If you have ever heard talk or been to a seminar about “sovereignty”, then very likely those conversations were influenced by the foundational research of the author and educator.
His research and educational journey reaching millions of people worldwide began in 1992 and culminated in 2022 with the 3-Volume book release – his final word on the subject.
At the turn of the millennium his books and audio courses facilitated in part – a sovereignty and tax-honesty movement that involved millions of Americans.
This 3 Volume series comprises the life’s work of Johnny Liberty filled with comprehensive insights into the last few hundred years of history, law, economics, money, citizenship and governance.
These books show how it is supposed to be done in a constitutional Republic.
How did We the People get to where we are today?
What can we do to reclaim our inherent sovereignty and natural rights?
Many of the answers may be found within these revolutionary pages. Available as a paperback, E-Book (PDF) or an Amazon Kindle format. Thank you for supporting the author.
Sincerely,
With Freedom For All, ~ Johnny Liberty
Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty (30th Anniversary Edition)
A three-volume, 750 page tome with an extensive update of the renowned underground classic ~ the Global Sovereign’s Handbook.
Still after all these years, it is the most comprehensive book on sovereignty, economics, law, power structures and history ever written.
Served as the primary research behind the best-selling Global One Audio Course.
The 3 Volume Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty is textbook material for everyone including educators/teachers, homeschoolers, historians, activists, leaders/politicians, attorneys/judges/law schools, police officers, and state Citizens/Nationals.
Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty (30th Anniversary Edition) (3-Volume Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
A three-volume, 750+ page tome with an extensive update of the renowned underground classic ~ the Global Sovereign’s Handbook. Still after all these years, this is the most comprehensive book on sovereignty, economics, law, power structures and history ever written. Served as the primary research behind the best-selling Global One Audio Course. Available Now!
Dawning of the Corona Age: Navigating the Pandemic by Johnny Freedom (3rd Edition) (Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
This comprehensive book, goes far beyond the immediate impact of the “pandemic”, but, along with the reader, imagines how our human world may be altered, both positively and negatively, long into an uncertain future. Available Now!
Face of Lady Justice in dark grunge brown background
By Ken Becker
The Food and Drug Administration had requested that it be granted at least 75 years to issue the full ‘redacted’ clinical trials data that Pfizer-BioNTech submitted to get its original Emergency Use Authorization in December 2020.
The judge in the case has now ordered the FDA to turn over the documents at a rate that is over a hundred times what it had requested.
“This is a great win for transparency and removes one of the strangleholds federal ‘health’ authorities have had on the data needed for independent scientists to offer solutions and address serious issues with the current vaccine program – issues which include waningimmunity, variants evading vaccine immunity, and, as the CDC has confirmed, that the vaccines do not prevent transmission,” Siri continued.
The earlier court filing from the non-partisan Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency explained the need for urgent transparency.
“The FDA has proposed to produce 500 pages per month which, based on its calculated number of pages, would mean it would complete its production in nearly 55 years – the year 2076,” the court filing said. “Until the entire body of documents provided by Pfizer to the FDA are made available, an appropriate analysis by the independent scientists that are members of Plaintiff is not possible.”
“The entire purpose of the FOIA is to assure government transparency,” the plaintiffs argued. “It is difficult to imagine a greater need for transparency than immediate disclosure of the documents relied upon by the FDA to license a product that is now being mandated to over 100 million Americans under penalty of losing their careers, their income, their military service status, and far worse.”
The federal judge in the case has now issued a striking judgment against the FDA for attempting to cover up the clinical trials data at a pivotal time when the U.S. government and many states are claiming that we are presently in the middle of a pandemic-caused “emergency.” No.
“No person should ever be coerced to engage in an unwanted medical procedure,” Siri said. ” And while it is bad enough the government violated this basic liberty right by mandating the Covid-19 vaccine, the government also wanted to hide the data by waiting to fully produce what it relied upon to license this product until almost every American alive today is dead. That form of governance is destructive to liberty and antithetical to the openness required in a democratic society.”
“In ordering the release of the documents in a timely manner, the Judge recognized that the release of this data is of paramount public importance and should be one of the FDA’s highest priorities,” he continued. “He then aptly quoted James Madison as saying a ‘popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy’ and John F. Kennedy as explaining that a ‘nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people’.”
The public transparency is critically important as news has surfaced that Pfizer buried the reporting of deaths in the placebo group prior to the “vaccine” authorization. And in November, a whistleblower came forward with revelations about how vaccine-maker Pfizer ‘falsified data’ and manipulated clinical trials.
Brook Jackson, a former clinical trial auditor who was fired after raising her concerns, came forward with inside information and documented evidence about Pfizer’s operations in a stunning BMJ investigation conducted by Paul Thacker. The disturbing report sends up red flags that the FDA and Pfizer were engaging in massive fraud against the American people to justify vaccine mandates.
Due to the federal judge’s order, however, there is at least some hope for transparency and for accountability for Big Pharma and the public health bureaucrats who perpetrated this massive fraud on the American people.
“We, the survivors of the atrocities committed against humanity during the Second World War, feel bound to follow our conscience. … Another holocaust of greater magnitude is taking place before our eyes. We call upon you to stop this ungodly medical experiment on humankind immediately. It is a medical experiment to which the Nuremberg Code must be applied.” (Rabbi Hillel Handler, Hagar Schafrir, Sorin Shapira, Mascha Orel, Morry Krispijn et al, see complete text here)
The mRNA vaccine is “experimental’ and unapproved. Since December 2020, it has resulted in a worldwide upward trend in deaths and injuries.
Numerous scientific studies confirm the nature of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine which is being imposed on all humanity.
The stated objective is to enforce the Worldwide vaccination of 7.9 billion people in more than 190 countries, to be followed by the imposition of a digitized “vaccine passport”.
Needless to say this is a multi-billion dollar operation for Big Pharma. In a bitter irony, Pfizer which is playing a dominant role in marketing the vaccine at the level of the entire planet, has a criminal record with the US Department of Justice (for more details see below).
The national health authorities cannot say: we did not know. Nor can they say that the objective is “to save lives”. This is a killer vaccine. And they know it.
The latest official figures (September 15, 2021) point to approximately:
40,666 mRNA vaccine reported and registered deaths in the EU, UK and US (combined) and 6.6 Million reported “adverse events”.
EU/EEA/Switzerland to 11 September 2021 – 24,528 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 2,292,967 injuries, per EudraVigilance Database.
UK to 1 September 2021 – 1,632 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 1,186,844 injuries, per MHRA Yellow Card Scheme.
USA to 3 September 2021 – 14,506 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 3,146,691 injuries, per VAERS database.
TOTAL for EU/UK/USA – 40,666 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 6,626,502 injuries reported as at 15 September 2021.
But only a small fraction of the victims or families of the deceased will go through the tedious process of reporting vaccine related deaths and adverse events to the national health authorities.
Those death and injury figures (EU, UK, US) SOFAR are at least ten times higher than the official reported cases.
410,000 deaths, 66 million injuries out of a population of approximately 850 million.
Moreover, the health authorities are actively involved in obfuscating the deaths and injuries resulting from the mRNA “vaccine”, while inflating the number of Covid-19 related deaths. (“autopsies not required”).
Digital Tyranny at a Global Level
The vaccine is being applied and imposed Worldwide. The target population is 7.9 billion. Several doses are contemplated. It is the largest vaccination program in World history.
The WHO “Guidelines” for establishing a Worldwide Digital Informations System for issuing so-called “Digital Certificates for Covid-19” are generously funded by the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations.
The mRNA vaccine is not a project of a UN intergovernmental body (WHO) on behalf the member states of the UN: This is a private initiative. The billionaire elites which fund and enforce the Vaccine Project Worldwide are Eugenists committed to Depopulation.
Big Pharma: Pfizer Seeks Worldwide Dominance
The global vaccine project entitled COVAX is coordinated Worldwide by the WHO, GAVI, CEPI, the Gates Foundation in liaison with the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Wellcome Trust, DARPA and Big Pharma which is increasingly dominated by the Pfizer-GSK partnership established barely four months before the onset of the Covid-19 crisis in early January 2020.
Pfizer –which has a criminal record with the US Department of Justice– is playing a “near monopoly role” in the marketing of the mRNA “vaccine”. Already in the EU, Pfizer is slated to deliver 1.8 billion doses which is equivalent to four times the population of the European Union.
In a historic US Department of Justice decision in September 2009, Pfizer Inc. pleaded guilty to criminal charges. It was “The Largest Health Care Fraud Settlement” in the History of the U.S. Department of Justice.
In addition to compliance and enforcement, the “vaccine poison” imposed at the level of the entire planet is produced by a pharmaceutical company which has been indicted by the DOJ on charges of “fraudulent marketing”. The “Killer Vaccine” Worldwide. 7.9 Billion People
Compliance: No Jab, No Job
“Fraudulent Marketing” in relation to the mRNA vaccine is a gross understatement. The health authorities as well as Big Pharma not to mention the WHO, the Rockefellers and the Gates foundation are fully aware that the vaccine has resulted in countless deaths and injuries, including blood clots, infertility, brain damage, myocarditis, etc.
And yet the governments (with the 24/7 support of the media) are pressuring people to take the jab. “It will save lives”.
The health risks are known and documented, yet at the same time people are not only misinformed, they are forced into accepting the vaccine. Or else…
No career, no income, no future… It’s an issue of compliance. And no access to education and health services if you are not vaccinated.
If they refuse the jab, they loose their job.
Students are barred from attending schools, colleges and universities, health workers and high school teachers who do not conform are fired, civil society is precipitated into a state of chaos.
Relevance of the Nuremberg Code
Focussing on the experimental nature of the mRNA vaccine and its devastating health impacts, legal analysts have raised the issue of the historic Nuremberg “Nazi Doctors Trial’ (1946-47) in which Nazi doctors were charged for war crimes, specifically in the conduct of medical experiments on both prisoners in the concentration camps and civilians.
