Suzanne Downing: Blaming ‘misinformation,’ Dr. Zink does a disservice to Alaskans

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One of the more disappointing reads of the season was the Oct. 27 opinion essay in The Washington Post penned by Alaska’s own Chief Medical Officer Anne Zink.

Most of it is an acceptable accounting of Alaska’s experience with Covid-19. We did pretty well in the beginning, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration, including Zink, did a phenomenal job getting test kits manufactured in-state, when it was nearly impossible to get supplies. They got protective gear shipped over from China in record time.

Alaskans followed Dr. Zink’s advice in February of 2020 to wash their hands frequently for 20 seconds and sneeze into their sleeves. She is on the record early in the pandemic for saying that surgical masks are essentially petrie dishes.

“A mask is a wet, moist environment that’s collecting viruses and bacteria … It’s not useful to protect you from other people,” she told a legislative hearing.

By June, 2020, Zink had changed her tune about why she wears a mask: “Humility: I don’t know if I have COVID as it is clear that people can spread the disease before they have symptoms. 2. Kindness: I don’t know if the person I am near has a kid battling cancer, or cares for their elderly mom. While I might be fine, they might not. 3. Community: I want my community to thrive, businesses to stay open, employees to stay healthy. Keeping a lid on COVID helps us all.”

That’s very laudable and noble, but 180-degrees from what she had said in February, 2020, and not particularly backed by science.

In The Washington Post last month, Zink took credit for Alaska’s great look on the national stage early in the pandemic, and then blamed Alaskans for the outbreak in the fall of 2021, when case loads spiked.

Alaskans fell prey to misinformation, she said.

This is a curious argument: Alaskans, evidently, have some unique quality that makes them fall for misinformation when people in Florida, with some of the lowest Covid case counts in the world, do not.

Today, the case loads are spiking in Iowa and Kansas. It must be that people are suddenly falling for misinformation in Iowa, but not in Alaska, because within weeks of spiking and causing concern in hospitals in late September, Alaska’s numbers have returned to what the World Health Organization considers the “green zone” of viral transmission — below 5% for the past two weeks. Alaskans should pat themselves on the back for not falling for misinformation.

The blame for misinformation rests on the medical community, policy makers, and on social media, but perhaps unequally. Let’s take the medical community first.

The struggle to understand what is probably a bioweapon, while filtering data through the sieve of medical experience and teachings, has led the medical profession to make imperfect recommendations to the public, and to exclude important avenues of inquiry, such as early treatment.

The medical community, led by people in charge such as Dr. Zink and Dr. Anthony Fauci, have pushed masks, distancing, and finally a leaky vaccine as the primary methods for controlling the disease. And yet, with this sneaky virus, it’s apparent that the vaccine is not going to succeed, as in less than two years the virus has evolved from its initial stage, to the more virulent Delta, and now to the even worse variant being called “omicron.” This virus, unlike viruses that come from nature, reminds us of the Greek mythological creature Hydra; every time one head is chopped off, two more grow back.

The jury is still out on whether the mass vaccination program is a good idea, but Zink’s assertion that low vaccination rates and vaccine hesitancy in Alaska is a big reason for the September surge is unsupported. 81 percent of the Juneau population is vaccinated, and yet there were 19 new cases diagnosed Wednesday. This, in what is one of the most vaccinated communities in the country — a town of 30,000 that also has instituted forced masking, six-foot distancing, and mandatory limits on gatherings. Not quite Australia, but they can see it from there.

What’s more, the breakthroughs and reinfections are on the rise in Alaska already. Through the end of September 2021, a total of 13,265 Covid-19 vaccine breakthrough cases were documented among Alaska residents, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. We must keep in mind that most Alaskans did not even have access to the vaccine until March of 2021, and yet by September, the breakthroughs were growing by leaps and bounds.

