Gabriel Roberts

Truth is Beauty

Tag: Coronavirus (page 1 of 2)

Tictoc Superstar with Joe Gruen: Painting Pictures Ep. 84

Joe joins Gabe to discuss the never-ending pandemic, how he hurt his widdow finger, how to become a Tictoc superstar, and much more.

Click here to download the episode and subscribe to Painting Pictures via Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/painting-pictures-with-gabriel-roberts/id846291943

Or listen here: https://gaberobertsart.com/podcast/?name=2021-01-05_thinking_about_putting_things_on_tictoc.mp3

Here’s the dataset from the CDC on flu, COVID,  pneumonia, and all deaths in the USA since 2015: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2020-2021/data/NCHSData52.csv

Here’s an image of the chart showing all deaths in green, COVID in orange, and influenza in light blue.

Nick Hudson on The Fat Emperor Podcast


I acknowledge that there’s a lot of stuff we don’t know. So I’m interested to hear people’s theories about tradewinds, as I’m interested to hear people’s theories about viral dormancy, and change in temperature triggering epidemics… those are all things that you must entertain as a scientist—or a person that admires science at the very least. That’s how you learn new things, is by thinking about the novel, or the creative idea. And we’re simply not doing this; we have one cause, which is ‘kids give it to granny’, and we have one cure, which is lockdown. It’s the most stultifying approach you can possibly take to a complex system like an epidemic.

There is a confluence of incentives… you’ve got people who are making money, and they’re going to carry on trying to do that out of this lunatic testing asylum; you’ve got people that are too far gone—they’ve committed too much to the doctrine of lockdown, the voodoo of the mask, and it’s hard for them to stand down; and then you’ve got people with delusions of grandeur, who want to save the world from the deadly virus, and who believe that they’re going to do it with their vaccine, even though we’ve never had a really successful RNA vaccine, and a safe one, an efficacious one, that you can show is safe and efficacious, is years off; and then you’ve got… ineptitude as another part of the story, people who are not that bright—they haven’t really spent enough time studying the data and the information to form their views, they’re forming their views out of fear—and they go to lehman intuition, that you’ve gotta be better off if you put a bit of cloth in front of your face, and you’ve gotta be better off if you stop visiting people, they just go for that rudimentary, first thing that you can grab at, something that computes in a very simplistic kind of way, and then in the midst of all the fear they become adherents to this new religion. I think they’re sincere a lot of the time, but they’re just not very clever. And so you’ve got multiple commercial, political, accident-of-history, psychological fear-driven drivers of this thing that lead to the maintenance of, essentially a voodoo science

I’m most certainly not an anti-vaxx person, I think vaccines were fantastic inventions that saved millions of lives when it came to diseases like smallpox and polio, but I just look at this thing and say “what? really? what are we doing here?”.

I worry about these suggestions of these sinister coercive practices of requiring vaccine passports and the like. That to me is getting properly Orwellian.

There’s no relation between lockdown stringency and (COVID-19) mortality. As more of the longer-dated lockdown countries fill in… we are almost certainly going to end up showing that lockdowns cause higher coronavirus mortality. The reason is: your endpoint, whether you like it or not, is herd immunity. And what you want to be doing, what your strategy ought to be oriented around doing, is getting to herd immunity whilst infecting the smallest possible number of vulnerable people. And you do that by changing the relative mobility of vulnerable people. You bring down their mobility, without reducing the mobility of the non-vulnerable people. What general lockdowns do is exactly the opposite, because your vulnerable people are less mobile to start with, so when you start putting the brakes on the kids and the young adults, you massively reduce their mobility, and so the relative mobility of the older and more vulnerable people, the at-risk people, actually goes up. That is a very compelling explanation for why you get this very high mortality in countries like Peru, where you’ve had brutal and extended lockdowns, and this very high age-based mortality in countries like South Africa. It’s actually counter-productive.

This is a fight for the existence of civilization. I think we are heading down a very very dangerous road, and people need to see it that way, we really do. we can’t go on furlough and doing nothing and waiting every season for another lockdown… it will cripple economies and lead to starvation and the end of life as we know it. It really is important that people wake up to that reality.

Watch the excellent interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eJuj0rx-48&t=1709s

An Open Letter from Belgian Medical Doctors and Health Professionals

This pretty well sums it all up. An excellent letter detailing why the cure for COVID-19 has become far worse than the problem itself.  Read it below or click over here to read with access to all of the citations.

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We, Belgian doctors and health professionals, wish to express our serious concern about the evolution of the situation in the recent months surrounding the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We call on politicians to be independently and critically informed in the decision-making process and in the compulsory implementation of corona-measures. We ask for an open debate, where all experts are represented without any form of censorship. After the initial panic surrounding covid-19, the objective facts now show a completely different picture – there is no medical justification for any emergency policy anymore.

The current crisis management has become totally disproportionate and causes more damage than it does any good.

We call for an end to all measures and ask for an immediate restoration of our normal democratic governance and legal structures and of all our civil liberties.

‘A cure must not be worse than the problem’ is a thesis that is more relevant than ever in the current situation. We note, however, that the collateral damage now being caused to the population will have a greater impact in the short and long term on all sections of the population than the number of people now being safeguarded from corona.

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From Craftsbury to Carmichael: Painting Pictures Ep. 81

A solo show featuring an angry COVID-19 rant and some light-hearted commentary from Carmichael, CA, the place where Painting Pictures began in 2014.  Young people, packing up an old house, robbing Sacramentans, and ordering beers in the pandemic are discussed.