The Medical Case, U.S.A. vs. Karl Brandt, et al. (also known as the Doctors’ Trial), was prosecuted in 1946-47 against twenty-three doctors and administrators accused of organizing and participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the form of medical experiments and medical procedures inflicted on prisoners and civilians.
Karl Brandt, the lead defendant, was the senior medical official of the German government during World War II; other defendants included senior doctors and administrators in the armed forces and SS. See Harvard Documents
Resulting from the verdict on August 19, 1947, the Nuremberg Code was enacted. Reviewed below are the Ten Principles of the Nuremberg Code. Several of these principles –in relation to the mRNA vaccine and the vaccine passport– have been blatantly violated.
The first principle of the “Nuremberg Code.” states that “the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential,” And that is precisely what is being denied in relation to the “vaccine”(see sentences in bold below).
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.
4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.
8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probably cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
Entire populations in a large number of countries are under threat to comply and get vaccinated.
With reference to the Nuremberg Code, they are unable:
“to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion” (Nuremberg 1 above).
Amply documented, there is an upward trend in mRNA vaccine deaths and injuries Worldwide and the health authorities are fully aware of the “health risks”, yet they have not informed the public. There is no informed consent. And the media is lying through their teeth:
“No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur” (Nuremberg 5 above).
That “a priori reason” outlined in Nuremberg principle 5, is amply documented: Deaths and disabling injuries are ongoing at the level of the entire planet. They are confirmed by the official statistics of mRNA vaccine mortality and morbidity (EU, US, UK).
Video: The mRNA vaccine was launched in mid to late December 2020.In many countries, there was a significant shift in mortality following the introduction of the mRNA vaccine
Source: HeathData.org
Nazi “Medical Experiments”
Let us recall the categorization of specific crimes pertaining to Nazi “medical experiments” conducted on concentration camp prisoners. These included “the killing of Jews for anatomical research, the killing of tubercular Poles, and the euthanasia of sick and disabled civilians in Germany and occupied territories. …”
Karl Brandt and six other defendants were convicted, sentenced to death, and executed; nine defendants were convicted and sentenced to terms in prison; and seven defendants were acquitted.
The trial documents and evidence are all on file. The defendants were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Nuremberg Doctors Trial
The Scale and Size of the Worldwide Covid-19 Vaxx Operation
I have not been able to review the relevant documents in detail with a view to establishing the number of victims resulting from the Nazi medical experiments.
While the Nuremberg principles are of utmost relevance to the Covid-19 vaccine project, simplistic comparisons should be avoided. The context, the history and the mechanisms of compliance pertaining to the mRNA “vaccine” are fundamentally different.
The scale and size of the Worldwide Vaxx operation as well as its complex organizational structure (WHO, GAVI, Gates Foundation, Big Pharma) is unprecedented.
Humanity in its entirety is the objective of the Vaxx project. The target population for vaccine experimentation of the Covid-19 vaccine is the entire population of Planet Earth:
7.9 billion people, involving several doses.
Multiply the World’s population by 4 doses (as proposed by Pfizer): the order of magnitude is 30 billion doses Worldwide.
The numbers are in the billions. The likely impacts on mortality and morbidity are beyond description.
Big Money is behind this public-private partnership project.
We are dealing with a Worldwide process of crimes against humanity. Entire populations in a large number of member states of the UN are subject to compliance and enforcement (without the Rule of Law).
If they refuse the vaccine, they are socially marginalized and confined, rejected by their employers, rejected by society: no education, no career, no life. Their lives are destroyed.
If they accept the vaccine, their health and their life are potentially in jeopardy. The evidence of mortality and morbidity resulting from vaccine inoculation both present (official data) and future (e.g. undetected microscopic blood clots) is overwhelming.
And that’s just the beginning.
Extensive crimes against humanity Worldwide are being committed.
The mRNA “vaccine” modifies the human genome at the level of the entire Planet. It’s Genocide.
It’s a “Holocaust of Greater Magnitude, Taking Place before our Eyes”.
***
About the Author
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.
He has undertaken field research in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality. He has also undertaken research in Health Economics (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), UNFPA, CIDA, WHO, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983)
He is the author of twelve books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).
He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at crgeditor@yahoo.com
US President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 13, 2020. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump announced Sunday night the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma to treat the CCP virus.
“I’m pleased to make a truly historic announcement … that will save thousands of lives,” Trump said, describing it as a “breakthrough in a fight” against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
Trump announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made an emergency use authorization of convalescent plasma for the virus, saying it is “safe and very effective.” He said the treatment will reduce mortality from the virus by about 35 percent.
Convalescent plasma treatments use blood from COVID-19 patients who have recovered and built antibodies against the virus. Doctors then infuse the plasma into people to prevent severe symptoms of the virus, says the Mayo Clinic, which is researching the treatment.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called on Americans to donate plasma to help battle the COVID-19 pandemic. He described the 35 percent death reduction rate from the treatment as a “major breakthrough.”
Emergency authorization is not full Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, but it suggests that the agency believes the benefits of the therapy outweigh the risks. Antiviral drug remdesivir is another medication approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus that emerged last year in mainland China.
According to the FDA’s website, “Although promising, convalescent plasma has not yet been shown to be safe and effective as a treatment for COVID-19. Therefore, it is important to study the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 convalescent plasma in clinical trials.”
Convalescent plasma has been used since the 19th century to treat a variety of illnesses including chickenpox, Diptheria, and the flu. Namely, it was used to combat the Spanish flu pandemic from 1918 to 1920 that killed tens of millions of people.
“With plasma we’re leveraging the body’s amazing ability to develop antibodies and immunity to pathogens,” Stony Brook Medicine researcher Elliott Bennett-Guerrero, who is studying the use of this convalescent plasma in virus patients, told The Verge several months ago.
He added: “We transfer those protective factors to people who are sick and haven’t been able to mount an immune response.”
“I hear great things about it … that’s all I can tell you,” Trump recently said during White House briefing, referring to convalescent plasma therapy. “It could be a political decision because you have a lot of people over there who don’t want to rush things because they want to do it after November 3, and you’ve heard that one before.”
On Saturday, Trump said that someone at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics,” adding that “obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives.”
His remarks were rebuked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“The FDA has a responsibility to approve drugs, judging on their safety and their efficacy, not by a declaration from the White House about speed and politicizing the FDA,” Pelosi said in a news conference, reported The Hill.
Author’s Note: Five months of intensive research, collating 670 research and news sources, are compacted in this succinct, readable and entertaining 167-page compendium about the “pandemic”. It provides a comprehensive overview for those with an open mind, still willing to learn, to expand perspectives far beyond media tidbits. This is the Dawning of the Corona Age.
May we remove our masks – and blindfolds – to take notice of what is actually rapidly happening around us to navigate how we can still “live free in an unfree world”.
This newly released book is dedicated to You. Thank you for educating yourself, “thinking twice before you think”, calmly sharing your insights, acting wisely and thereby reclaiming authority over your life! Enjoy the first chapter of thirty-two below.
“A compelling exploration far beyond the immediate impacts of the “pandemic”, Dawning of the Corona Age imagines how our human world may be altered long into an uncertain future. “
Like a television series straight out of science fiction films, such as, V for Vendetta, Pandemic and The Matrix, the mainstream media narrative relentlessly broadcast at “We the People” seemed at first as surreal and as strange as an episode of The Twilight Zone.
Now, suddenly, and apparently without warning, we are living in a strange hybrid between George Orwell’s novel 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and The Matrix. Science fiction has now become real.
George Orwell wisely observed that, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” In 1958, Aldous Huxley warned that, “Pharmacology and propaganda will make the masses love their slavery. As the world is forced into accepting greater and greater levels of government control in all areas of life, remember that nothing in politics happens by chance. There is a science to creating empires.”
Asthe lead character Orpheus revealed in The Matrix film, “The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”
These perspectives reflect a deeper sense of what may be happening in our world today. For those open-minded enough to consider the truth as more important than convention and its lies, that sobriety is more essential than distorted states of consciousness, that the Earth and all of its natural wonders are more beautiful than any virtual reality, this book may just break open the possibility of a transformation of our understanding of this “pandemic”.
In truth, this may be the “crowning” of a “new age” of consciousness emerging from the rubble of an old world dying around us. A “Corona” age may very well be on the horizon if we act from a higher understanding of our own existence as true human beings instead of from our limited perspectives of material existence.
For those with the courage to question authority, to question even our present sense of reality, this book is for you.
“Do not believe in what you have heard; do not blindly believe in traditions just because they have been handed down for many generations; do not believe in anything just because it is rumoredand spoken by many; do not believe merely because a written statement of some old sage is produced; do not believe in conjectures; do not believe in that as truth to which you have become attached from habit; do not believe merely
the authority of your teachers and elders,
or news sources or books.
Question all authorities and truisms.
Decide for yourself what is the veracityof your perceptions. Ponder what is not true. Even more so, ponder what is true, deeply and continuously.” ~ Buddha
Public health agencies need to collect, use, and share information to prevent disease and injury and protect the public against natural, accidental, and intentional health threats. Various federal and state laws may impact public health activities regarding such information.
Public health agencies may collect and maintain information that identifies an individual or is sensitive in nature, such as information about communications systems or detailed emergency response plans. In these situations, freedom of information (FOI) laws establish parameters for information that must be shared, upon request, and that which may be exempted from public disclosure. In applying the laws, public health agencies may need to juggle competing interests and balance individual privacy against the need to protect or inform the public.
Generally, state and local public health agencies have broad and flexible authority to protect the public health. However, the exercise of governmental power has limits. The United States Constitution contains a Bill of Rights1 that sets out individual liberties and protects individuals from the arbitrary use of governmental power. These rights may impact public health collection and sharing of information.