If the medical community has suffered reputation damage because of its changing and flawed advice, and if the political class has outdone itself in the scare tactics its perpetuated, the mosh pit of social media hasn’t been all that helpful either. This virus is serious, and those who diminish or dismiss its dangers do so at their own peril, and the greater community’s as well.

But the people of social media are not to blame for the misinformation. Much of what they are trading in is no more misinformed than what is being fed to them by Big Pharma and its handmaidens at the FDA, CDC, and in the mainstream media. Alaskans are reading widely; are they to dismiss the repression they see occurring around the world? Should Alaskans not make a stand so their communities don’t resemble the quarantine camps of Australia? Should they not fight for the Constitution?

Are the experiences of Israelis to be discounted? Is Ivermectin, which is a drug commonly used to treat Covid around the globe, such a danger that Alaskans can’t have access to it? What would be the harm of telling Alaskans to load up on Vitamin D, lose weight, build their immune systems with zinc and quercetin, and get plenty of exercise?

What of the stories Alaskans have told Must Read Alaska about doctors, nurses, and health practitioners discriminating against the unvaccinated or refusing to treat them altogether? Are those stories not relevant? What of the mandates on workers to get vaccinated or lose their jobs? Are these Alaskans’ experiences “misinformation”?

And importantly, what exactly is misinformation in an era in which some doctors, from Dr. Fauci to our local medical mafia at Providence, have become politicized and are telling leaders in Anchorage to enact behavioral mandates? From this perch, it appears that only because of the strong libertarian streak in Alaskans have we been able to avoid the vaccine passports now enacted in Washington, Oregon, and California.

Dr. Zink’s writing in the Wa-Po belittled Alaskans. It shifted the blame to them for a virus that is a global roller-coaster of increasing intensity and challenge. She didn’t help the case of doctors, and she insulted Alaskans by characterizing them as too stupid or hardheaded to know good information from bad in a world where the information is rapidly changing, and where much has been worthy of doubt.

Suzanne Downing is the publisher of Must Read Alaska.

241 COMMENTS

    • Agree Lawerence but I must give credit to Dr. Zink about finally ending the insane way they have been reporting data on the dashboard. 3 times a week? twice every other day and one three day blitz. BUT report it on the dashboard so it totally unclear how it’s trending day to day. I finally gave up and checked the dashboard once a week on Monday and only then the weekly number. So it’s not surprising they will begin reporting numbers once a week.

  1. Very well put. The experts are just guessing because nobody knows except big Pharma is getting rich just like the oxycontin unleashed on the world.

  2. Excellent article Suzanne. I am tired of being spoon fed on the ever changing information on the Covid 19 virus from Dr. Fauci and Dr. Zink. Typical , name calling as if calling us stupid will work for them.. I believe in vaccinations, however, when I read all of the side effects and long term possible outcomes, it should be an individual’s decision. Get vaccinated and be one of the 13000 plus Alaskans who also caught the virus. Oh well, your symptoms may be less. My main concern is their silencing of the Patient/Physician confidentiality. It is all about money and not the real concern for the public health of Americans.

    • Great, Suzanne, you give hope to long-time healthcare professionals like me who have been marginalized and ostracized because we refuse to drink the kool-aid narrative being forced on us by the robotic minions of fauci et al.

      It’s an inconvenient truth that Alaskans like me and many others who’ve successfully battled this bad flu bug head on and now have bulletproof natural immunity are the pariah of bots like Zink, and they are doing everything in their power to illegitimate our experiences. Telling, isn’t it? The ones who don’t fit in.

      We have an informed voice in you and I humbly thank you. It’s a tough road to plow, but hey, we’re Alaskans, right- nothing of value ever came easy.
      Forge On !

      • “bulletproof natural immunity”? That’s not a thing with this disease. You might have a better level of immunity, you might not. A vaccinated person might have a better level of immunity, and they might not. Either way nobody has bulletproof immunity to this disease.

