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Journalism has long been a risky profession, but the COVID-19 pandemic has provided many governments with an excuse to increase its crackdown on journalists who counter government narratives about the virus and their handling of the pandemic.1,2
Globally, at least 14 journalists have been arrested for “unfair and imprecise coverage” of the pandemic.3 Courtney Radsch, advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told U.S. News4 that "COVID is a very convenient excuse to target journalists that regimes did not like before."
According to two media rights groups — the CPJ5 and Reporters Without Borders6 — China tops the list of countries where suppression of journalism is taking place. Worldwide, 387 journalists were detained during 2020, just two fewer than were detained in 2019. Of those, 54 are being held hostage and four are missing in action.7 More than half — 61% — are held in China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Syria.8
Attacks on female journalists has seen a particularly strong increase, with 35% more women journalists being imprisoned in 2020 compared to 2019.9 There’s also been a fourfold increase in “arbitrary arrests” of journalists this year, a majority of which appear to have been related to their coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Reporters Without Borders:10
“While most arrested journalists were held for just a few hours or, in some cases, a few days or weeks), 14 journalists who were arrested in connection with their coverage of the pandemic are still being held at the end of the year.”
CPJ also reports11 that murders of journalists more than doubled in 2020, compared to 2019. The murders are labeled as “retaliatory killings” by gangs and militants in “violent but democratic nations,” and the murdered journalists were most often covering political issues.
In all, 30 journalists were killed, worldwide, in 2020 in relation to their work. Of those, 21 were murdered, a significant jump from the 10 murdered in 2019. An additional 15 deaths are also still under investigation by the CPJ to ascertain whether journalism was the motive, so the end tally could be higher still.12
The countries with the highest numbers of retaliatory murders in 2020 were Mexico, Afghanistan and the Philippines.13 Adding insult to injury, in the vast majority of these murders, the killers go free.
As mentioned, China detained the greatest number of journalists in 2020. As of December 1, 2020, 117 Chinese journalists had been placed behind bars.14 One of them is Zhang Zhan, a former Shanghai lawyer who was detained May 15, 2020.
She’d been posting daily video reports about the Wuhan outbreak on YouTube and Twitter since early February. While these social media platforms are blocked in mainland China, Zhang was using a virtual private network (VPN) to access the sites. According to Vice:15
“Her videos stood in stark contrast to state media’s reports on the outbreak, which initially glossed over the severity of the virus and sought to highlight the heroic efforts of medical workers in treating patients.”
December 28, 2020, the Shanghai Pudong People’s Court sentenced Zhang to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” According to Vice,16 this “vaguely-defined charge” is one “that the Chinese government often uses to silence critics.”
Zhang reportedly went on a hunger strike in June and has been force-fed through a nasal tube since then. One of Zhang’s defense attorneys told Vice17 she began the hunger strike because “she couldn’t accept the fact that she was punished for exercising her freedom of speech, a right laid out in the Chinese constitution,” adding that “she views compliance as an insult to herself.”
In addition to Zhang, at least three other citizen journalists who had been covering the pandemic in Wuhan — Chen Quishi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua — are also either detained or missing. Chen, who disappeared in February 2020,18 is now believed to be in the custody of Chinese authorities, although his precise location is still unclear.19
A similar fate appears to have befallen Li, who in his last YouTube video, posted in April, said he had been detained by police but not charged. No additional videos have been posted to his account since, so it’s unclear whether he’s been released or remains in custody. The whereabouts of Fang are also unknown.
According to a June 5, 2020, article20 by Courthouse News, at least 16 countries had by then passed laws “targeting misinformation about the coronavirus.” According to Uladzislau Belavusau, senior researcher at the Asser Institute’s Centre for International and European Law, “Corona laws are often being used as a façade for the decline of democratic institutions …”21
Countries that now have laws on the books that restrict reporting of news about COVID-19 and call for fines and/or the arrest of journalists accused of spreading misinformation about the virus are shown in the graphic22 below, created by the International Press Institute (IPI).