Right to Privacy
The Constitution provides a limited right to privacy, including “informational privacy.”2 State laws that require reporting of or public health agency access to identifiable information are permissible when they are reasonably directed to the preservation of health and properly respect a patient’s confidentiality and privacy.3
Right Against Unreasonable Search and Seizure
With the owner’s permission,4 public health agencies may enter or search the premises of an individual or business, take biological specimens or environmental samples for testing, copy records, and remove evidence that might be relevant to a public health concern. However, absent consent or the applicability of another exception, public health agencies must comply with requirements in the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.
The Fourth Amendment requires that a warrant be obtained, based upon probable cause, to search someone’s premises or seize their property. The Fourth Amendment applies to both criminal investigations and health and safety inspections and investigations.5 In addition to consent, other exceptions to the warrant and probable cause requirement might apply to public health inspections and investigations, including searches of pervasively regulated businesses,6searches of premises or items open to the public,7 and searches based on exigent circumstances if delay is likely to lead to injury, public harm, or the destruction of evidence.8
Right Against Self-Incrimination
The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination prevents the government from forcing an individual to be a witness against himself or herself during trial or a custodial interrogation. If an individual is not informed of his or her right against self-incrimination, the individual’s statements and evidence obtained as a result of these statements may be suppressed in criminal proceedings. This right may arise when a public health incident involves criminal activity, especially when law enforcement and public health investigators are conducting joint interviews or public health agencies assist law enforcement to gather evidence.9
Practice Notes
Identify information to be obtained or shared.
Identify the purpose for which the information is needed.
Determine whether this is the minimum necessary for the purpose or whether de-identified information will serve the purpose.
Identify sources for the information, such as healthcare providers, schools, other businesses, and individuals.
Identify applicable federal or state laws.
Determine and meet conditions or requirements for obtaining or sharing information; in some situations, an individual’s consent may avoid legal issues when disclosing private information.
If privacy protections prevent disclosures necessary to protect the public, consult with counsel to identify relevant legal responsibilities, evaluate competing moral claims, and document determined course of action.
State Constitutions
State constitutions, along with court decisions that interpret state constitutions, must be reviewed to identify individual rights that exceed the U.S. Constitution. State constitutions may be sources of additional provisions that govern information sharing; for example, some constitutions define individual privacy rights or cover the public’s right to obtain governmental records.
State Statutes
Generally, state law governs state and local public health agencies’ authority and responsibilities regarding collection, use, disclosure, and protection of information. State laws vary in nature and scope. Authority may be based on general statutes, such as public health laws that grant public health agencies communicable disease control authority. Specific laws may also apply.
Case Reporting
These laws mandate that healthcare providers, laboratories, and others report specific communicable diseases and other illness of public health concern. Reporting requirements vary by state, and may also include poisonings, chemical or radiological exposures, suspected acts of terrorism, and other conditions.
Syndromic Surveillance
State laws may require or authorize reporting to electronic syndromic surveillance systems of information that is routinely gathered in emergency rooms or other places that may indicate an emerging disease or other public health threat before confirmed diagnoses are made.
Investigatory Authority
State laws may specifically grant public health agencies authority to conduct investigations and gather evidence, or such authority may arise from general statutory powers. State laws may also establish procedures for obtaining warrants to search the premises of an individual or business and seize evidence related to a public health threat.
Privacy Provisions
Public health or other laws may contain provisions to protect the confidentiality of information that identifies an individual and to limit its disclosure by public health agencies. Exceptions may be provided, for example, for disclosing information to other agencies, law enforcement, or the public when necessary to protect the public’s health.
Freedom of Information
All states have laws that require information held by governmental agencies to be provided upon request. FOI laws promote transparency and accountability of governments, facilitate consumers’ ability to make informed choices, and safeguard citizens against mismanagement and corruption. Public health agencies—like other governmental agencies—need to be sensitive to these important considerations in responding to FOI requests. At the same time, these laws may create challenges for public health agencies with regard to requests for private information about individuals or sensitive information, such as information that is preliminary, incomplete, or might present a national or state security risk. FOI laws include exemptions that may allow public health agencies to withhold private or sensitive information under certain circumstances. These exemptions vary among states in nature, scope, and prerequisites for denying disclosure.
Federal Statutes
Federal laws that impact collection, use, disclosure, and protection of information by public health agencies include, but are not limited to, the following.
HIPAA Privacy Rule
The Privacy Rule10 adopted under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)11 established national privacy protections for individually identifiable health information. The Privacy Rule may apply to healthcare providers or others that provide information to public health agencies. Depending on a public health agency’s organization, the Privacy Rule may apply to a public health agency when it discloses individually identifiable information. The Privacy Rule is not intended to interfere with public health functions and contains provisions that allow public health agencies to collect identifiable health information and disclose it, including to law enforcement, when authorized by law or when necessary to protect the public from an imminent threat.
FERPA
Privacy protections established by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)12 limit information that schools may provide to public health agencies about students. However, exceptions allow schools to provide certain directory information, such as student name and contact information, and necessary information to appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies.13
Surveillance Data Systems
Various federal laws, such as the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002,14 establish surveillance data systems that allow collection of information provided by state and local governmental agencies and integration of federal, state, and local data systems.
Critical Infrastructure Confidentiality requirements apply to federal disclosure of certain information to state or local governmental agencies related to critical infrastructure and supplies and resources to protect the public’s health. For example, federal law protects the confidentiality of information voluntarily provided by the private sector to the federal government regarding vaccine tracking and distribution15 and information about critical infrastructure.16 Although the federal government may share this information with state and local government and agencies, those agencies must protect its confidentiality.
Practice Resource
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press provides the Open Government Guide at http://www.rcfp.org/open-government-guide, which is a complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws. Each state’s section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws in various states.
Sources
U.S. Const., Amds 1-10.
Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977).
Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977); Planned Parenthood of Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976).
Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248 (1991).
Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967) (search of residences); See v. City of Seattle, 387 US 541 (1967) (search of commercial property).
New York v. Burger, 482 US 691 (1987).
Gostin LO. Public Health Law – Power, Duty, Restraint. (2008), p 468, 699-700. See endnotes 57-58.
Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499 (1978).
Richards, EP. “Collaboration between Public Health and Law Enforcement: The Constitutional Challenge. Emerging Infectious Diseases.” Available at http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/10/02-0465_article.htm. Accessed 11-15-2012. Goodman, R.A., Munson, JW, Dammer, K., Lazzarini, Z., and Barkely JP. “Forensic Epidemiology: Law at the Intersection of Public Health and Criminal Investigations.” Journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. Available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14968670. Accessed on 2-7-2013.
45 C.F.R. Parts 160 and 164.
Pub. L. 104-191, 42 U.S.C. § 300gg et seq.
Pub. L. 93-380, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g, implemented by 34 C.F.R. Part 99.
34 C.F.R. § 99.31.
Pub. L. 107-188, 42 U.S.C. 300hh et seq.
Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. § 247d-1.
Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002, Pub. L. 107-296, 6 U.S.C. 131 et seq., which is part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
Note: This document was compiled from April–November 2012 and reflects the laws and programs current then. It reflects only portions of the laws relevant to public health emergencies and is not intended to be exhaustive of all relevant legal authority. This resource is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional legal or other advice. The document was funded by CDC Award No. 1U38HM000454 to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials; Subcontractor Subcontractor University of Michigan School of Public Health, Network for Public Health Law – Mid-States Region.
The interactive Ookla 5G Map tracks 5G rollouts in cities across the globe. Updated weekly from verified public sources and Ookla data, you can follow operators’ newest 5G networks on @Ookla5GMap. Click above graphic to go to the interactive map…
So, I had this hope that the next thing I posted here would be a grand explanation about my extended absence, all the weird stuff that’s happened over the past few years, my loss of faith in nutrition as a front-line approach to healing, and various other sundries I’ve been storing up in my brain-attic.
But then COVID-19 happened, and if that isn’t the biggest cosmic plan-changer that ever did plan-change, then I don’t know what is. So we’re gonna roll with it. And at the risk of writing something that’ll already be outdated by the time I hit publish (such is the nature of current events), I’m hoping this post will stay evergreen (or at least ever-chartreuse) by sheer virtue of its universal core theme: navigating conflicting, emotionally charged narratives in which objectivity behooves us but doesn’t come easy.
So LET US BEGIN.
In case you didn’t notice, the cyber-world (and its 3D counterpart, I assume, but we’re not allowed to venture there anymore) is currently a hot mess of Who and what do we believe? This is zero percent surprising. Official agencies have handled COVID-19 with the all grace of a three-legged elephant—waffling between the virus being under control/not under control/OMG millions dead/wait no 60,000/let’s pack the churches on Easter!/naw, lockdown-til-August/face masks do nothing/face masks do something, but healthcare workers need them more/FACE MASKS FOR EVERY FACE RIGHT NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU/oh no a tiger got the ‘rona!; on and on. It’s dizzying. Maddening. The opposite of confidence-instilling. And as a very predictable result, guerrilla journalism has grown to fill the void left by those who’ve failed to tell us, with any believability, what’s going on.
Exercising our investigative rights is usually a good thing. You guys know me. I’m all about questioning established narratives and digging into the forces that crafted them. It’s literally my life. Good things happen when we flex our thinking muscle, and nothing we’re told should be immune to scrutiny.
But there’s a shadow side here, too—what I’ll henceforth refer to as “lopsided skepticism.” This is what happens when we question established narratives… but not the non-established ones. More specifically, when we go so hog wild ripping apart The Official Story that we somehow have no skepticism left over for all the new stuff we’re replacing it with.
And that, my friends, is exactly what’s happening right now.
I’ve been watching homegrown theories about COVID-19 spiral through various social platforms, born from a mix of data (sometimes) and theory (usually) and anecdote (always). They’re generally a pushback against the mainstream narrative about the coronavirus’s timeline, severity, concern-worthiness, fatality rate, treatment, infection breadth, classification guidelines, origin… round and round we go. Some theories are reasonable (“Has the virus been here longer than we think?”), some are untenable (“The ‘virus’ is actually radiation poisoning from 5G towers!”), and many more lie somewhere between.