        • No doubt your 30 minutes of youtube research absolutely trumps Nurse Me’s medical degree.
          .
          Thanks for sharing your subjective wisdom, Steve-O. Sort of like Zink if you take away training and accountability.
          .
          Clearly Nurse Me’s wording could’ve been a little more objective but what joy is there in reading white paper?

        • Vaccinated people can die from the virous,
          Un-Vaccinated people can die from the virous,
          But the Un-Vaccinated people cannot die from the Vaccination side effects as many have. I will depend on my God Given Natural Immunity !

  3. Suzanne, so well written and all-encompassing. Just an excellent synopsis of the situation as it now stands and a crushing commentary on the incompetence of our so called “leaders” and the actual disinformation they are trying to shove down our throats as if we are geese being force fed to fatten our livers up for the next course of foie gras.

  4. Still ignoring the elephant in the room, Ivermectin. Until we get from under the grip of big pharma, and start using preventative measures, we are never going to get a handle on Covid. People are dying over greed. Very sad. We can re-purpose the Moderna Cancer Vaccine for Covid-19, but we can’t re-purpose medication for it?? Corrupt.

    • Would you mind sharing some actual studies that show ivermectin works in treating covid? One of the most recent studies stopped the trial because to continue it was deemed futile. The same study however showed promise for fluvoxamine and they are continuing trials on a few other low cost drugs.

      • If you had any honesty about you, Steve, you would look at and discuss the numerous SUCCESSFUL programs around the world using ivermectin as a treatment for early-stage Wuhan Plague, instead of merely, repeatedly and very disingenuously bringing up a handful of compromised and pre-ordained establishment ‘studies’ that, surprise surprise, somehow failed to find the cheap and no-longer-under-patent ivermectin to be of ‘no use’ in treating the Wuhan Plague, as such an acknowledgement would be fatal to their ongoing push to impose ‘vaccine’ (sic) mandates on the world population, and to impose an Orwellian surveillance and control agenda on the world under the guise of ‘vaccine passports’.

        • Still can’t find one study to back up your claims, huh Jeff? Keep looking buddy they are out there, somewhere.

          • I’m not your research assistant, Steve-O. If you cannot be bothered to do your own (independent) reading and research on a topic that is daily and ubiquitously in the news, that is your problem, not mine.

          • Jeff,
            It’s OK man, we both know you haven’t done any research on any of this. I wouldn’t expect you to start now.

          • I tested positive and felt horrible for two weeks. I took Ivermectin for two days and was 100%. Maybe that was just a coincidence. Now the USPS is confiscating it. Weird.

      • There are basically zero double-blind placebo controlled scientific studies related to Covid. It’s nearly impossible (except in places like China or former Nazi Germany) to have controlled medical experiments where the lives and well-being of participants are secondary to the experiment. Who would volunteer to get infected with Covid and possibly be given a sugar pill as the only treatment? Would subjects in high risk categories be part of the experiment? How would timing of infection and experimental medication be controlled unless participants were intentionally infected?
        One can look to places like India, which has had very low rates of vaccination but has experienced lower comparable Covid spread with medications that included Ivermectin. It’s not a medical study, but the real world result seems worthy of more consideration rather than being summarily dismissed by Fauci and fact checkers like “Politifacts.” Big pharma profits may be at risk, so we have to blindly ignore the positive results?

          • Jay,
            I’ve spent a bit of time reviewing that site. For some reason they’ve included the fraudulent Ahmed Elgazzar study which was discredited a long time before this meta analysis was put together. It is very concerning that they would include that study when it’s data was so fundamentally flawed.
            .
            The majority of those other studies have been making the rounds for some time and have various issues, they certainly point towards needing further and better quality studies. The Mayer study is a new one to me and includes a large number of participants, factors of multitudes more than all those other studies combined.
            .
            Thanks for sharing the link and helping point me towards that Mayer study.

          • Jay: I looked at the site and yeah, there is a ton of data. I’m a smart guy, but I don’t know if I can suss it all out but I will try. I did notice this on the site: “While many treatments have some level of efficacy, they do not replace vaccines and other measures to avoid infection.” But still, definitely worth a look.

