A Cornucopia of Lies: CDC Director Walensky’s 1 November Interview on CSPAN

For those who are wondering #WheresWalensky, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky came out of her Paxlovid rebound following her COVID-19 infection in October long enough to pump some propaganda on CSPAN on 1 November. I don’t think there’s much here that’s new in terms of Walensky’s lies and gaslighting, but I wanted to touch on a few things she said. Going through what she says in detail is really an exercise in enlightenment about how utterly cruel and callous Biden’s CDC is.

So, let’s get started, using the transcription from the Internet Archive:

There’s a lot to unpack in this first segment (well, there’s a lot to unpack through this entire interview), but I wanted to focus on this idiocy from Walensky that I underlined about not needing to count every raindrop to know how hard it’s raining (which she’s said before). I worked strategic warning problems in the Intel Community for a big chunk of my almost 30 years there. If I’d ever said something like this I would’ve been – rightly so – thrown out of the roomand sent off to the loading docks. Granularity, accuracy, and timeliness of data is priceless. We should have every wastewater shed in the country “wired” for broad spectrum viral testing, along with free rapid PCR tests available everywhere, etc., with all of those “raindrops” feeding current and trend analysis of what’s happening where not only with SARS2, but with other diseases, as well (in the case of wastewater surveillance).  In Walensky’s version of things, we don’t know how hard it’s raining, we only know that we’re helpless, being carried downstream in a torrent of unknown magnitude.

As Walensky herself discovered when she was infected almost exactly one month after getting the bivalent booster, the vaccines (at least the mRNA ones) confer NO SIGNIFICANT IMMUNITY. They do not prevent infection, they do not prevent transmission, and they do not prevent (in any significant sense) long COVID. They reduce the odds of severe illness (i.e., hospitalization) and death. That of course isn’t a bad thing, but that’s hardly “protection” that merits all of Walensky’s crowing.

And we’re not “living with the virus,” it’s disabling and killing us. Future histories (likely written by the Chinese, as the West will have collapsed) will recount this period with a sense of unbounded disbelief at how we were tossed into the viral pit by people like Walensky (and her “the pandemic is over” boss, President Biden).

Here we see Walensky’s old refrains of a) comparison to flu; b) deaths among folks with multiple comorbidities, glossing over the fact that quite a few completely healthy folks die, as well, and that vaccines alone won’t protect the vulnerable in our society; c) “safely living” with a virus that evades immunity; d) “we have the tools” that work poorly, at best, and are unavailable to many; e) skipping over that roughly 45% or so of those who have died since the start of the BA.1 wave near the end of 2021 were fully vaccinated; and f) zero mention, of course, about masking, filtration, and ventilation as prevention strategies. As usual, Walensky’s ONLY “protective tool” is vaccination…WHICH DOES NOT PREVENT INFECTION OR TRANSMISSION (or long COVID). Sorry to keep beating that drum, but it’s a minor caveat that Walensky and others in the administration need to be spelling out for people. But they don’t want to because they’re afraid it will lead to people not wanting to get vaccinated. Maybe, just maybe, if they told the truth about everything they could actually make a better case for layered protections? Naaaaaahhh.

She brings up rapid tests (RAT/LFT) a number of times, and I again wanted to highlightthat that rapid tests/RATs work POORLY and aren’t reported (and many people aren’t even bothering to test anymore, as it’s over/just a cold); we obviously don’t need to count those raindrops while we’re being carried away in a flooding river. And yes, the variants are mutating like mad and escaping our vaccines because we’re allowing the virus unrestricted spread because – sing it with me! – we’re not preventing transmission.

The CDC variant report she refers to is updated weekly, but it’s worth pointing out again that CDC waited WEEKS to split off the rapidly growing BQ lineages from BA.5 (see a bit further below). And yes, the latest variants have made pretty much all the monoclonal antibody therapies useless. We have the tools, baby! Yeah, no.

Glad this is funny, eh? I’ll never understand people who can be glib about anything having to do with mass disablement and death, but maybe that’s just me.

At least here Walensky speaks one line of unvarnished truth: the vaccines provide “more protection” against severe disease and death. However, this is the kernel of truth around which she wraps the not-quite-truths about “protection” afforded by the vaccines. In the third panel, she’s claiming the vax/booster is going to give you a good dose of “strong protection.” To most people “protection” implies protection from infection, even though we’ve long known it doesn’t do that.

Regarding the bit about the monoclonal antibodies (mabs), we KNOW that the existing mabs are useless vs. the latest variants (e.g., BQ, BXX, etc.).

And it’s nice to know the (bivalent booster) vaccine “might” work better. Very reassuring.

So, let’s take a look at the aforementioned variant chart. Walensky would have you believe that we’re only facing one major variant, and that the bivalent booster will handle it (BA.5 and sub-lineages like BQ.X). Even if the latter were true, you can see here that there’s a pile of other variants in the mix. And, to beat this drum once again, the mRNA vaccines aren’t going to give you any real protection against infection or transmission of BA.5 or associated “children.”

This bit is probably the most egregious steaming turd in this heaping pile of propaganda: “we have several seasons where people did not get exposed to the standard respiratory viruses…” Aside from a small minority of us who continued masking, this is pants-on-fire false, a Trump-sized lie.

Then she fully embraces the “immunity debt” lunacy, although she doesn’t call it that here. We have to be repeatedly infected to have…immunity from infection? Then why do we keep getting infected by these viruses every year if infection doesn’t confer lasting immunity? Why bother to have COVID vaccines? Oh, wait:they don’t prevent infection…never mind. The twisted logic here is astounding.