Most importantly, they all have one thing in common: a tendency to embrace any and all supportive data without, well, making sure it’s true.
Y’all know what I’m talking about. Evidence we’d never give the time of day if it didn’t work in our favor. The “I remember reading somewhere…”, the “I have a friend who knows someone who…”, YouTube interviews that are impossible to fact-check (but please just trust this person’s top-secret info from an organization they can’t name without the Feds beating down their door), crowdsourced anecdotes, retracted papers, retweeted screenshots of Facebook comments from people whose names and profile pictures are blacked out, the whole shebang.
This stuff. Is. EVERYWHERE.
Unfortunately, throwing a bunch of really bad evidence together can create the illusion of a well-supported theory. And this is what’s happening, my dudes. This is what it’s come to. In our rabid quest to undermine the Powers That Be andfigure out what’s really going on, we’ve thrown quality control out the window and become that which we loathe: loyalists to narrative over data.
Case in point, let’s look at what might be the most popular COVID-19 theory circulating right now: that mortality stats are getting padded by assigning deaths to COVID-19 that are really from other causes—thereby making this whole thing seem worse than it actually is. Depending on the sub-theory, this might be due to financial incentives for hospitals (more COVID-19 patients = more $$$); a coordinated government hoax to trick people into relinquishing their sovereignty; a way to butter us up for mass ID microchipping; something something lizard people; and so on.
And from what I’ve seen—and by all means correct me if I’m missing something—this theory draws on the following claims:
The CDC has literally issued guidelines telling doctors and medical examiners to classify deaths as COVID-19 if they “presume” the patient has it—no test results needed.
CDC data shows a precipitous drop in pneumonia deaths right around the same time COVID-19 became a thing—suggesting pneumonia deaths have been getting reclassified as COVID-19 deaths, and creating the illusion of a pandemic.
People who die with coronavirus, but not from coronavirus, are getting counted as COVID-19 deaths—again inflating the body count.
Despite COVID-19 mortality skyrocketing, total mortality is staying the same (or even dropping)—suggesting a “cause of death” shuffle, if you will, and betraying the idea that we’re seeing additional deaths from a new disease. (Alternatively: “Only people with preexisting medical conditions are dying and they were gonna keel over any minute anyhow.”)
This theory would be pretty awful if it’s true. We’d have been got. Duped. Manipulated AF. But how solid is the evidence? Have we actually peeled this thing apart piece by piece before getting all ragey about the injustice of it all?
Oh, we haven’t? Well GUESS WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO NOW?
Let the unpeeling commence.
Claim #1
1. First, the whole “CDC is telling people to report COVID-19 deaths without testing!” ordeal. The damning bits come from the CDC’s COVID-19 reporting guide (PDF), which gives permission to use COVID-19 on a death certificate if it’s “suspected or likely” and “‘probable’ or ‘presumed’”:
And also says it’s okay to report COVID-19 without testing confirmation:
The point of contention here, which has sparked something of an outrage in important places such as Twitter, is that these guidelines allow a level of guesswork that could mess things up real bad. Especially if there’s already some sort of incentive to bend data in the direction of more coronavirus deaths. What if people assign COVID-19 willy nilly to anyone who has a cough or fever? Or who had a poorly-timed bout of allergies? Where does the line get drawn? For sure, “probable,” “presumed,” “suspected,” and “likely” aren’t very reassuring words when it comes to a disease we’ve shut down the whole globe to contain.
But is this actually conspiracy worthy? And, in a clinical setting, with actual doctors doing doctor things rather than us internet-dwelling oafs imagining how it all might go, would these guidelines really lead to a significant over-reporting of COVID-19 deaths?
For starters, let’s look more closely at that CDC reporting guide. Although it does say COVID-19 deaths can be assigned without a positive test result, it also emphasizes the importance of drawing from all available evidence in order to make an informed judgment:
And medical examiners are broadly allowed to list “causes that are suspected,” and to “use words such as ‘probable’ or ‘presumed’”—again, for any death-cause:
And here we see the CDC’s Instructions for Completing the Cause-of-Death Section of the Death Certificate telling us again that a condition can be listed as “probable” even if there isn’t a definitive diagnosis (and also the words YOUR and OPINION written in CAPS because the CDC successfully learned how to yell on the internet; good job, CDC):
*I know it’s tiny; click for bigger
Are you sick of this yet? Guess what? Alzheimer’s deaths can get the same code whether the disease is confirmed or “probable”:
Oh hey, remember 83 seconds ago when we were so mad that COVID-19 deaths could be listed as “probable” or “presumed”? Because it seemed like some unique-to-coronavirus word twist intended to help pad the death stats? REMEMBER?
No. Just no. This same language is consistent through all the cause of death guidelines, no matter the killer in question. It’s been that way for years. And COVID-19 is even lucky enough to get separate codes for “probable” versus “confirmed” cases, which is more than we can say for some other diseases. (And to boot, some places were already seeing COVID-19 mortality explode before reporting the “probable” deaths at all.) Heck, the guidelines for coronavirus deaths are far more straightforward than the maze-like estimation formula the CDC takes for flu mortality.
In short—and please make me eat my words if I’ve overlooked something important here—this really isn’t outrage-worthy. Certifying any form of death is an imperfect, partly subjective process, and concessions for that reality are baked into all sorts of official guidelines. If overzealous COVIDing is happening (and you’re welcome to investigate any theory-offshoots that it is), it’s not because the CDC told death certifiers to cook the books.
Claim #2
2. As for pneumonia deaths getting classified as COVID-19 deaths? This graph of CDC data has been making the rounds as evidence that something very shady, very shady indeed, is going on. As you can see, around week 10 of this year (starting March 2nd), pneumonia mortality told its wife it loved her and then jumped off a cliff:
If we’re already primed to think the COVID-19 numbers are being doctored, we might take this graph at face value and add it to our stash of outrage fodder. But that would not be smart, friends. Face value is where critical thinking goes to die. And so, in the spirit of questioning literally everything, we must ask: could anything else explain what we’re seeing?
As a matter of fact, yes! So much yes! We only have to venture as far as the CDC’s Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) page to see what’s up. Go take a look. Especially the “Delays in reporting” section. Thar be some gold.
Basically, the CDC’s death-certificate-processing system is a slow, laborious beast that ensures any recent mortality data is always incomplete. They give a decent rundown of how death certificates get handled from start to finish:
Provisional counts of deaths are underestimated relative to final counts. This is due to the many steps involved in reporting death certificate data. When a death occurs, a certifier (e.g. physician, medical examiner or coroner) will complete the death certificate with the underlying cause of death and any contributing causes of death. In some cases, laboratory tests or autopsy results may be required to determine the cause of death. Completed death certificate are sent to the state vital records office and then to NCHS for cause of death coding.
And here we have a special shoutout to our favorite infectious diseases, noting that pneumonia, flu, and COVID-19 certificates take extra long to trickle into the data pool due to manual coding (emphases mine):
At NCHS, about 80% of deaths are automatically processed and coded within seconds, but 20% of deaths need to manually coded, or coded by a person. Deaths involving certain conditions such as influenza and pneumonia are more likely to require manual codingthan other causes of death. Furthermore, all deaths with COVID-19 are manually coded. Death certificates are typically manually coded within 7 days of receipt, although the coding delay can grow if there is a large increase in the number of deaths. As a result, underestimation of the number of deaths may be greater for certain causes of death than others.
Zooming in even further, the CDC gives some stats conveying just how incomplete their recent data is, and boy howdy is it a sorry sight. At any given moment, data from two weeks ago is likely to be barely over a quarter complete, while data from eight weeks ago is still less than three-quarters complete:
Previous analyses of provisional data completeness from 2015 suggested that mortality data is approximately 27% complete within 2 weeks, 54% complete within 4 weeks, and at least 75% complete within 8 weeks of when the death occurred.Pneumonia deaths are 26% complete within 2 weeks, 52% complete within 4 weeks, and 72% complete within 8 weeks (unpublished). Data timeliness has improved in recent years, and current timeliness is likely higher than published rates.
The CDC even slaps this little disclaimer after each table of COVID-19, pneumonia, and flu death counts:
Once again, with feeling: CDC mortality figures are initially very incomplete, low-balled-as-all-get-out, and retroactively fill in over time. Which means a weird pneumonia death-drop will show up any time we check the most recent data, COVID or No-vid.
To illustrate, Joseph Dunn graphed the CDC’s pneumonia data as it appeared on the same mid-March week of each year since 2013. Behold:
Look at all them swan dives!
And data scientist Tyler Morgan even went to the trouble of graphing the data from every weekly CDC pneumonia report published in the last decade, to show how the lines shift as data gets back-filled. Click here or on the image below for the really cool animation (it’s weirdly beautiful and absolutely worth the 30 seconds of your life):
In other words, there’s nothing anomalous at all about 2020’s pneumonia trends. Nothing. The popular graph up top is a meaningless piece of hooey and it’s sad that it went viral.
Note: there’s an issue here I’m cognizant of, but intentionally not touching on yet, which is that some people believe the CDC (and any other government organization) literally makes up data from thin air, thus rendering all of the above irrelevant. This level of conspiracy is beyond the scope of this post, but I may try to address it at some point later on. Not from a data angle, but from a psychological one.
Claim #3
3. Here we have the wildly popular claim that people are dying with COVID-19, not really from COVID-19. At least, not in the numbers we’re being told. It’s basically a steroided-up version of Claim #1—just with more trickery and plot-thickness and finger-tenting.
The evidence for this one is a lot harder to fact-check, because there are actually no facts to check. Its trueness rests on us believing that doctors and death-certifiers are being marionetted by evil forces and/or just plumb don’t know what they’re doing.
The closest thing we’ve got to “evidence” are citationless social media statements like the above, which we’re expected to trust because LOOK AT ALL THOSE RETWEETS!, a few well-publicized examples of allegedly mis-assigned COVID-19 deaths, and Youtube interviews with people who are pretty sure they know what’s going on. Like this one, featuring Dr. Annie Bukacek, with nearly 750,000 views at the time of writing.
