Council of Canadian Academies Against Misinformation

And for DISinformation. "Vaccine skepticism has caused countless deaths — actually that's countable deaths, according to the Council."

“Peter McKnight: Vaccine skepticism has caused countless deaths — actually that's countable deaths” (Vancouver Sun, 2023.02.12):

Indeed, just as vaccine skepticism led to many needless deaths from smallpox, skepticism in our time has caused countless deaths from COVID-19. Actually, that’s countable deaths, and in a new report, the Council of Canadian Academies provided an estimate of their number, along with an estimate of the overall cost of misinformation during the pandemic.

According to the report, misinformation contributed to vaccine hesitancy for about 2.35 million Canadians in the nine-month period between March and November 2021. The CCA estimates that during this period, delaying or refusing vaccination resulted in 198,000 COVID infections, 13,000 hospitalizations, 3,500 ICU admissions and 2,800 deaths.

Have you ever heard of the “Council of Canadian Academies” before? Me neither. So, let’s see what this venerable institution is. The Wayback Machine first spots its About page on June 18, 2019:

The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) is a not-for-profit organization that convenes the best experts in their respective fields to assess the evidence on complex scientific topics of public interest to inform decision-making in Canada. Led by a Board of Directors and guided by a Scientific Advisory Committee and its Member Academies, the CCA’s work encompasses a broad definition of science, incorporating the natural, social, and health sciences as well as engineering and the humanities.

Assessments are conducted by multidisciplinary and multisectoral panels of experts from across Canada and abroad who volunteer their time and lend their expertise and knowledge to the CCA. The overarching goal of CCA assessments is to evaluate the best available evidence on particularly complex issues where the science may be challenging to understand, contradictory, or difficult to assemble. Upon completion, assessments provide key decision-makers, as well as researchers and stakeholders, with high-quality information and evidence to develop informed and innovative public policy. Assessments can be referred to the CCA (or “sponsored”) by foundations, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, or any level of government.

The CCA’s founding Academies are independent organizations that represent the finest minds in Canada. Their Fellows and senior decision-makers sit on the CCA’s Board of Governors and Scientific Advisory Committee, and they are a key source of membership for expert panels. The Academies provide key guidance and input throughout the CCA’s assessment process, including the planning process, study designs, expert panel nominations, and dissemination processes. The Academies of the CCA are: the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Of course, it’s seated in Ottawa, across the street from the Ottawa City Hall, and bankrolled by the Government of Canada:

With so much brain power behind it, the Council tasked itself with fighting misinformation even before the misinformation became the Thing, well, a few short months before. What are the odds? Call me a conspiracy theorist…

Back to the latest report announcement:

Misinformation can cause significant harm to individuals, communities, and societies. Because it’s designed to appeal to our emotions and exploit our cognitive shortcuts, everyone is susceptible to it. We are particularly vulnerable to misinformation in times of crisis when the consequences are most acute. Science and health misinformation damages our community well-being through otherwise preventable illnesses, deaths, and economic losses, and our social well-being through polarization and the erosion of public trust. These harms often fall most heavily on the most vulnerable.

The pervasive spread of misinformation and the damage it can cause underscore the need for reasoned, evidence-informed decision-making at both the personal and public level. Strategies and tools exist to help combat these harms, strengthen, and build trust in our institutions, and boost our ability to recognize and reject the misinformation we encounter.

The word “misinformation” is repeated six times in two short paragraphs. Sounds like the editorial of “Pravda” in its best Cold War period. The whole report is whopping 260 pages long so no one in their sane mind would ever read it (maybe me). Luckily, there is a one-pager as well that distills it for the stupid:

As they say, “The panel’s methodology is available at cca-reports.ca.” So what’s the magic methodology that can track the development of parallel what-if universes? Page 19 of the report:

The model simulated the behaviour of people in Canada aged 12 and over between March 1 and November 30, 2021, tracking them through two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The model centred on whether people in Canada believed COVID-19 was a hoax and/or that vaccine harms have been covered up, drawing on the best available survey data. Consistent with the published evidence, it was assumed that these two streams of COVID-19 misinformation would contribute to vaccine hesitancy. The Panel then examined three hypothetical scenarios.

• The first scenario looked at what happens to COVID-19 vaccination rates and case numbers if the proportion of people who agreed with the statement “COVID-19 is a hoax and/or exaggerated” were vaccinated as soon as they became eligible.

• The second scenario looked at rates and case numbers if the proportion of people who agreed with the statement “vaccines cause many problems that are covered up” were vaccinated as soon as they became eligible.

• The third scenario modelled what would have occurred if everyone in Canada were vaccinated as soon as they became eligible.