Click here to download the episode and subscribe to Painting Pictures via Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/painting-pictures-with-gabriel-roberts/id846291943

Here’s a permalink to the episode on my site:
https://gaberobertsart.com/podcast/?name=2020-09-22_from_craftsbury_to_carmichael.mp3

Check out Ivor Cummins’ excellent half-hour breakdown of the COVID-19 pandemic: https://gaberobertsart.com/2020/09/12/the-fat-emperor-breaks-down-covid-19-pandemic-masks-seasonality-lockdowns-and-testing/

Thanks to JC on a Bike for breaking this down:

Here’s Bobby Kennedy’s speech:

A Swedish Perspective on COVID-19 with Ida Ketonen: Painting Pictures Ep. 79

Ida Ketonen joins the podcast from Malmo, Sweden, to discuss the Coronavirus pandemic and how it has unfolded in Sweden.

Click here to download the episode and subscribe to Painting Pictures via Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/painting-pictures-with-gabriel-roberts/id846291943

Here’s a permalink to the episode: https://gaberobertsart.com/podcast/?name=2020-07-22_ida_ketonen_july_2020.mp3

Sweden smear campaign articles:

Grim coronavirus death toll projected in Sweden after lax approach to pandemic: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sweden-coronavirus-death-toll-projections/

Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html

Swedish exceptionalism has been ended by coronavirus: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/26/swedish-exceptionalism-coronavirus-covid19-death-toll

Some Data Analysis:

Swedish Covid-19 mortality in perspective: http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/se_mortality25jun.html

A ‘Nordic’ comparison: Sweden has lower overall mortality than Scotland and Finland: http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/nordic_comparison_4jul.html

Making Out With Old People in Bars with Joe Gruen: Painting Pictures Ep. 77

Part two of Gabe and Joe’s June chat about the ongoing madness of what we see taking place in the USA, and how badly we need to start making out with old people in bars again.  Gabe opens with a lengthy COVID rant.

Click here to download the episode and subscribe to Painting Pictures via Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/painting-pictures-with-gabriel-roberts/id846291943

Here’s a permalink to the episode: https://gaberobertsart.com/podcast/?name=2020-06-30_making_out_with_old_people_in_bars_with_joe_gruen.mp3

Professor Dolores Cahill on COVID-19

The most fearless attack on the world’s response to COVID-19 and the most eloquent description of how to change the narrative of fear and depression and improve our society forever comes from one of the most eminent immunologists in the world, Dr. Prof. Dolores Cahill:

Audio podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/professor-dolores-cahill-why-coronavirus-lockdown-is/id474722933?i=1000476998039

Video: https://freedomplatform.londonreal.tv/why-coronavirus-lockdown-is-killing-more-people-than-its-saving/

Note: This video, and much of what Dr. Cahill has said recently about COVID-19, has been censored by Youtube and Facebook. It is currently only available to watch at Brian Rose’s London Real website, and you have to enter your email address to access the content. It’s worth it!

Check out Professor Cahill’s website and her extensive CV: https://dolorescahill.com/

More Thoughts on the Coronavirus Pandemic: Why I’m Still Not On Board

I’m still struggling to adapt to the “new normal” out here in Vermont.  We’re well past the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, and it’s becoming more apparent that our society and community have  been fundamentally changed.  I’m trying to remember that there are both good and bad changes that will come out of this, and that much is still to be determined.  Also, to be grateful for my friends and family and community, and for people’s amazing ability to carry on and find a way to get things done no matter what.

I’m not really sure where we’re at in the fight.  I stopped reading the news a while ago, in an effort to focus more on my life and the things that I can actually change or do.  My impression is that we’re stuck in limbo.  At first we had a cause: “Flatten the Curve!”.  Now that hospitals are virtually empty, I’m not so sure what our motto is.  “Make it Last!”, “Try Not to Touch Anybody”, or “Social Distancing 4 Life!” come to mind.  On the other hand, I think lots of people are just plain tired of the whole thing:  “I’m over it!” might be more fitting.  I can’t quite get to this state, because even out here in Vermont, where we surely would’ve had absolutely no idea that there was a pandemic were it not for the news, things have changed.  I’m not happy about the changes.  I don’t like the feeling that the goalposts are being moved on us, seemingly to maintain a perpetual state of fear and social distancing.

I recently had a conversation with my good friend Gabe, who’s working hard out in Scotland to support refugees through the pandemic.  He’s upset at all the people who are questioning public health authorities right now, believing that the way forward is through a unified response, and not through everybody forming their own opinions about what’s going on or how best to deal with the pandemic. He didn’t come out and say it—bless him—but I can tell that he thinks my questions and doubts are a part of the problem.  While I haven’t broken protocol, thrown secret parties, or tried to get super close to people, I’m definitely still not “on board” with this virus.  Why not?  Am I just being contrary?  Is this like in middle school when I made fun of Jack Johnson’s music just because it was popular?
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Evil Gabe on Coronavirus: Painting Pictures Ep. 75

Gabe Q. Vest, aka Evil Gabe returns to Painting Pictures from bonnie Scotland to discuss the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

Click here to download the episode and subscribe to Painting Pictures via Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/painting-pictures-with-gabriel-roberts/id846291943

Or listen right here: https://gaberobertsart.com/podcast/?name=2020-05-18_gabe_vest_interview_may_16.mp3

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