Apparently, she knows her stuff. And the stuff she knows is that the coronavirus figures are being manipulated!
Hmmm…
Hmmmmmm…
Hmmmmmmmmm.
Serious question: how many of us bothered to look Dr. Bukacek up before thrusting her atop a pedestal of trustworthiness? And sharing her video far across the lands? And assuming she’s an impartial commentator on the whole situation (her praiseful introducer was literally her pastor)? Should we really put faith in someone we didn’t even know existed ten seconds ago just because 1) they’re telling us what we want to hear and 2) an internet headline made them sound prestigious?
By the way, to state the obvious, this is me intentionally and very shamelessly cherry-picking to make a point. Not all of her reviews are bad. Nor do the existing ones necessarily prove she isn’t credible. And if we wanted to be truly fair, we could prod deeper and ask whether she might be getting bad-review-bombed due to her vocal pro-life activism or religious affiliation or anti-vaccine stance (she’s definitely got some haterz). There’s a lot of sticky tricky gray-zone business in evaluating reputation, which is why—whenever possible—we should investigate a person’s claims rather than their character.
But the issue here is that with Dr. Bukacek, we can’t “investigate her claims” without installing cameras into every death certifier’s brain and watching what unfolds within their basal ganglias. So we’re left with only her word. And one person’s word is not useful data. Even if it’s the best of persons and the best of words.
Now, to play devil’s advocate with my own arguments here, there’s another popular video—this one featuring Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx—that seems more genuinely suspect. I saved this one for last because it might actually have some merit. In it, Dr. Birx talks about the USA’s “very liberal approach to mortality” and outright states that people who die with COVID-19 are counted as COVID-19 deaths:
Transcript: There are other countries that if you had a preexisting condition, and let’s say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem, some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. Right now we’re still recording it and we’ll—I mean the great thing about having forms that come in and a form that has the ability to mark it as COVID-19 infection, the intent is right now that those—if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that [as a COVID-19 death].
It’s not surprising this clip went gangbusters! It seems like a deal-clinching A-ha for anyone who suspected COVID-19 was getting slapped onto every death possible.
However, here and always, context matters. After all, this segment was carefully cropped from a much longer coronavirus briefing from April 7th. And if we listen to the full segment—the audience question that came before this clip, and the follow-up question that came after it, and the follow-up answer Dr. Birx gave, and the addendum answer Dr. Anthony Fauci gave—we can better orient ourselves in the conversation that was happening.
Go have a listen. The relevant stuff starts at the 1:39:07 mark:
Could it be that Dr. Birx thought the question-asker was wondering if lack of testing might cause under-reporting, and tried to reassure her by explaining that the current COVID hotspots are flush with tests? And that people with “heart or kidney problems” wouldn’t be reported as dying from those things if they’d ended up in the ICU from coronavirus? (Especially given that COVID-19 itself can cause cardiac injury and kidney damage?)
It sounds to me like the thrust of the asker’s question—which was more along the lines of “Are we sure we’re not over-counting deaths?!”—went over the heads of the task force, and they addressed a different issue than the one she was trying to get at.
But I can’t read minds. And I can’t prove that it’s not all just political doublespeak and of course they understood the question. And I think there’s far too little information in this video alone to assess it from a “scam vs. not-scam” angle. And most importantly, in the absence of actual mortality data that could clue us in to potential over-reporting, I doubt analyzing this thing to smithereens can bring us any closer to the truth.
But, you be the judge. And speaking of mortality data…
Claim #4
4. Lastly and not leastly: the claim that COVID-19 isn’t actually causing excess mortality; we’re just reshuffling death causes to stack up higher for COVID-19 and lower for everything else. Boom, insta-pandemic!
First, a note. This is a Very Important claim. It’s the supreme ruler of all the claims that came before it and perhaps all those incipient ones that will come after. It has executive power and a VIP card for entry into the most highly guarded chambers of our brains. This is because, unlike causes of death, actual body counts can’t be fudged. This is the one true test. If COVID-19 really is taking lives en masse above and beyond what we’d expect from normal death trends, total mortality is where it’ll show up. If it’s not, then our game of death-code musical chairs will be revealed for the con that it is.
Again: Very Important claim. This is the crux of it, my dear readers.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to test this claim: looking at total mortality trends in areas that COVID-19 has purportedly ravaged, and comparing that to historical mortality in the same location. An absence of anomalous death spikes—taking into account, of course, delays in processing death certificates and the lag time between infection and dying—would suggest we’re over-reporting COVID-19. And if excess mortality does appear, then we either have to concede that COVID-19 isn’t a nothingburger after all, or propose that some other ghastly, unnamed entity is stealing lives very coincidentally at the same time we have a made-up pandemic.
*Keep in mind, too, that our current near-global quarantine should slash deaths from accidents and certain crimes and infectious disease—and thus “normal” mortality rates for right now would likely be lower than for previous years.
So let’s dig into this. The “COVID-19 is overblown” theory asserts that total mortality isn’t doing anything unusual. At least not significantly so. No more than a bad flu year, let’s say. And depending on the source, we may be furnished with graphs that seem to demonstrate this truth to our hungry, data-seeking eyes, such as the following for England and Wales:
There’s one very big problem here. Check the dates.
Almost universally, the “See, it’s nothing!” graphs use data from mid to late March, when COVID-19 was just starting to pick up steam in the areas it’s most recently terrorized. And in March, there really weren’t massive mortality spikes, except perhaps for Italy. Nothing to see here, folks was true. And no one in the infectious disease world was claiming otherwise. In March, the rumblings of upcoming mortality explosions was what people were getting worried about, not the numbers as they then stood. The whole deal with “exponential growth” is that it’s—wait for it—exponential. This is how we went from 0 reported COVID-19 deaths in the USA on February 15th, 65 deaths one month later, and 30,000 deaths yet another month later.
So let’s see what happens when we look, instead, at more recent data from countries with known COVID-19 outbreaks. (This site is a great starting resource for raw mortality data and some visuals.)
First, here’s what’s up with England and Wales now (source):
And another depiction suggesting COVID-19 deaths may be under-reported (data source and image source):
A big chunk o’ Europe getting excess-mortalitied (source):
New York City, graphed by the New York Times (article here; viewable with free subscription) (NOTE: this data is almost two weeks outdated and the the April deaths are now many magnitudes higher):
We could do this all day, but you get the point.
Here’s the deal, folks. People. Are. Dying. The mortality trends for COVID-19-affected areas look like what happens when you’re trying to draw a straight line and then sneeze. This is not normal. This is not how things “should” look. We can argue all we want about how accurate the COVID-19-specific data is—and indeed, there’s plenty to argue about— but total mortality doesn’t lie. This is real.
Final Thoughts
By all means, the above peel-apart is far from complete. I’m sure there are more viral videos we could assess, more statistics to double-check, more anomalies to ponder. The point isn’t to reach a final conclusion here—just to demonstrate the process. The level of detail that must go into investigating a theory before we let ourselves fully entertain it. And if that process seems exhausting, excessive, excruciatingly nit-picky, too time consuming—well, it’s the price of admission for calling ourselves “informed.” Anything less and we’re operating on faith. Which is okay, if that’s our goal. But we must call it what it is.
Now maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, the ‘COVID-19 deaths are getting padded’ theory didn’t really hold up. But what about G5 radiation causing virus symptoms? What about mandatory vaccine agendas getting pushed on the world? What about COVID-19 being a bioweapon? What about what about what about?”
To which I say, Yes! Great! What about them indeed! Put on your best-tailored thinking cap and go find out. Marinate in all the data you can find. Watch out for claims that seem sciencey but trace back to a 4chan post. Be mindful of the universal human tendency to filter out things we disagree with and embrace any evidence that we like. Dig in, first and foremost, with the goal of proving yourself wrong. If you can’t, then perhaps there’s something there.
Of course, I realize the type of deep-dive we did in this post isn’t always possible, and not everyone can sit at home all day opening so many browser tabs that their MacBook freezes with a “System Has Run Run Out of Application Memory” error (anyone else? No? Just me?). Sometimes we need shortcuts. So for anyone who really wants to do the work, to prioritize truth-seeking over ideology, to stay oriented in reality, to let go of false narratives, but who doesn’t have infinite time to do so: here are some questions to ask whenever a new or alternative theory presents itself. Especially a theory we find ourselves enamored with. None of these questions can substitute for ruthlessly investigating, but they can help us stay grounded in situations where our minds easily lead us astray.
Am I claiming to see through the media’s fear-mongering, but falling prey to conspiracy fear-mongering instead?
Am I being pressured to accept this theory in order to be “woke” or “not sheeple”?
Have I read the full context of this quote, clip, or screenshot before assuming I know what it means?
Does the group promoting this theory invite questions and critiques? Or does it flippantly dismiss those things and/or attack its doubters?
If this same form of evidence (Youtube interview, social media comment, etc.) was used to support the “other side” instead of mine, would I still consider it trustworthy?
Am I taking time to research counter-arguments to these ideas, even when I want them to be true?
Am I looking for good vs. evil narratives as a distraction from my immediate reality? Is getting worked up about hypothetical injustice easier than being present with what is?
Am I embracing this theory as a way to feel like I have control—by naming an enemy in a situation where I’m otherwise helpless?
Does seeing myself as a “good guy” on the side of “truth” or “justice” make me feel validated, empowered, and important?
It’s easy to trick ourselves into thinking we’re being Good Skeptics when we’ve really only lifted one veil of many. There’s nothing “woke” about rejecting the official story while gullibly swallowing its alternatives.
Rather, waking up means waking up to ourselves. It’s recognizing that the battle of good and evil we project onto the world is playing out daily within ourselves. It’s committing to seeing “what is,” instead of stories about “what is.” It’s spreading our skepticism evenly across the info-scape instead of saving it for the things we already distrust.