And then we get to the best one: “If you go two years without getting that protection (from infection!), boom, everybody from 0 to 3 yrs old gets RSV.” Of course, she doesn’t mention that – per CDC data – 86% of U.S. children 6 months to 17 years old have had COVID during this same period!!

Kinda funny, isn’t it, that all these kids who were “locked in their homes” for two years (pants on fire!)  didn’t get any “protection by infection” from RSV and other childhood viruses, but almost 9 out of 10 of them somehow contracted COVID? How does that work, Dr. Walensky? Did SARS2 bully RSV and other viruses out of the classrooms at school? Please explain this to me like I’m a five year old on a ventilator, struggling to stay alive while terrified parents pray and wonder how this could possibly have happened to their child who was “safe” at school without masking, filtration, or any other truly preventative mitigations because YOU SAID THEY WERE SAFE. I’ll wait.

Could it be – work with me here! – that we’re seeing these huge spikes in children being hospitalized with RSV and other “typical” viral infections BECAUSE THEY WERE FORCED INTO SARS2 CESSPOOLS AT SCHOOL AND COVID-19 COMPROMISED THEIR IMMUNE SYSTEMS, which we know beyond any doubt is part of what this virus does? Just a wild thought, there.

Then we get to the workforce. We’ve known for over a year now that the vaccines do NOT prevent (or do a very poor job or) infection or transmission against any of the later strains (since at least BA.1). Yet that’s what Walensky is pushing here as the sole-mentioned “tool” to keep patients and healthcare workers safe. And now that most hospitals have dropped all mitigations, medical facilities are viral cesspools for nosocomial infection every bit as bad as schools and other in person mass-meeting venues are.

As for other workers, it’s the same song and dance: vax and relax! What utter garbage. And I added the bit about people at the workplace who can answer questions: the only ones remotely qualified to do that would be those few who are still masking, but they’re certainly not going to be designated as company “experts” on COVID because they’d no doubt bring up that thorny topic of masking, filtration, etc.

And “coming out of the pandemic?” Talk about a bold-faced lie. Walensky’s pants would look like a Saturn V booster lifting off from Cape Canaveral at this point.

Then we get to the good stuff: holiday visitations. Yeah, you don’t want to be the person who unwittingly brings along the virus that kills Grandma, so you better get the vaccine – and so should Grandma! But…it won’t prevent you from getting infected and passing it on to Grandma, who’s probably got multiple comorbidities and likely wouldn’t survive, anyway, nor will it prevent Grandma from being infected. And then people will be spreading it around even more at Grandma’s wake and funeral. Vax and relax! Sorry, Grandma…but hey, your passing has reduced the debt burden!

Then Walensky moves on to some of the things employers could do to make their workforce safer. Look, I actually would be all-in with the suggestions she has here in the first panel…but it is utterly outrageous to pump this sort of thing and NOT talk about the importance of masking, filtration, ventilation, guaranteed paid time-off for sick employees, remote schooling, support for parents with sick kids, etc., etc. And you’ll notice she doesn’t mention the idiotic “5 days back to work + 5 days masking” recommendation CDC is still sticking with…and that she herself has blown off, although she apparently still works mostly remotely, anyway.

I thought it interesting that she mentioned the CDC COVID-19 posters. I took a quick look through some of them, and one of the curious things is that most of the graphics in them feature people wearing MASKS. Go figure.

The only hospital I know of that I’d consider taking COVID advice from would be Mayo, which still maintains strict COVID protocols (my dad goes to the one in Phoenix). Most of the rest are vaxxed and relaxed centers of nosocomial transmission excellence.

As for the Infectious Diseases society of America being a source of good COVID-19 information, let’s recall these are the same people who were at the IDWeek 2022 conference. While masks were required during the actual presentations, a bunch of them went YOLO in the evenings. So, despite billing themselves as “infectious disease experts,” these folks are probably not your best role models for protecting yourself from COVID-19 infection. Smile, everyone, and take a deep, deep breath! COVID likes this!

Then we get to this priceless little gem in the very first sentence:

Walensky says, “I have heard people who got vaccinated but then got infected. That is true.” Yes, it’s true: it’s YOU! Walensky got her bivalent booster in September, then almost a month to the day later tested positive in October, got Paxlovid, and had a rebound. As of 5 November as I’m writing this, she’s only appeared in a couple of remote presentations, including this one with CSPAN; no Twitter updates or other public appearances as far as I’ve been able to ascertain. Her statement just takes the cake (and almost makes me wonder if this wasn’t pre-recorded from before she was infected).

I’ll leave it to all the folks struggling with vaccine injury and other side effects to grapple with what’s in the second panel to see how well “the tools” have worked for you.

Again, she’s pushing vaccine “protection” against the BQ variants, without reinforcing what that means (reduced chances of severe illness and death – that’s it).

I skipped over a bit – mostly Walensky going over ground she’d already covered – to get to the end. There’s so much gaslighting just in this part that I felt like I was zip tied to my car’s steering wheel and she stuck a garden hose from the exhaust pipe into the window with the car’s engine running to finally let me have it. I think the two standout lies, though, are that we can come back to our normal routines safely, and that “we as a society can now prevent almost all infections from happening.” Except ones like hers, I guess. And all the others the vaccines don’t prevent. I honestly don’t know how people tell lies like this without being struck by lightning.

In conclusion, as I’ve said before and I’ll now say again – and without a trace of hyperbole – Trump, Biden, and their COVID-19 advisors (particularly Walensky) should all be standing trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity. Most of the million-plus Americans who are dead and the millions suffering or debilitated by long COVID, including children, need not have inherited this fate, and are victims of these people.