          • What can I say, I’m a skeptic by nature.
            .
            I’ve looked at a good number of the other studies in the meta analysis previously. I will look into the Mayer study when I get some more time since it’s a newer and larger study than what has been out there. Have you heard of the Together Trial and their studies of various low priced and repurposed drugs?

      • Steve-O: Your question is a trick question.
        Ivermectin doesn’t treat Covid. It helps the immune system from becoming overactive, from developing a cytokine storm.
        There are zillions of clinical studies, and decades if observational evidence that proves that ivermectin helps prevent or reduce any cytokine storm.
        “[1] Caly L, Druce JD, Catton MG, Jans DA, Wagstaff KM. The FDA-approved drug ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. Antiviral Res 2020; 178: 104787.
        CrossRef
        PubMed
        [2] González Canga A, Sahagún Prieto AM, Diez Liébana MJ, Fernández Martínez N, Sierra Vega M, García Vieitez JJ. The pharmacokinetics and interactions of ivermectin in humans–a mini-review. AAPS J 2008; 10(1): 42-6.
        CrossRef
        PubMed
        [3] NDA 50-742/S-022 stromectol® (ivermectin) Available from: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2008/050742s022lbl.pdf
        [4] Currie BJ, McCarthy JS. Permethrin and ivermectin for scabies. N Engl J Med 2010; 362(8): 717-25.
        CrossRef
        PubMed
        [5] Mehta P, McAuley DF, Brown M, Sanchez E, Tattersall RS, Manson JJ. COVID-19: Consider cytokine storm syndromes and immunosuppression. Lancet 2020; 395(10229): 1033-4.
        CrossRef
        PubMed
        [6] Ruan Q, Yang K, Wang W, Jiang L, Song J. Clinical predictors of mortality due to COVID-19 based on an analysis of data of 150 patients from Wuhan, China. Intensive Care Med 2020. published online March 3 2020
        [7] Liu T, Zhang L, Joo D, Sun S-C. NF-κB signaling in inflammation. Signal Transduct Target Ther 2017; 2: 17023.
        CrossRef
        PubMed
        [8] Jiang L, Wang P, Sun YJ, Wu YJ. Ivermectin reverses the drug resistance in cancer cells through EGFR/ERK/Akt/NF-κB pathway. J Exp Clin Cancer Res 2019; 38(1): 265.
        CrossRef
        PubMed
        [9] Zhang X, Song Y, Ci X, et al. Ivermectin inhibits LPS-induced production of inflammatory cytokines and improves LPS-induced survival in mice. Inflamm Res 2008; 57(11): 524-9.
        CrossRef
        PubMed”
        This is only one (ivermectin cytokine storm) google hit. There’s a lot more there folks.

        • Jose,
          That’s the first time I’ve heard/read anyone say that Ivermectin is for treating cytokine storms and not for treating covid, typically those discussing ivermectin are simply repeating what they heard someone else say and haven’t looked into it at all for themselves.
          .
          Thanks for sharing those studies, and the information.

          • Seems like giving a drug to treat cykotine storms to people not experiencing a cykotine storm wouldn’t be beneficial then.

          • The cytokine storm causes many of the early symptoms, which presents the narrow window of opportunity for the ivermectin to have any effect in mitigating the the storm. If application is too late, the useful effect is greatly lessened.
            I figure you have notifications on, so you will see this belated reply.

          • So all the hoopla over these folks dying in hospitals and wanting ivermectin on their deathbeds is just over the top. What do you mean by “greatly lessened?”

          • Ivermectin works best if applied at the beginning of a cytokine storm. If treatment is delayed too long, the storm quickly reaches a point where ivermectin becomes ineffective, is overwhelmed.

          • OK, it seems like this process is a best-guess trial as to what’s “too long.”
            Do you have access to any studies showing a few windows of ivermectin use to treat these cytokine storms? Or, better yet, do you know of ongoing studies yet to show results?