So here it is, you guys. This is me groveling at the collective feet of the internet, with one thing to say: to anyone—everyone—listening, we need to reflect on how we’re processing the claims we hear. If we’re going to question official narratives, we need to question alternative narratives with the same degree of rigor. There’s no use retiring our sheeplehood from the mainstream only to rejoin the herd on a different pasture.
5G is the newest wireless networking technology that phones, smartwatches, cars, and other mobile devices, and who knows what else, will use in the coming years, but it won’t be available in every country at the same time.
North Americans have already seen smaller iterations of 5G networks pop up, but it’s only just now, in 2020, taking off in most areas due to the elemental challenges of 5G networks. Estimates say that by 2023, up to 32 percent of North American mobile connections will be on a 5G network.
UNITED STATES
5G fixed wireless broadband internet from Verizon, C Spire, and Starry is currently available at a handful of locations, and Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have mobile 5G services available in various cities. More areas will get at-home and mobile 5G this year, from those companies and others like U.S. Cellular.
Canada’s Telus Mobility has given 2020 as the year 5G is available to its customers, but explains that people in the Vancouver area can expect early access.
Wireless provider Claro began testing 5G in Puerto Rico in 2019.
Central America 5G
Central American countries will most likely see a slow 5G rollout.
HONDURAS
Ericsson announced in December 2018, that Tigo had chosen the company to modernize its radio access network. The deal “includes the provision of a 5G-ready multi-standard network.”
There’s no word on when 5G will reach Honduras but this agreement is an important first step.
South America 5G
South American countries with the greatest populations began to see 5G come out in spurts beginning in late 2019.
CHILE
Entel is the largest telecommunications company in Chile and has partnered with Ericsson to bring 5G wireless service to Chilean customers.
ARGENTINA
Movistar and Ericsson tested 5G systems in 2017 and will likely roll it out to customers around the same time that Chile sees 5G.
BRAZIL
After having signed an agreement to help develop and deploy the technology, we expect Brazil to usher in 5G service starting sometime in 2020.
This time range is also supported by Qualcomm director Helio Oyama, who has stated that 5G will most likely hit Brazil a few years after it’s commercially available elsewhere in 2020.
COLOMBIA
Telefónica Telecom, Colombia’s largest telecommunications company, will likely have 5G services available for customers in 2020.
Telecommunications company Tigo reached a deal with Ericsson to prepare their network for 5G. Ericsson said in December 2018, that they will “expand TIGO’s existing network and modernize the existing 2G/3G and 4G sites, making the network the best fit for TIGO to deliver 5G and IoT services in the future.”
It’s not yet clear when Tigo customers will see 5G in Paraguay, but this deal is definitely a good starting point.
ARUBA
SETAR is Aruba’s leading communications provider, and through a partnership with Nokia, the two expect full coverage on the island by 2022.
Asia 5G
5G is live in a handful of areas, with widespread coverage expected this year.
SOUTH KOREA
These three South Korean companies collaborated to bring mobile 5G to the country on December 1, 2018: SK Telecom, LG Uplus, and KT. They began with 5G service for select businesses only, but on April 5, opened up 5G for others, too, via the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G.
LG Uplus’ 5G network went live in Seoul and surrounding locations, with LS Mtron as their first customer. With over 4,000 5G base stations positioned in Incheon, Seoul, and Gyeonggi, the company planned over 7,000 more to be deployed by the end of 2018.
KT previously collaborated with Intel to showcase 5G service at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, and plans to invest over $20 billionthrough 2023 in 5G and other innovative technologies.
According to the ICT and Broadcasting Technology Policy director at the Ministry of Science and ICT, Heo Won-seok, five percent of the country’s mobile users will be on a 5G network in 2020, and 90 percent by 2026.
The 5G service launched with a maximum data rate of 3.4 Gbps that will increase to 4.1 Gbps in June 2020. See the NTT DOCOMO 5G smartphone pagefor device options.
In September 2018, NTT DOCOMO successfully achieved 25–27 Gbps download speeds in a 5G trial with Mitsubishi Electric. The test could be used to develop a high-speed 5G network that works with vehicles.
Three wireless carriers launched 5G in China on October 31, 2019: China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom.
However, these companies don’t provide widespread 5G coverage just yet. The most popular areas with 5G in China right now include Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
3 Hong Kong launched 5G on April 1, 2020. According to the press release, 5G is expected to cover indoor and outdoor areas in all districts in Hong Kong within 2020.
SmarTone is another company looking into serving 5G in China.
According to Ooredoo, a telecom company in Qatar that has been working on implementing 5G since 2016, they were the first company in the world to provide commercial 5G access.
5G is currently only available in Qatar, but since Ooredoo has markets in Iraq, Oman, Palestine, Maldives, Singapore, Algeria, and other countries, it isn’t a stretch to think that we’ll see 5G reach those areas in 2020.
Vodafone is another company providing 5G in Qatar. In late 2018, the company launched a 5G network in Katara Cultural Village and Souq Waqif, and before that, in Abu Hamour, Azizya, Al Mamoura, Al Rayyan, Salwa Road, and Umm Salal Mohammed. Vodafone Qatar offers unlimited 5G plans and a handful of 5G phones.
KUWAIT
Two telecommunication companies in Kuwait have launched 5G service.
On the same day, just hours later, Ooredoo announced similar news. The 5G plans available from Ooredoo include a 500 GB 45 KWD /month plan and a 1 TB 65 KWD /month plan.
STC (formerly called VIVA) is another telecom company in Kuwait that has launched 5G services. See the 5G coverage map on their website for details.
STC launched a 5G Innovation Center that was created to “explore, develop, and launch new 5G use cases in Kuwait by 2019.” As of February 2019, they had over 1,000 5G NR sites ready to go, and will roll out nationwide 5G services in partnership with Huawei.
In early 2019, Etisalat UAE reached a deal with Huawei to “offer its latest state of the art network solutions including 5G wireless, 5G service oriented core and 5G ready transport network to facilitate smooth 5G technology adaption.” Etisalat UAE also selected Ericsson to deploy a 5G network in the United Arab Emirates, both mobile broadband and fixed wireless access.
5G is also coming to the United Arab Emirates from du. Officially called EITC, or Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, they announced in early 2019 the rollout of 700 5G sites. Their partners include Nokia and Huawei.
According to Manoj Sinha, the minister of the Department of Telecommunications, India is set to adopt 5G this year: “When the world will roll out 5G in 2020, I believe India will be at par with them.”
On top of that, in August 2018, one of India’s largest telecom providers, Vodafone Idea Limited (previously called Idea Cellular), merged with Vodafone (which was the world’s second-largest phone company before the merger). Vodafone was already preparing for 5G, having set up “future ready technology” in 2017 by upgrading their entire radio network to support 5G.
A 5G test network is being erected in 2020 from Cavil Wireless.
INDONESIA
Anyone who attended the Asian Games in 2018 could have tried out 5G in Jakarta, Indonesia. A special Telkomsel SIM card was needed in order to connect to the network.
It’s unclear whether Indonesia will see commercial 5G begin to roll out in 2020 or later, but a trial of this size was a great indicator that they’re on a track of some sort. Plus, the company has partnered with Ericsson to upgrade their network in preparation for 5G.
In November, the company trialed 5G fixed wireless access solutions with Samsung in Istanbul. Turkcell’s CEO commented that “Today, with 5G, we have shown that the latest generation of high-speed wireless access is now possible for our customers. Our goal is clear: to make Turkey one of the first countries in the world with 5G technology.”
In early 2019, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) in Turkey approved 5G trials in Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara. The companies involved include Turkcell, Vodafone Turkey, and TT Mobil.
Turk Telekom is another company looking into bringing 5G to Turkey. In September 2019, the CEO said that the company is the “most ready operator for 5G in terms of fiber infrastructure prevalence.”
It’s clear that Turkcell is on the right path to providing Turkey with 5G, but it’s unclear when, exactly, customers can expect a live network.
VIETNAM
Vietnam will see 5G in 2020. According to the country’s state-owned and largest telecom company, Viettel, 5G trials were run in 2019 and they plan to have a network ready in June of 2020.
There are a few mobile network operators in Iran, the largest of which is Mobile Telecommunication Company of Iran (MCI). MCI currently offers “4.5G” internet, which shows that they’re on a path to providing 5G in Iran. They also signed an agreement with Nokia in 2017 to develop 5G technology in Iran.
Iran’s second-largest provider, Irancell, provides both mobile and fixed wireless internet services. In late 2017, in collaboration with Ericsson, the two performed their first 5G test in Tehran and said that 5G will be available in Iran in 2020.
Taiwan Star offers its customers a 5G upgrade experience that they can enroll in to take advantage of reduced prices once 5G rolls out in Taiwan.
SINGAPORE
StarHub announced in November 2018, that they, in partnership with Nokia, completed their first outdoor pilot of 5G on the 3.5 GHz frequency band. However, there’s no information on when StarHub will have a 5G network ready for Singaporean customers.
The IMDA (Info-communications Media Development Authority) is an organization of the Singaporean government that says a 5G network rollout will take place in 2020. There might even be two networks coming to Singapore since IMDA plans to allocate millimeter bands for 5G that “will be sufficient for at least two nationwide 5G networks.”
In fact, all four telcos might bring 5G to Singapore, including Singtel, M1, and TPG Telecom.
PHILIPPINES
The wireless communications company Smart has been testing 5G since 2016 and announced in June of 2018 the launch of 5G TehnoLab, their 5G innovation lab. Smart plans to have a 5G-ready network live for customers in 2020.
Globe Telecom has a 5G fixed wireless broadband service called Globe At Home Air Fiber 5G, offering speeds up to 100 Mbps and data packages as large as 2 TB.
Although Bangladesh is one of the top 10 most populous countries in the world, it was very slow to roll out 4G and will likely also take much longer than other countries to implement 5G.
In early 2018, the country’s telecom regulator BTRC said that “The world will embrace 5G in 2020. So, we too will have to accept new technology and must move on to 5G. There is no option for procrastination.”
