles and raided the headquarters of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing in Bradenton, Fla...

For more than a decade, the Grenons had enriched themselves by selling Miracle Mineral Solution, or MMS, a “sacramental” drink that promised to cure ills such as Alzheimer’s and cancer but that scientific consensus holds to be potentially lethal and have no medical value whatsoever. Thousands of people had bought it to bathe in, spray on, or ingest.

Inside a steel warehouse on the church’s property, a hazmat crew seized more than 50 gallons of hydrochloric acid and 8,300 pounds of sodium chlorite, which could be combined to make chlorine dioxide, the main ingredient in MMS. FDA investigators affixed stickers reading “1496” to the blue plastic barrels of sodium chlorite, indicating its classification as a chemical so corrosive it can burn a hole through the throat, perforate the stomach, and cause blindness. Chlorine dioxide commonly serves as an industrial bleaching agent, with applications that include stripping textiles of color and turning wood pulp into paper. When ingested, it can cause irreparable damage to the respiratory tract and other critical organs. In 2019 the FDA warned Americans against the use of MMS, noting that there had been more than 16,000 cases of chlorine dioxide poisoning in the U.S. in the previous five years, including 2,500 cases involving children under 12.

Before the pandemic, the Grenons had earned about $30,000 a month selling MMS to buyers who were sometimes sick or dying, on the false premise that chlorine dioxide could eradicate 95% of known diseases. After the coronavirus outbreak, Mark claimed chlorine dioxide could cure Covid-19, and sales tripled almost overnight, further boosted when then-President Donald Trump speculated absurdly that injected disinfectants might kill the virus...

“I see disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said during an April 23 briefing at the White House. “Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.”

It remains unclear how Trump arrived at the conclusion that injecting disinfectant could offer any medical benefit. Testimonials for bleach-based cures were, to be sure, circulating online among QAnon conspiracy theorists and in vaccine-skeptic circles. But it’s conceivable that Genesis II played a role; certainly, its archbishop took credit. Less than a week before Trump spoke, Grenon had said on his weekly webcast that he’d written to the president about his legal problems, describing MMS as “a wonderful detox that can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body” and “rid the body of Covid-19.” After Trump’s endorsement Grenon claimed, without evidence, that the president had received bleach from more than two dozen church supporters and that Genesis II had a channel to him through a Trump family member...

Yet Grenon’s prophecy that MMS will endure could still prove prescient. The church has recently gained a significant following in some South American countries, according to local reports. Hundreds of buyers have been lining up outside makeshift MMS distribution centers in poor rural communities as the pace of Covid vaccination falls behind that of major cities. The Bolivian health ministry reported 10 chlorine dioxide poisonings stemming from MMS last year, and this February, Argentina opened a criminal investigation targeting a local Genesis II leader following the deaths of a 50-year-old man and a 5-year-old boy who’d consumed the bleaching agent.

The official website of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing is still online, having migrated to Chilean servers after a U.S. shutdown. Active chapters are listed for Argentina, Australia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the U.K., the U.S., and Uruguay. Grenon-trained bishops are standing by to administer the sacrament, in return for a $20 donation.

"I recently returned from a month in Perú where I learned more about the proper response to Covid than I had learned over two years in the United States. 

The Peruvians seemed willing to follow the rules, almost universally. They wear masks as required and are vaccinated when vaccines are available. Shoppers cannot enter a supermarket or commercial shopping centers without wearing a mask and showing a vaccine card. Travelers on intercity buses, planes or colectivos must do the same, and the buses have curtains between the seats or the seat and the aisle. In Lima and smaller cities I usually saw more pedestrians walking on the sidewalks wearing masks than not wearing masks. 

People I knew were very interested in knowing how many shots I had received and were quick to tell me how many shots they had received. I heard nothing about people resisting either vaccines or masks. 

The hotels all had large posters with instructions about washing hands, wearing masks, being vaccinated and two or three other practices that people in the United States would not imagine are necessary. 

Over the five years in which I have spent time in Perú I have noticed the irony of the Peruvians living with successive absolutely incompetent and corrupt governments and the almost universal willingness to cooperate with the directions issued by the Peruvian Department of Health. 

In short, with regard to Covid I felt safer in Peru than I do in this country, and it was a joy to get away from the controversies and bickering."

Widespread covid outbreaks in China have bought entire cities to a standstill and hobbled manufacturing and shipping hubs throughout the country. An estimated 373 million people — or about one-quarter of China’s population — have been in covid-related lockdowns in recent weeks because of what is known as the country’s zero covid policy, according to economists at Nomura Holdings. There are also fears that new lockdowns could soon take hold in the capital city, Beijing, escalating the threat to the global economic recovery.

Anxiety over new disruptions has already caused the Chinese stock market to fall sharply, weighing on U.S. stock indexes as well.

And there are signs things could only get worse. Continuing lockdowns in Shanghai — a major hub for America’s semiconductor and electronics supply chains — has set up automakers, electronics companies and consumer goods firms for months of delays and higher costs.

Addendum:   see this brief video of extreme lockdown measures being undertaken, seemingly locking people into hotel rooms or apartments.