          • All I’ve done so far is google “ivermectin cytokine storm” and related some of what I found. The studies are there to find if you want something definitive.
            About the only “medical skill” I have is the ability to comprehend what I read. I am too busy running my business to get more involved.

        • OK, but what if what you read is BS-how would you know??
          Let’s assume you do have these “medical skills” you speak of-how about just pointing us to the “study” (just one here) that has convinced you of ivermectin’s ability to control a cytokine storm. Your words are there are “zillions” of studies showing this but why then has the medical community ignored these?
          A conspiracy??

          • The medical community hasn’t ignored this. When Covid first became known, hasty guesses were made, simply to not appear to be doing nothing. It quickly became a political soccer ball with pride and professional reputation at risk when government leaders became involved..
            Ivermectin has supporters and detractors. However, there hasn’t been enough hard data to support either side of this debate. There’s been no standard data collection nor open dialog among peers. Nobody want’s to admit that they’re still guessing, and probably guessing badly. Both sides are being deliberately obtuse, simply to stall for time until something factually supportable arises. The professionals need at least something to help them save face over any bad guesses they may have made. Everyone’s understanding and opinions, including mine, are still evolving. To keep pressuring for something definitive at this stage is futile.

          • OK, “ignored these” was a poor choice of words but because the medical community doesn’t tend towards guesses they said little, other than no studies have shown that ivermectin improves Covid.
            You, on the other hand, do tend towards these “guesses” and speak of zillions of studies backing up your guesses yet can’t produce a single one on here.

          • Bill Yankee: Are you being deliberately obtuse? There are no definitive studies yet, none. It will take a couple more years before any of the clinical studies can come up with something. They still haven’t even………… Forget it. I don’t appreciate being played by forever questions that have no possible answer. You can chalk up another empty victory. Do a couple victory laps around me if you want.

          • Bill,
            There have been over 100 studies, most are shoddy at best, so outright fraudulent. Some claim some favorable results others not so much, most are inconclusive. The Together Trial ceased their ivermectin trial due to “futility” the Mayer study that was involved in the meta-study Jay spoke about should be looked in to, but I’ve been busy and haven’t had a chance as of yet.
            .
            So far getting even one good study to support the claim that ivermectin should be used to treat covid hasn’t happened. Maybe the Mayer study will do that?
            .
            Jose did provide some studies about some unrelated ivermectin studies but there was one dealing with ivermectin and LPS production in mice…if that helps

  5. I would posit that not only is there misinformation and disinformation aplenty out there regarding all aspects and from all players in the Covid Wars, but there is misinformation and disinformation out there regarding everything from the weather to our own ethnicities. This is The Age of the Lie. Even the human right of belief itself is a weapon of ideological and spiritual war. I understand and share Dr. Zink’s frustration. For quite a number of years now, everything I hear or read regarding every subject under the sun is suspect until it is carefully confirmed or rejected, and both belief and rejection in all issues have become cards held closely to my chest lest my ideological position is revealed to this cold, heartless, vengeful world to be used against me in daily life.

    • “The Age of the Lie” – love the sound bite. It is not new, just seems to be getting worse. This age has been going on for about 6,000 years since the Garden of Eden. When our schools teach that lying and cheating are “creative success strategies” it is no wonder truth and honor are not valued.

      • Trump made lying a shame free strategy. Republicans have elevated hypocrisy beyond the social norms that used to restrict it.

        • “In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year.”

          “The attack on Benghazi was the direct result of a video”

          “I remember landing under sniper fire”

        • I got it Evan. let’s start it again it’s all Trumps fault. TrumpTrumpTrump that is we’re all you libs go when you have nothing to say that has meaning. If you think Trump started this you are just plain wrong. He lives in your mind and u just can’t get him out.