BTRC is expected to auction spectrum for 5G services before the end of 2020 to allow for widespread 5G coverage by 2026.
BTCL and Banglalink are two companies to watch for 5G in Bangladesh.
MALAYSIA
5G in Malaysia will likely start to be available in specific areas in 2020.
In early 2019, Maxis and Huawei and U Mobile and ZTE signed MoUs (memorandums of understanding) to collaborate on 5G deployment in Malaysia.
TM announced in late 2019 that they’d be participating in the 5G Demonstration Project to test new 5G features and learn how to best deploy 5G in Malaysia. They’ve tested using 5G for smart traffic lights, smart safety and security, and smart parking.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) expects commercial deployment of 5G in Malaysia to take place by the third quarter of 2020.
PAKISTAN
5G might go live for consumers this year given that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority prepared for public 5G trials in 2019.
Another tip that 5G is coming to Pakistan is that the country’s 4G pioneer Zongalso became the first company in the country to test 5G services in August 2019.
Telenor Pakistan is looking into bringing 5G to the country as well, but no dates have been released.
SAUDI ARABIA
5G has been available in Saudi Arabia through Saudi Telecom Company (STC)since June 2019, but only in specific areas of major cities and only through home routers (no mobile option, yet).
According to the company’s CEO:
5G is considered as a very important step toward digitalization and connecting everything, which supports Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 toward economic diversification.
The 5G release in Saudi Arabia took place months after the company reached a deal with Ericsson to launch 5G in the country. STC has also partnered with Nokia to roll out 5G in Saudi Arabia; they announced in early 2019 that the rollout phase had already started.
5G in Bahrain arrived in July 2019 when STC (previously called VIVA) launched their 5G data plans. You can get mobile 5G from STC with one of their 5G phones, or 5G at home with the 5G router. The service is available in areas like Reef Island, Amwaj Islands, and Riffa Views.
5G in Kazakhstan isn’t coming as soon as other countries despite the fact that it’s the ninth-largest country in the world. However, according to Prime Minister Askar Mamin, 5G is definitely in sight, calling for an “Action Plan for the implementation of 5G in Kazakhstan.”
Askar Mamin said in a meeting held in May 2019, that 5G is expected to cover all Kazakhstan settlements that have a population greater than 50 thousand people.
Service provider Smart Axiata will most likely be the first company to launch 5G in Cambodia. They were the first service provider to make 4G available in the country in 2014, and followed up in 2019 by showcasing the country’s first 5G live trial. The company expects the first few years of their 5G rollout in Cambodia to be focused on hotspots in major cities.
Vodacom Group, which was the first to introduce 4G, 3G, and 2G in South Africa, is at it again with the release of a 5G trial in Lesotho in August 2018. They showcased a fixed wireless access (FWA) network using a temporary license in the 3.5 GHz band.
Rain is another South African telecom that’s rolling out 5G. From November 11, 2019 and onward, Rain customers can access the 5G network from home in parts of Johannesburg and Tshwane, with more areas becoming available throughout 2020. Check 5G coverage in South Africa with the Rain coverage map.
MTN Group Limited partnered with Ericsson in November 2018, to deploy a fixed wireless access 5G site in Midrand. Although MTN South African hasn’t announced a 5G release date, the trials and tests they’ve performed shows that they’re interested in developing 5G applications and might one day offer customers a 5G network.
Tigo Senegal and Ericsson are working together to upgrade its network to roll out LTE across 1,000 sites. While this isn’t 5G service, it is an important stepping stone.
The telecom company Inwi, which covers over 90 percent of the country with mobile internet access, is bringing 5G to Morocco.
The two other licensed telecom companies in Morocco are Orange Morocco and Maroc Telecom, but both have been silent on a 5G deployment in the country.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
The release date for 5G in the Congo is unclear, but according to Léon Juste Ibombo, the country’s minister of Posts, Telecommunications and Digital Economy, we know that the 5G rollout will involve Applus and Congo Telecom:
Investments in Congo’s telecommunications sector are astronomical and the state needs credible companies to help it implement the digital economy ecosystem. This company will help our incumbent operator, Congo Telecom, to implement 5G.
TUNISIA
Ooredoo Tunisia has partnered with Nokia through the use of the company’s AirGile cloud-native core, to transition Ooredoo to a place where it can provide Tunisia customers with 5G.
5G networks are live right now in some European countries, and others will get 5G during 2020.
NORWAY
Telenor, the country’s biggest telecom operator, launched 5G in Norway in March, 2020, following early testing from 2017. These locations currently have access to the 5G network: Kongsberg, Elverum, Bodø, Askvoll, Fornebu, Kvitfjell, Longyearbyen and Spikersuppa in Oslo, and Trondheim.
Telia Company is another mobile network operator in Norway that opened its first 5G test network in December 2018. Their first trial partner was the Odeon movie theater in Oslo, marking the world’s first 5G cinema. Managing director of Telia Norway said in their December press release, “We are going to develop 5G-based solutions industry by industry, area by area.”
Telia Norway also partnered with Norwegian ISP Get to launch a 5G pilot in a family home, complete with smart tech from Futurehome. Get’s product director said “This family is far ahead of the rest of us, with a home filled with clever things connected through 5G. It is something the rest of us will not experience for several years, but it’s really fun to see what we will get with the latest technology.”
GERMANY
According to the 5G Strategy for Germany, released by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), trial installations began in 2018 with a commercial launch in 2020. 5G is planned to be rolled out “over the period to 2025.”
Deutsche Telekom rolled out 5G in Germany in Berlin, Darmstadt, Munich, Bonn, and Cologne in September 2019. Connectivity is possible through the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G, Huawei Mate 20 X 5G, and HTC 5G Hub. A total of at least 20 major German cities will have 5G by the end of 2020, and they plan to cover 90 percent of the country with 5G by 2025.
Broadband telecom provider Telefónica Germany revealed in December 2018, that in collaboration with Nokia, they finished building their “Early 5G Innovation Cluster” in Berlin. It will be used to “test and measure the performance and coverage of first 5G services in a dense urban area.”
German ISP United Internet AG is another potential 5G player, having announced in early 2019 that they’d be taking part in a 5G spectrum auction.
CZECH REPUBLIC
Vodafone will provide 5G services to customers in Karlovy Vary by July 2020. This will come a full year after the company tested a 5G holographic call in the same city.
UNITED KINGDOM
The UK’s largest network operator, EE, was the first to launch 5G in the UK on May 30, 2019. Service started in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Birmingham, and Manchester, and the company now operates the 5G network in over 70 cities and towns.
EE was also the first in the world to offer the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G smartphone, but they also offer their customers the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, OPPO Reno 5G, LG V50 ThinQ, and other 5G phones. See their list of 5G phones for all of them.
Vodafone UK is another big mobile telecommunications provider in the UK. After testing how 5G can be used in car communications and successfully completing a holographic phone call using 5G, they launched their fifth-gen network in seven cities on July 3, bringing their total 5G coverage to 15 UK locations. The Vodafone 5G phones you can use on the network include the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 5G.
O2 has a 5G network in the United Kingdom, too. It’s currently available in 20 locations, including London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Leeds, Slough, Leicester, Lisburn, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Bradford, Sheffield, Bristol, and other locations. There are several 5G phonesyou can use on the O2 5G network.
CityFibre and Arqiva are two more companies with 5G trials in London. They’re in the process of creating a “5G-ready network platform nationwide that will provide the best network at the best economics for Mobile Network Operators.”
Vodafone launched 5G in Italy in these five cities in June 2019: Naples, Bologna, Milan, Turin, and Rome. The company plans to roll out 5G to 100 cities by 2021. There are several 5G phones you can buy through Vodafone’s website.
TIM (Telecom Italia), the largest telecom provider in Italy, made 5G available in Naples, Rome, and Turin as of July 5, 2019. Their 5G network went live in another six cities before the start of 2020: Milan, Bologna, Verona, Florence, Matera, and Bari. By 2021, 120 towns and cities will be covered with TIM’s 5G network.
The first 5G network in Switzerland went live April 17, 2019, via Swisscom. It launched in 54 towns, including Basel, Bern, Chur, Davos, Geneva, Lausanne, and Zurich. According to Swisscom, more than 90 percent of the population is covered.
The country’s second-largest telecommunications company, Sunrise, is also working to release 5G in Switzerland. They’ve already covered over 200 cities/villages with 5G, blanketing 80–98% of Dietikon, Bülach, Opfikon, Autafond, and other locations with 5G coverage. There’s a Sunrise 5G coverage map available, which also lists all the areas you can get Sunrise 5G service in Switzerland.
The company currently offers four 5G smartphones: Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G, Huawei Mate 20 X 5G, and Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 5G. They also provide the HTC 5G Hub.
Salt (formerly Orange Communications) is another telecom company planning 5G in Switzerland. They revealed in January 2019 that they selected Nokia to upgrade their radio and mobile core network to provide mobile 5G services.
According to Vodafone, 5G speeds at launch can be up to 1 Gbps, but will increase to up to 2 Gbps before the end of the year. You need a 5G phone from Vodafone Spain to access the network.
After initially purchasing spectrum to implement 5G, Vodafone Spain launched 5G trials in various cities in June 2018, including Madrid, Valencia, Seville, and Barcelona. In late 2018, they installed a 5G network node in La Nave, Madrid, and in February 2019 used standards-based 5G phones to complete their first 5G video calls between Madrid and Barcelona.
Orange plans to launch 5G in Spain in 2020. The company revealed in early 2019 that they made their first 5G call using their next-gen network in Valencia and will continue testing the 5G technology in Seville, Vigo, Malaga, Barcelona, Bilbao, and other cities.
AUSTRIA
Network operator A1 kicked off their path toward 5G in Austria by making their first 5G data connection in Gmünd in early January 2019. See their 5G plans and phones here.
Hutchison Three Austria and ZTE are deploying 5G in Austria, too. Their first business client was in Linz, and with 20 5G sites set up by June 2019, it marked Austria’s first city with continuous 5G coverage.