The baseline model used real-world Canadian data. To calculate the impact of misinformation, baseline model results were subtracted from the results of each hypothetical scenario in terms of the number of vaccinations, cases, hospitalizations, intensive care unit (ICU) visits, deaths, and hospitalization costs. If those who reported believing COVID-19 is a hoax were vaccinated when they became eligible, over 2.3 million additional people in Canada would have been vaccinated, resulting in roughly 198,000 fewer cases, 13,000 fewer hospitalizations, and 2,800 fewer deaths from COVID-19 between March 1 and November 30, 2021. The cost of hospitalizations, including ICU visits associated with these cases, was conservatively estimated at $300 million. Estimates of the reductions in caseloads, hospitalizations, and deaths for all scenarios are reported in Chapter 4

On to Chapter 4 (p. 107):

Unvaccinated people are more likely to contract COVID-19, develop more severe symptoms, require hospitalization, and die. National data collected during the period of July 25 to August 21, 2021 showed that unvaccinated people were 12 times as likely to contract COVID-19 and 36 times as likely to be hospitalized (PHAC, 2021b). Similarly, Canadian data up to January 8, 2022 showed that “fully vaccinated individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 were significantly protected from severe outcomes” (GC, 2022). Among those who did contract COVID-19, people who were unvaccinated were roughly five times as likely to require hospitalization and three times as likely to die compared to those who were fully vaccinated (GC, 2022).

Notice “compared to those who were fully vaccinated” at the end. Meaning, not those between the first jab and 14 days after the second jab, which were counted for the “unvaccinated” in the modern $cience parlance.

It is interesting that the “report” chose Mar.-Nov. 2021 period - a relatively low-mortality span:

By the end of this period they injected almost 76% of the population:

Between the injected with “safe and exceedingly effective jabs” and the naturally infected and recovered, shouldn’t Canada have reached the herd immunity already? No matter, that is when the deaths picked up again. Isn’t that a letdown?

Let us throw in our scenario into the analysis, based on the concrete evidence extracted under the duress of FOI request from the Swedish medical authorities and reported by Jessica Rose:

Demystifying the Swedish Data...

The most important graph of Jessica’s report is the stark difference between the official rates of “unvaccinated” vs injected morbidity and the actual rates, all due to the misclassification of freshly jabbed as “unvaccinated”:

Officially in Sweden in Feb. 2021, the unvaccinated were dying at rates 78.1/12.7 = 6.15 times higher than the “vaccinated”, whereas after correcting the misclassification, the injected were dying 788.7/53.8 = 14.7 times more often than the unvaccinated.

P. 110 of the “report”:

Let’s use the”report” setup for our scenario of what would have happened if no jabs were to be administered:

Estimated rate among the unvaccinated being X and among the injected 14.7*X:

X*4.327+X*14.7*29.157 = 7,900 then X = 18.25 deaths per million of unvaccinated.

If no one got the jab, then there would have been: 18.25*(4.327+29.157) = 611 deaths.

Thus, (7,900 - 611) = 7,289 (92.3%) deaths were caused by the jab, not counting the deaths avoidable through the application of sensible treatment protocols. Conclusion: simply by not “vaccinating” in the period under study, 92.3% deaths would have been avoided, based on the Swedish data from Feb. 2021.

Were the effective treatment protocols used, according to FLCCC, further 80% of deaths would have been prevented, or 611*0.8 = 489 deaths preventable by using the proper treatment, leaving only 122 persons that would have died of Covid.

Total deaths preventable by avoiding “vaccination” and actually treating the infected with effective treatment protocols would have saved 7,778 out of 7,900 lives, or 98.46% of those that died “of Covid” on the altar of Operation Warp Speed in Canada.

Put it another way, the system has condemned to death 98.46% of those they counted as “died of Covid”.

You can argue with my calculations and maybe we could have used the factor of 10, 5, or 3 instead of 14.7 in the calculations above. But even with the most permissive assumptions toward the role of jabs, in the hindsight it is clear that well over 90% of the Covid fatalities are on the global system of dealing with Covid:

Note that my calculations are of much greater substantiation than the ones produced by the “report” as they use real, unfudged data.

Canadian Covid Care Alliance adds this (and much more) to the critique of the “report”:

Your own report in Chapter 4 suggests that “misinformation” has resulted in 2,800 extra deaths due to COVID-19 from vaccine hesitancy. In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, there were 14,642 deaths recorded with COVID-19 before the availability of vaccines. There have been about 14,580 and 20,344 additional deaths in 2021 and in 2022, respectively, associated with COVID-19. Thus, despite the prevalence of less virulent Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 and about 87% of the population with two or more vaccinations during 2022, the number of COVID-19-related deaths were 39% higher than in 2020.