          • I once read a list of so-called “Trump Lies”. It was so flimsy. I laughed my –s off. Misinformation comes from the democrats. They can’t win in the arena of ideas so the ad-hominem attack is all they’ve got. Oh, and expanding the welfare state. At this point, one has to be intellectually dishonest, or Lisa Murkowski, to stand with Democrats.

    • Which implies what we all know now: the Hippocratic oath of doing no harm is ignored by physicians today, and people are allowed to die if they don’t go along with the narrative. Thanks for pointing that out.

      As far as the infallibility of doctors- at all levels I might add- history is fraught with examples of misinformation, malpractice, medical experimentation, etc. from the medical establishment. Not to impugn all docs, nor even the bulk of doctors, but to think that the medical community has ever been sacrosanct in how it has interacted with the rank and file population is just ridiculous.

    • Swiney, your comment is representative of the problem Suzanne so skillfully laid bare.
      You ascribe to the Credentialed argument theory. If a fellow in a white coat says it, you can take it to the Bank and cash it.
      Trouble is, the Medical Establishment to date has done a lousy job in treating people infected with the Chi-Com bioweapon, AKA Covid-19. Suzanne has documented this fact well.
      If one follows your argument to it’s logical conclusion one could make the case for the following. Let’s say that the FAA through an Emergency Use Authorization decreed that Airlines could only use the De Havilind Comet for their scheduled flights. After three or four flights a day implode would you then hop aboard such an aircraft? Especially so since the FAA instead of pulling the Comet’s ticket publicly blamed the problem on you the passenger? Meanwhile, this another Aircraft, the Boeing 707 is grounded because the FAA has forbidden it’s use, despite an apparent stellar safety record in other countries across the planet?
      I hope the above propts some to think, just a bit about blind adherence to Authority.

      • That was all well-said and well-argued, OA, but I would go further and state that it is both ignorant and negligently naive to assume that ‘experts’ cannot and are not frequently if not routinely compromised by money and./or political agendas, just as so many others are in society today. To consider medical professionals any less immune to political biases, groupthink, and pro-establishment narratives and pressures is woefully gullible and in denial of reality.

      • The jabs that aren’t doing much for controlling the bioweapon but are creating lots of billionaires have only emergency use approvals and can only be administered if there is no other effective drug. If it were accepted that Ivermectin or other drugs are effective, no lucrative jabs; follow the money.

        • Art,
          If we just accept ivermectin works at treating covid thus all goes away? You’re a smart fella, maybe you can point me in the direction of a well done and reliable study showing that ivermectin works in treating covid? I’ve asked others and the best I’ve seen is small studies from third world countries, or countries like Iran that obviously have absolutely no vested interest in sharing misinformation…
          .
          The largest and so far best trial studies have shown fluvoxamine to be effective and stopped the trials on ivermectin and a few other drugs due to futility.

      • The jury is still out on mass vacations. Complete bs. Just like what you wrote. Go to Suzanne next time you need a doctor. Otherwise your comment is incoherent

        • Mass vaccinations eradicated smallpox from the face of the Earth (but not the vaults of the CDC and the Russians, where it can one day again be released on humanity like this pesky cold virus has). Vaccinations have been proven to be scientifically effective.
          Mass vacations (economic and social shutdowns) are proven techniques for destroying a society and culture. But people who don’t want to go to work absolutely love them.

          • Smallpox was eradicated, as there was an isolate in humans. There is no isolate of C19 in humans,. and never will be. Mass vax DURING an outbreak (especially with a leaky, genetic therapy drug that is prone to rapid waning) is fool’s errand and we will just be chasing around a virus that is always mutating one or more steps ahead of us…

      • Let’s substitute the 737-Max for the de Havilland Comet. Three crashed for reasons unknown at the time. The planes were grounded world wide. Eventually the problem was solved by engineers, i.e. credentialed people, and the Max is again now being used world wide. Passengers were never blamed for the plane crashes. I’m not sure what you are getting at with your Comet argument, but it doesn’t pass the smell test.