IPI, which has been monitoring press freedom restrictions during the pandemic, also released the following image,23 showing the number of press freedom violations recorded across the world.
According to Barbara Trionfi, executive director of the IPI, “In all cases, the laws have been used to limit critical, legitimate reporting” about the pandemic.24 Marko Milanovic, professor of public international law at the University of Nottingham School of Law, agreed, telling Courthouse News the approach “is not effective,” as the laws are “broadly used to limit criticism of the government rather than stop bad actors from spreading misinformation.” Courthouse News added:25
“Yordanka Ivanova, a researcher in international law at Sofia University in Bulgaria, argues that privacy regulations could curtail the spread of fake news. Limiting the amount of targeting social media companies could do, she said, could keep information from spreading widely and minimizes so-called filter bubbles, where people only see news information that aligns with their existing beliefs.”
Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, has been outspoken about China’s apparent efforts to hide information about the source of SARS-CoV-2. In a December 28, 2020, Twitter post, Chan listed a number of suspicious approaches taken by Chinese authorities since the initial outbreak in Wuhan:26
“Imprisoning journalists looking into what happened in Wuhan, obstructing inquiries into mysterious pneumonia cases in Yunnan miners in 2012, failure to describe what should have been a stunning discovery of a novel FCS [furin cleavage site] in a SARS virus, removal of an extensive pathogen database …”
As detailed in “Top Medical Journal Caught in Massive Cover-Up,” Nature, one of the most prestigious medical journals, allowed authors to secretly alter SARS-CoV-2 data sets in their papers without publishing notices of correction. Chan was the one who discovered that scientists had renamed samples, failed to attribute them properly, and produced a genomic profile that didn’t match the samples in their paper.
According to Chan,27 the database on bat and mouse viral pathogens, which had been managed by Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has also been taken offline, further restricting scientists and researchers’ ability to analyze the potential origins of SARS-CoV-2.
All in all, China does appear intent on maintaining tight control over the pandemic narrative. Clearly, the Chinese government does not want to release anything that might implicate it in the release of a lab-created virus, whether accidental or intentional.
But China is far from alone in this quest. Many countries around the world are clearly hell-bent on controlling the narrative as well, and are increasing attacks on journalists who dig deeper and question the logic of it all.
As reported in “Spy Agencies Threaten to ‘Take Out’ Mercola” and “Mercola Defamed by Digital ‘Anti-Hate’ Group,” this includes yours truly. According to recent media reports,28,29,30 intelligence agencies in both the U.K. and U.S. are now working to eliminate “anti-vaccine propaganda” from public discussion using sophisticated cyberwarfare tools.
That we are in an information war could not be any clearer. And, in a war where information is the key weapon, journalists are akin to soldiers. There will be casualties. Yet we cannot, we must not, stop. The freedom of every person in the world is at stake.
In a shocking reversal that’s akin to redefining reality, the World Health Organization has changed their definition of herd immunity. Herd immunity occurs when enough people acquire immunity to an infectious disease such that it can no longer spread widely in the community.
When the number susceptible is low enough to prevent epidemic growth, herd immunity is said to have been reached. Prior to the introduction of vaccines, all herd immunity was achieved via exposure to and recovery from an infectious disease.
Eventually, as vaccination became widespread, the concept of herd immunity evolved to include not only the naturally acquired immunity that comes from prior illness, but also the temporary vaccine-acquired immunity that can occur after vaccination. WHO, however, quietly revised this concept in an Orwellian move that totally removes natural infection from the equation.
In June 2020, WHO’s definition of herd immunity, posted on one of their COVID-19 Q&A pages, was in line with the widely accepted concept that has been the standard for infectious diseases for decades. Here’s what it originally said, courtesy of the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine:1
“Herd immunity is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.”