FINLAND
The Elisa Oyj telecommunications company in Finland opened a commercial 5G network in Tampere in June 2018, claiming to be “first in world to launch commercial 5G.” According to their 5G coverage map, the network is also located in Oulu, Kuopio, Helsinki, Jyväskylä, and other areas.
DNA is another Finnish telecommunications company bringing 5G to Finland. They began offering fixed wireless access service in December, 2019. However, the company says that even with the introduction of 5G, 4G will remain the primary network technology used by most people.
RUSSIA
In 2018, Russia’s largest mobile operator, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), partnered with Samsung to run various 5G tests that included video calls, ultra-low latency video games, and 4K video streaming.
These 5G tests were performed to show that not only is 5G coming to Russia but that Samsung’s 5G routers, tablets, and other devices are fully capable of running on a 5G network.
According to GSMA, 5G networks will cover over 80 percent of the Russian population by 2025, so it can be assumed that a big portion of the country will have access even sooner.
Another indicator that 5G in Russia is coming sooner than later is the 5G research center that’s open in Innopolis, a high-tech city in the Republic of Tatarstan.
Tele2 Russia is another telecom company bringing 5G to Russia. In collaboration with Ericsson, the company announced in February 2019 that they’d deploy 50,000 base stations in Russia. However, Tele2’s CEO says “Before launching 5G networks, Russia must first address several infrastructure issues.”, so customers might have to wait a while to receive 5G services.
LUXEMBOURG
Orange is currently the only European telecommunications company that has announced 5G plans for Luxembourg.
SLOVAKIA
It’s unclear when 5G is coming to Slovakia, but mobile operator SWAN Mobilesigned a 5G commercial contract with ZTE in early 2019 to kick off 5G rollout plans. In July 2019, the two performed the the country’s first 5G video call.
The telecom giant Vodafone went live with a 5G network in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, and Waterford on August 13, 2019.
eir’s 5G network is live as well. Its launch locations included Dublin, Limerick, Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, Galway, Dundalk, and more. There’s an eir 5G coverage map with all the locations.
Vodafone is also working on fixed wireless access. In early December 2018, the company announced that they would begin trials for rural 5G broadband in Roscommon, Gorey, Dungarvan, and Clonmel, covering 20,000 premises.
Imagine is another telecom bringing 5G to Ireland. They announced the launch of their 5G-ready fixed broadband network in February 2019 and plan to build out over 300 sites to cover over one million premises by the fall of 2020.
As an Irish company, we are delighted to announce this significant investment and a new approach which will finally solve this problem and deliver much needed, fast and reliable high-speed broadband to homes, businesses and communities across regional and rural Ireland, today and into the future.
The 5G Strategy for Romania projects an action plan with concrete tasks and deadlines for deployment, targeting the launch of services in 2020 and 5G service coverage of all urban centers and major land transport routes by 2025.
RCS & RDS is the largest Romanian cable and satellite TV company, and they also have 5G available through the Digi Mobil 5G Smart network.
Orange launched 5G in Romania in November 2019. Coverage started in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, and Iasi, and will reach more areas throughout 2020. See the Orange 5G coverage map for details.
In early 2019, in collaboration with Volvo CE and Ericsson, Telia erected a 5G network in Eskilstuna with the primary focus being industrial use, such as remote-controlled machines.
A Tele2 5G network is coming to Sweden as well. They plan on providing access in 2020, but confirms that it’ll take a few years before the majority of people will have high-speed access.
POLAND
Polish mobile phone network T-Mobile Polska announced on December 7, 2018, the launch of the country’s first 5G network. It’s currently available only in the center of Warsaw via five base stations, but T-Mobile plans to develop 5G in other locations to reach the entire country.
According to T-Mobile,
Devices providing access to the network have been distributed to selected T‑Mobile partners, so they can be used in order to develop new business solutions and products, which will be eventually offered on the mass market.
Orange is another European mobile network operator that will launch 5G in Poland, but it won’t have a commercially available network up and running until 2020 or 2021.
Polkomtel’s Plus mobile phone network operator is rolling out 5G in Poland in 2020 with Ericsson’s 5G technology. The network will initially be deployed across Warsaw, Gdańsk, Katowice, Łódź, Poznań, Szczecin, and Wrocław.
PORTUGAL
Vodafone brought Portugal its first 5G connection on December 12, 2018, via a 5G smartphone prototype from Qualcomm. The company also tested a virtual reality game and video call on Ericsson’s 5G network.
testbed for innovation and research for industry partners and academia. TalTech University´s scientists and students, as well as companies and startups can create and test solutions that require fast, high-quality data connection.
support 5G use cases such as robotics control, industrial automation, 5G/LTE dual connectivity and Fixed Wireless Access for high performance last mile connectivity.
Mobile telecom company Azercell is planning to launch 5G in Azerbaijan. In early 2019, the company chose Ericsson in a two-year 5G deal to provide the telecom company with radio equipment and related services.
ICELAND
Síminn is the leading provider of wireless communication services in Iceland. They announced in early 2019 that they’d be partnering with Ericsson to deploy 5G-ready equipment to the country.
THE NETHERLANDS
T-Mobile is promising nationwide 5G coverage in the Netherlands in 2020. In the summer of 2019, T-Mobile announced the launch of three 5G research locations: Scheveningen, The Hague Tech, and the T-Mobile head office in The Hague.
Vodafone Malta doesn’t have a solid 5G release date yet, but they’re working on bringing 5G to Malta. On October 4, 2019, Vodafone Malta began letting customers try out 5G in areas of Birkirkara, St Julians, and Sliema.
Oceania 5G
Most major countries in Oceania saw limited 5G roll-out in 2019 with greater availability arriving in 2020.
AUSTRALIA
Australia’s second largest telecommunications company, Optus, launched 5G for mobile and home use on November 4, 2019. The launch involved over 290 5G sites in Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and other locations in NSW, Victoria, and Queensland. See the Optus 5G coverage mapfor details.
Telstra announced in August 2018, that they had enabled 5G technology in areas of the Gold Coast, giving the state of Queensland the country’s first 5G-ready network. They also enabled 5G mobile base stations in Adelaide, Canberra, and Perth in October 2018, and in Melbourne and Sydney in December. According to the CEO, Telstra erected 200+ 5G-capable sites before the end of 2018.
In November 2018, Telstra confirmed that they completed Australia’s very first 5G connection on a live network. The company’s Network Engineering Executive said that they will “continue testing over the coming months to improve data rates and overall performance in readiness for device availability.”
Vodafone has provided a 2020 release date for 5G in Australia. This is a reasonable time frame considering that not only is Vodafone the country’s largest mobile provider but because they partnered with Nokia in 2019 to agree to a 2020 5G rollout. Vodafone users can expect 5G in these areas.
Vodafone is another 5G player in New Zealand. They switched on 5G in parts of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Queenstown on December 10, 2019. See Vodafone New Zealand’s 5G-ready phones.
According to SK Telecom, the plan has been to start the 5G rollout in Guam in “highly concentrated central areas of cities, local business customers and areas that lack fixed-line infrastructure.” Coverage will then extend to wider areas.
Jim Jordan, Editor’s Note: So why are not these deaths labeled: heart disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, etc? How these deaths are labeled drives the narrative. Yes, if you have underlying serious health conditions this virus could push that person over the edge; however, that does not mean the COVID -19 is THE CAUSE of death in any of these cases. It is a factor that has to be addressed and perhaps if government and health agencies put this in perspective there wouldn’t be this panic and crashing down of the economies, unnecessary fear and its consequences. Addressing chronic health conditions with better policies would mitigate the consequences of these viral outbreaks.
By Tommaso Ebhardt, Chiara Remondini & Marco Bertacche
More than 99% of Italy’s coronavirus fatalities were people who suffered from previous medical conditions, according to a study by the country’s national health authority.
After deaths from the virus reached more than 2,500, with a 150% increase in the past week, health authorities have been combing through data to provide clues to help combat the spread of the disease.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government is evaluating whether to extend a nationwide lockdown beyond the beginning of April, daily La Stampa reported Wednesday. Italy has more than 31,500 confirmed cases of the illness.
The new study could provide insight into why Italy’s death rate, at about 8% of total infected people, is higher than in other countries.
The Rome-based institute has examined medical records of about 18% of the country’s coronavirus fatalities, finding that just three victims, or 0.8% of the total, had no previous pathology. Almost half of the victims suffered from at least three prior illnesses and about a fourth had either one or two previous conditions.
More than 75% had high blood pressure, about 35% had diabetes and a third suffered from heart disease.
The average age of those who’ve died from the virus in Italy is 79.5. As of March 17, 17 people under 50 had died from the disease. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have been males with serious existing medical conditions.
While data released Tuesday point to a slowdown in the increase of cases, with a 12.6% rise, a separate study shows Italy could be underestimating the real number of cases by testing only patients presenting symptoms.
According to the GIMBE Foundation, about 100,000 Italians have contracted the virus, daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported. That would bring back the country’s death rate closer to the global average of about 2%.
Preface and Introduction
International, National & State Declarations of Emergency
Dawning of the Corona Age
Overview
By Denise Minger
Jim Jordan, Editor’s Note: So why are not these deaths labeled: heart disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, etc? How these deaths are labeled drives the narrative. Yes, if you have underlying serious health conditions this virus could push that person over the edge; however, that does not mean the COVID -19 is THE CAUSE of death in any of these cases. It is a factor that has to be addressed and perhaps if government and health agencies put this in perspective there wouldn’t be this panic and crashing down of the economies, unnecessary fear and its consequences. Addressing chronic health conditions with better policies would mitigate the consequences of these viral outbreaks. 
The new study could provide insight into why Italy’s death rate, at about 8% of total infected people, is higher than in other countries.
The average age of those who’ve died from the virus in Italy is 79.5. As of March 17, 17 people under 50 had died from the disease. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have been males with serious existing medical conditions.
Liberty International News 