        • Homo, you don’t need a medical degree to understand that the mRNA treatment isn’t working and is a diaster.. A child after finishing the third grade can make that deduction. Perhaps you should bone up on the obvious correlation coefficient between countries with nearly mass jabbed and skyrocketing ” breakthroughs”
          And thank you for making my case with your 737 max comment. Yes, the max was pulled from the market, unlike your Pfizer jab. That is accountability, seen that from Fauci lately? Didn’t think so.

    • If you want to follow the advice of a charlatan who lied and mislead people for (apparently) political reasons, go for it.
      Me, I’m gonna use a physician who puts my health and treatments ahead of her personal politics. But you do you.

    • ER doctors?
      When is the last time Zink actually practiced medicine? Perhaps not as long ago as Fauci, but I’m pretty sure she’s been a paper pusher for most of her career.
      I think for myself first, do some research, and call my doctor when I think it’s necessary.
      I don’t base my healthcare decisions on talking heads who’s primary concern is not my health.

      • She currently works at the providence Er. Zink was at Matsu Health for 13 years. She was chosen as Alaska’s chief medical officer because she excelled as a doctor. Good luck the next time you go to the hospital. Wear the Star of David.

          • So if you are supernal and your self righteousness overwhelms everyone else simply because you are so superior to all others because you know President Trump is not good enough, though his patriotism makes your own look as it is — phony, tiny, and nondescript.

    • When doctors make common cause with politicians and unions they become politicians and lose any deference they might have on medical issues.

      • Zink was appointed as chief medical officer of the state of Alaska. Dunleavy could’ve dumped her. He didn’t. I’m sure she has no common cause with the governor, so why your comment?

        • You might be able to get your money back on that reading comprehension class.

          There are hundreds of people who are appointed chief something or another; I used to be one, and it isn’t that big a deal.

          You have a bunch of lefty doctors and union reps associated with the Little Sisters of Covidian who are coordinating their efforts with the MOA Ass-9; that removes them from the “do no harm” crowd to the do anything to advance the lefty agenda crowd. Zink is far friendlier with the Assembly 9 than I would have tolerated as a Republican appointed official.

          I had a pretty well-established reputation for arrogance and borderline insubordination, but if working for a Republican Administration, my name wouldn’t have gone on a WaPo Op-Ed unless every word of it had been expressly approved by the Governor’s Office, and I don’t mean by some Special Assistant. And if the Third Floor did approve it, they need their heads examined.

          • “… my name wouldn’t have gone on a WaPo Op-Ed unless every word of it had been expressly approved by the Governor’s Office,…”
            Looks like Art needed careful watching back in the day.
            Now he has free rein.
            Be afraid, but not very afraid.

      • I kinda agree with Art on this, but just kinda. There are a number of MDs, in Congress who make me wonder how they ever got through med school (Barrasso, Cassidy, Paul, Ted Cruz*) but who seem to know how to find the money and power.
        *Just joking. Cruz has never been an MD, but he was once a Canadian and is now a professional politician. (I know, professional politician an oxymoron.)

    • It is generally accepted that doctors treat all regardless of status, political affiliation, belief system etc. The severity of your illness dictates the level of care you receive, nothing else should matter. Your statement clearly implies that we should make sure to be on doctors “good” side to have any hope of getting emergency treatment. Reminds me of Ronald Reagan when he got shot and said he hoped that the docs were republicans…he was joking. You clearly seem to think that personal bias should be the deciding factor for a physician on who gets care and who does not….wow!