It should be noted that “immunity developed through previous infection” is the way it has worked since humans have been alive. Your immune system isn’t designed to get vaccines. It’s designed to work in response to exposure to an infectious agent. Apparently, according to WHO, that’s no longer the case. In October 2020, here’s their updated definition of herd immunity, which is now “a concept used for vaccination”:2
“‘Herd immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’, is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached. Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it.
Vaccines train our immune systems to create proteins that fight disease, known as ‘antibodies’, just as would happen when we are exposed to a disease but – crucially – vaccines work without making us sick. Vaccinated people are protected from getting the disease in question and passing it on, breaking any chains of transmission.”
This perversion of science implies that the only way to achieve herd immunity is via vaccination, which is blatantly untrue. The startling implications for society, however, are that by putting out this false information, they’re attempting to change our perception of what’s true and not true, leaving people believing that they must artificially manipulate their immune systems as the only way to stay safe from infectious disease.
As of this writing, other high-profile medical organizations have not signed on to WHO’s skewed definition of herd immunity. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, in their Vaccine Glossary of Terms, defines community immunity, also known as herd immunity, as follows:3
“A situation in which a sufficient proportion of a population is immune to an infectious disease (through vaccination and/or prior illness) to make its spread from person to person unlikely. Even individuals not vaccinated (such as newborns and those with chronic illnesses) are offered some protection because the disease has little opportunity to spread within the community.”
The Mayo Clinic, as of January 6, 2020, also stated, “There are two paths to herd immunity for COVID-19 — vaccines and infection,” noting:4
“Herd immunity can also be reached when a sufficient number of people in the population have recovered from a disease and have developed antibodies against future infection. For example, those who survived the 1918 flu (influenza) pandemic were later immune to infection with the H1N1 flu, a subtype of influenza A.”
In a 2020 JAMA Patient Page on herd immunity, Dr. Angel Desai, associated editor of JAMA Network Open, and Dr. Maimuna Majumder with Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, also explain that herd immunity may be achieved via natural infection and recovery:5
“Herd immunity may be achieved either through infection and recovery or by vaccination … Achieving herd immunity through infection relies on enough people being infected with the disease and recovering from it, during which they develop antibodies against future infection.”
Public health officials often state that vaccination offers you a chance to acquire immunity to an illness without having to get sick from it. What they don’t typically mention, aside from the risks inherent in all vaccines, is that the resulting immunity from vaccination is not the same as that achieved via natural infection.
Many vaccines do not provide long-lasting or lifelong immunity. Vaccines only confer temporary artificial immunity and sometimes they fail to do that. This is why booster shots are needed. Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), explains why this is so problematic using the example of measles:
"What the medical literature shows is that baby boomers and the generation before us acquired natural immunity, which is qualitatively superior. It's longer lasting than vaccine-acquired immunity.
We have been helping what looks like vaccine-acquired herd immunity. We never were vaccinated, but we are contributing to the concept of what looks like vaccine-acquired herd immunity. When we die, you won't have that barrier anymore. They know that.6,7
Vaccine-acquired immunity is not the same as naturally acquired immunity. That has been the problem from the very beginning with the creation of these vaccines. They have never understood how to make vaccines mimic naturally acquired immunity exactly.8
I think the most shocking part, whenever I go into the medical literature, is understanding how much they do not know about the functioning of the immune system, about how infections confer immunity and how vaccines stimulate artificial immunity."9
If it wasn’t already clear that WHO seeks to alter reality to fit its own agendas, you may be interested to know that had it not been for WHO changing the definition of “pandemic,” COVID-19 may no longer be an issue. WHO’s original definition of a pandemic from May 1, 2009, specified simultaneous epidemics worldwide “with enormous numbers of deaths and illnesses:”10,11
“An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several, simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness."
