Publisher’s Note: As our Vermont colleges and universities open, and our public schools prepare for what will certainly be a most challenging 2020 autumn season next week, a funny thing happened during Vermont governor Phil Scott’s weekly COVID-19 press conference Q and A this morning. A Vermont gentleman called in and respectfully asked three questions of Governor Scott, Dr. Levine and the assembled (including various Vermont news outlets who are supposed to be in the business of asking hard questions about policy choices made re: civilization-altering “global pandemics”). We’re all about spreading kindness here in Mad River, along with asking hard questions based on reason, evidence-based science, our deepest hopes for Vermont’s future. if you have not yet read our three part COVID EMPIRE series, we hope you will. Part 4 coming later this month. Plan “V” – free #TeamHuman, and bless our emerging 2nd Vermont Republic!

Question #1: “The CDC (this gentleman observed) just publicly announced last week that only 6% of COVID deaths nationally were exclusively caused by COVID-19, while the other 94% of COVID deaths involved one or more other co-morbidities. Is there a chance,” this gentleman asked, “that our COVID policy response might have been overblown in some way?”

(NOTE: here’s the official verbiage from the CDC’s web site:

For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.

Question #2: “Are Vermont public health officials familiar with last week’s New York Times article,” this gentleman asked, “exploring the high percentage of “false positives” and other problems associated with using the PCR test as a determinant re: the presence COVID-19?

Question #3: “Vermont will most likely lose twice as many Vermonters to opiates as we will to COVID-19 this year,” the gentleman noted. “Do we have any new initiatives in place to help Vermonters cope with this public health crisis surrounding opioids?”

You can listen to Dr. Levine’s answers here. Dr. Fauci, not surprisingly, had his own explanation for this “6% exclusive COVID” data, a bombshell by any measure. Dr. Fauci, whose name means “Jaws” in Italian – what a silver-tongued devil.

Meanwhile, Good questions, anonymous Vermont gentleman! Thanks for asking them.

We here at Vermont Independent have been asking similar questions since mid-March, and we are pleased to see more Vermonters asking more questions of ourselves, our neighbors, and our government officials as new data emerges and we adjust our understandings (and, we hope, our policy guidelines) surrounding this COVID-addled civilizational moment.

Speaking of viral science and policy guidelines, here are two other resources sent to us by Vermonters this past week. Canadian researcher Dr. Denis Rancourt brilliantly dissects the “non science” surrounding mandatory mask wearing mandates, an issue we’ve taken some heat for at Vermont Independent since last spring for pointing out what the science shows us: wearing masks to stop viruses is both “ineffective and unhealthy.” A new July 2020 paper published by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine – “Masking Lack Of Evidence With Politics” – provides further confirmation of our position re: the science surrounding masks – and Denis Rancourt walks us through it here in this recent video:

And former Australian Prime Minister Tiny Abbott is the latest high profile government official to break ranks with the Official COVID Narrative – here’s the lead:

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called for COVID-19 restrictions to be relaxed, arguing officials have become trapped in “crisis mode” and that governments need to consider “uncomfortable questions” about the number of deaths they are prepared to live with.

And KEY POINTS:

• Mr Abbott said governments have approached the pandemic like “trauma doctors instead of thinking like health economists.”
• He accused Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews of wanting to extend a “health dictatorship” by pushing for an extension of state of emergency powers.
• He said the media had spread “virus hysteria” and people should be allowed to make their own decisions when it comes to their own lives.