LaMay likely reached his biggest audience the following night when he appeared on Laura Ingraham’s prime-time Fox program. Ingraham has been a relentless critic of the vaccines and efforts to get people like her viewers to take them, and she used LaMay’s story to advance her anti-vaccine narrative, portraying him as one of a host of people who have been ill-used by the government because they don’t want to get their shots. ..

Regardless, LaMay’s brief blip of right-wing “celebrity” won’t comfort his widow or help to raise his four children. And Fox’s stars and the executives standing behind them will continue to encourage more of these tragedies.

babyelefant, n.Unit of measurement for appropriate social distancing

ellenbogengruss, n. A touching of elbows in greeting

fussgruss, n. A touching of feet in greeting

geisterküche, n. Ghost kitchen; a restaurant without eat-in dining

hamsteritis, n. A compulsion to hoard supplies such as toilet paper

kuschelkontakt, n. Cuddle contact; a person within one’s quarantine bubble

maskomat, n. A machine that dispenses masks

nacktnase, n. Naked nose; a person whose mask only covers their mouth

niesscham, n. The torment one feels when needing to sneeze in public

pandemiezirkus, n. Stressful living conditions during the pandemic

spuckwand, n. Spit wall; a barrier to prevent the exchange of air particles

todesküsschen, n. Little kiss of death, a reference to the risk of coronavirus transmission via traditional cheek-kiss greetings

Selections from a longer list at Harper's Magazine.

A Beauty and the Beast classic repurposed for a good cause.  (Comments closed because there's nothing more to say.)

Reposted from 2020 because it's still relevant.

This controversy started after I made a few statements in a meeting to the effect that I believe the pandemic is a stunt designed to enslave humanity. The end result will be that no one will be permitted to buy food in a supermarket unless they present proof of vaccination. This electronic certificate will take the form of injectable micro or nanotechnology. It will be a fulfillment of the prophecy of the Mark of the Beast, as described in the Book of Revelation...

It’s that I’m calling out the huge scientific frauds—Bill Nye, Buzz Aldrin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Anthony Fauci are part of a system of lies. I also said “atom bombs are fake.” The footage of atomic bomb tests are just films of explosions of large piles of TNT, made to look bigger through special effects. These techniques were used in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The films of the Apollo moon landings were faked using the same bag of tricks. The sunlit surface of the moon is over 700° F, not 250° F, as NASA claims. That is why the moon glows red during a lunar eclipse—not because of refracted red light from Earth’s atmosphere, as Bill Nye and Neil Tyson would have you believe.

Now I have to address the tweets I made about Jews. I do not believe that middle-class Jews are involved in an international conspiracy, only that a small number of their elites are. The entire world has fallen under the spell of a satanic elite. Their end goal is a technocratic one-world government, where everyone, Jew and Gentile, will be microchipped. Lord have mercy on us all.

The skin condition known as Covid toe may be a side-effect of the immune system’s response to fighting off the virus, according to a study.

The symptom results in chilblain-like inflammation and redness on the hands and feet, with the condition sometimes lasting for months at a time. It typically develops within a week to four weeks of being infected and can result in toes and fingers becoming swollen or changing colour...

Concerns were raised in the opening months of the pandemic that so-called Covid toe was one of the non-recognised symptoms of infection, after patients in several countries reported the condition even though, in some cases, they displayed none of the usual symptoms...

Dr Veronique Bataille, a consultant dermatologist and spokesperson for the British Skin Foundation, said Covid toe was seen very frequently during the early phase of the pandemic, but had been less common in the current Delta variant wave.

She said that might be down to more people being vaccinated or having some protection against Covid from past infections. “Presentations after vaccination are much rarer.”

"It’s worth recalling that in the early days of the pandemic, Republican COVID denialism began as a largely reflexive partisan instinct. President Trump was too upset by the emergence of a pandemic, at a moment when he believed he had seized a decisive campaign advantage, to admit that he was facing a serious crisis that required action. And so he began insisting the virus would disappear quickly...

The Republicans’ original premise for these beliefs was that Democrats were hyping up the pandemic as a pretext to shut down the economy and thereby to harm his chances of reelection... That entire conspiracy theory has collapsed. And yet the beliefs it spawned — that masks and vaccines were unnecessary — have remained in place...

Until COVID came along, not even doctrinaire libertarians opposed government vaccine mandates. For decades, institutions like the military and schools have routinely required a long list of vaccines. HuffPost’s Jonathan Cohn cites the works of libertarian writers such as Jessica Flanigan (“A Defense of Compulsory Vaccination,” 2013), Jason Brennan (“A Libertarian Case for Mandatory Vaccination,” 2018), and Ilya Somin, all of whom supported vaccine mandates before COVID existed.

But even if you were such a libertarian extremist that you opposed vaccine requirements, there’s no conceivable justification for banning private business from requiring vaccinations. When Cruz insists, “No one should force anyone to take the vaccine — including the federal government or an employer,” he is trampling on property rights and freedom of association, principles a small-government conservative like Cruz usually defends fanatically...

There is no clever plan here — just politicians so desperate to cater to the pathologies of their base that they chase one another to adopt the most politically toxic and socially hazardous position available. Donald Trump’s heirs have tested the political marketplace and arrived at a morbid conclusion: His supporters would rather die than admit they were wrong."