This definition was changed in the month leading up to the 2009 swine flu pandemic, removing the severity and high mortality criteria and leaving the definition of a pandemic as "a worldwide epidemic of a disease."12
This switch in definition allowed WHO to declare swine flu a pandemic after a mere 144 people had died from the infection, worldwide, and it's why COVID-19 is still promoted as a pandemic even though plenty of data suggest the lethality of COVID-19 is on par with the seasonal flu.13
Another example of WHO conveniently changing former truths occurred in June 2020. During a press briefing, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for the COVID-19 pandemic, made it very clear that people who have COVID-19 without any symptoms “rarely” transmit the disease to others. In a dramatic about-face, WHO then backtracked on the statement just one day later.
June 9, 2020, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s emergencies program, quickly backpedaled Van Kerkhove’s statement, saying the remarks were “misinterpreted or maybe we didn’t use the most elegant words to explain that.”14
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for those who aren’t aware, is the biggest funder of WHO, and Bill Gates, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),15 are among those who have stated that life cannot return to normal until there is a vaccine against COVID-19.
“Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus,” Gates wrote on his blog in April 2020. “Realistically, if we’re going to return to normal, we need to develop a safe, effective vaccine. We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible.”16
Gates has even stated he “suspect[s] the COVID-19 vaccine will become part of the routine newborn immunization schedule”17 and has gone on record saying the U.S. needs disease surveillance and a national tracking system18 that could involve vaccine records embedded on our bodies (such as invisible ink quantum dot tattoos described in a Science Translational Medicine paper).19,20
Vaccine passports, which will be attached to cellphone apps that track and trace your COVID-19 test results and vaccination status, are already here and expected to become “widely available” during the first half of 2021. This is all in line with the Great Reset, which at its core is technocracy, in which we the people know nothing about the ruling elite while every aspect of our lives is surveilled, tracked and manipulated for their gain.
The rollout of widespread COVID-19 vaccination coupled with tracking and tracing of COVID-19 test results and vaccination status are setting the stage for biometric surveillance and additional tracking and tracing, which will eventually be tied in with all your other medical records, digital ID, digital banking and a social credit system.
What if COVID-19, which causes only minor symptoms in the majority of people — and causes no symptoms in others — has already spread throughout communities such that natural herd immunity exists? WHO quickly dismisses this possibility, stating:21
“Attempts to reach ‘herd immunity’ through exposing people to a virus are scientifically problematic and unethical. Letting COVID-19 spread through populations, of any age or health status will lead to unnecessary infections, suffering and death. The vast majority of people in most countries remain susceptible to this virus. Seroprevalence surveys suggest that in most countries, less than 10% of the population have been infected with COVID-19.”
This contradicts data suggesting that some areas may already have reached the herd immunity threshold (HIT). According to The New York Times, more than a dozen scientists said in interviews that the HIT for COVID-19 is likely 50% or lower. “If that’s true, then it may be possible to turn back the coronavirus more quickly than once thought,” the Times reported,22 and perhaps without the need for a vaccine.
Herd immunity is calculated using reproductive number, or R-naught (R0), which is the estimated number of new infections that may occur from one infected person.23 R0 of below 1 (with R1 meaning that one person who’s infected is expected to infect one other person) indicates that cases are declining while R0 above 1 suggests cases are on the rise.
It’s far from an exact science, however, as a person’s susceptibility to infection varies depending on many factors, including their health, age and contacts within a community. The initial R0 calculations for COVID-19’s HIT were based on assumptions that everyone has the same susceptibility and would be mixing randomly with others in the community.
“That doesn’t happen in real life,” Dr. Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, told The Times. “Herd immunity could vary from group to group, and subpopulation to subpopulation,” or even zip code.24
When real-world scenarios are factored into the equation, the HIT drops significantly, with some experts saying it could be as low as 10% to 20%. In fact, as the Times suggested, it’s possible that herd immunity for the pandemic is “ahead of schedule.”25
Researchers from Oxford, Virginia Tech and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine26 are among those that found when individual variations in susceptibility and exposure are taken into account, the HIT declines to less than 10%.27 By that number, and using WHO’s estimate that less than 10% of the population has already been infected, the HIT could already be met or quickly approaching — all via naturally acquired immunity.
