even though this was supposed to be from an isreal perspective, I will give my take on it from the US since the world has strangely decided to act crazy in lock step.

> Is he just saying that that all precautions for respiratory viruses like masks, vaccines and distancing are useless and should be stopped? Is he suggesting that we stop using the flu vaccine as well?

They don't MANDATE vaccinations, masks, and social distancing for the flu. SAYING I DONT WANT TO BE FORCED TO DO SOMETHING IS NOT THE SAME AS SAYING ITS USELESS.

> Is he arguing again that vaccines, masks and other measures have no impact on covid infection numbers?

They delay the inevitable, but with huge cost. The lie is that they were to "not overwhelm the hospitals", they changed it to that because they utterly failed at stopping the pandemic. hospitals got overwelmed too.... and if that was your goal, you'd think they would build more hospitals and graduate more doctors instead of canceling classes.

> Why does Mississippi for example, have a death rate so much higher than places like California or New York, which are much more heavily populated? Is there a good explanation for why Sweden was so hard hit that doesn't reference their total lack of response?

Its strange you picked New York when New York has the 6th highest death rate. 44 other states have lower death rates. Some of the southern states with higher african american populations really suffered, for many reasons. There was also the oasis effect where northerners getting away from lock downs brought covid south. California had many things going on, lockdowns definitely lowered their numbers, but at great economic cost.

source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

> I haven't read the quoted document, but is there a particular reason why it is the final word on the subject and can't be changed or updated with respect to new information?

new information didn’t come in, those guidelines were defined for real pandemics, the ones that kill 20% and yet we did this.

> What is he reading? This only came out conclusively in the past few months, and isn't much of a gotcha. The vaccine is far safer than covid, so giving the vaccine to millions is much safer than giving covid to millions. Not to mention that being recovered and vaccinated offers even better protection. Given the lower opportunity cost of vaccinating and the policy complications of exceptions to vaccination requirements, what's his argument that justifies the problem of making an exception program and managing it?

your argument makes no sense in the context of 'we need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated' vaccine passport crowd. again, STOP THE MANDATES AND EDICTS

>> You refused to admit that the vaccinated are contagious despite the observations.
>I have no idea where he's getting this from.

vaccine passports hysteria does not count being immune via previous infection as being immune. We were also told that being vaccinated would stop the pandemic by public health. the public policies around the world are as if once you are vaccinated you can't spread it (thats false) or less likely to spread it (thats probably false). it was based off of an untested assumption that it would lower the viral load and thus lower the chances of getting it. if you disagreed with this you were censored on all platforms and this was called science. The problem is, if I get really sick, I stay in and you get no viral load. or even if I am coughing outside, you will probably stay away from me and again get a low viral load. however if I am vaccinated but spewing covid like crazy with no symptoms and chat with you, you get a very high viral load. the problem with the assumptions is that they didnt take into account systems, and that humans have brains, and that science requires testing and discussion.

> There were very clear vaccination levels necessary for herd immunity that were calculated early on, and few places in the world have even come close to them. Most places have 15-20% to few people vaccinated to even test the herd immunity predictions.

False. the early calculations thought we only needed a very low herd immunity because of their hilariously low r0 estimation of covid classic. Its only now they are like 'well we need... higher vaccination numbers, more of the same and that'll fix it for sure'

>>You insisted on ignoring the fact that the disease is dozens of times more dangerous for risk groups and older adults, than for young people who are not in risk groups, despite the knowledge that came from China as early as 2020.
>Just wrong. And what is he trying to say here? Is this a repeat of the "everyone over 60 should just die" line that went around the US in 2020?

we should have focued on protecting the elderly, and not blanket lock downs and mask/vax policies. We didnt. thats not refutable. Certain ethnicities are more effected than others, such as Chinese are least likely to die. What people not under the panicdemic have been saying is,
give resources to the elderly so they can operate life without getting exposed if they dont want it. in the US, age was deprioritizes over skin color. The CDC said although the elderly are the most vulnerable, we need not protect them first because they are too white. they literally said that.

> Maybe this is true in Israel, but the US figured out pretty quickly that there was a 7 in 1,000,000 chance for the J&J vaccine to cause blood clots. Is he suggesting that some vaccines have been monitored for side effects and others have not? What's his data?

In the US, the original VAERS reporting system is being ignored in favor of not casting doubt over the vaccines. so you have about as a good of guess at people having negative side effects as you know about the color of my socks. these effects were also ignored in favor of pushing vaccines to children that face very little danger from covid.

> Reports on side effects have even been deleted from your Facebook page
> Ummm, moving right along.

Yup, you are the type of person who favors censorship and authoritarianism. I get that now.