  6. A department tasked with huge programs that put everyone on the dole and discourage self-reliance is bound to be peopled with liberals. In a conservative administration these people hide and hunker down. DH&SS is on a mission to ban ammunition even though there is absolutely no peer reviewed research that honestly shows any connection between human health problems and hunting with lead ammunition – because they are big city liberals. DH&SS will again vote for Walker. We need a much smaller DH&SS! But Alaskans are not to blame for this bio-warfare from China to which the world has not really pushed back because we fear China; I’ll admit that our disgraceful results in Afghanistan does give anyone pause, but China is coming for us no matter what we do. On the positive side, this Covid epidemic showed us we can replace rural schools with tele-education for a positive result that has a much lower cost that current practices. We should close all schools in communities that have no property tax to replace the schools with one central tele-education center broadcasting from Prince of Wales Island all the way to Wales, Alaska. We can take $600 million or more from the BSA, and Covid has shown us the way.

    • This bush resident strongly disagrees. Tele-Ed gets terrible results without strong participation from both a local school AND parents, and teachers who know your kids. As for your tax bitterness – there is no taxable property in my village, no private land – and for the last 16 years, no public school or functioning fire department. Ever watched your neighbor’s house burn down? Try attracting families with children or of childbearing age – the ones you need to build community – without a public school. Not everyone is attracted to or does well with homeschooling. Fear of Covid has paralyzed some villages – there is nothing positive to see here. You don’t like your taxes? – You voters can change your tax code and the services you receive. I don’t have that choice. The State cuts revenue sharing, PCE, AND services to preserve the bureaucracy – your taxes actually preserve your way of life in the cities, while many of the villages have no tax base and no choice. “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY) you say – “don’t cut my subsidy or services.” Your taxes do NOT subsidize the Bush. “But the distribution of oil revenue is not equitable – the Bush gets a higher percentage per capita” – and we don’t reap your continuing benefit from the railbelt intertie and other State funded projects that largely benefit the Cities. You pay less than one fifth our electric rate. For much of my shopping, I must use City businesses, for which I’m taxed by the Cities – even though I don’t live there… Without Bush business, many of the stores and services in the Cities would close, so an argument can be made that the Bush is subsidizing the Cities. Friend, can we please STOP the calumny about taxes and State “subsidies” of the Bush? I choose to live out here, as you choose to live where you do – and we all are trying to do the best we can with the hand dealt to us. Peace! Sorry about the rant – I do appreciate that you are thinking about how the State can save some $ – but NIMBY doesn’t cut it in any way, shape, or form, and forcing the Bush into Tele-Ed-only will result in Molly Hootch redux and a generation of lost Bush kids. Let us not waste a single life.

  7. Well said. Fair is fair. She asked us for patience and flexibility and yet didn’t allow us the same grace Alaskans readily extended her. I don’t think she’s a bad person, her problem is that she’s a Jay Butler fan girl and doesn’t bother to question anything he says, much less, consider the possibility that he’s wrong…and he is. Remember, he was the right hand of a DHSS administration that was awash is sketchy antics that only benefitted the then commissioner, her lackeys, and a of minority of Alaskans.

  8. Well, the Oracle in the Yurt certainly enhanced her cred with the Little Sisters of Covidian and the communist, excuse me, Democrat scamdemic mafia; being published in Pravda is quite a thing. It would be interesting to know how she came to get an Op-Ed in the WaPo; you don’t just throw something over the transom and get it published there, though if I were angling for an appointment with the Biden Administration I might try to wrangle a cameo appearance in the WaPo.

    I spent most of my State career about where she is on the State org chart, either a political appointee or a direct report to an elected or appointed official. I was influential enough and well-enough known in governmental/political circles that my words and actions were inseparable from the administrations I worked for. I wrote a lot of letters and Op-Eds on local and even National issues and always included the disclaimer that the opinion was my own and did not represent the position of the State. As best I recall I only wrote two Op-Eds on State issues and in both cases my resignation had already been submitted.

    I would never in a million years have submitted an Op-Ed to the WaPo without the express permission of the Governor’s Office. I would never have even talked to the WaPo without at least the approval of my commissioner’s office. Every administration I worked for had a standing order that you had no contact with media in your State capacity without clearing it with at least your director or commissioner.

    The whole “misinformation” meme is just Democrat code for doing or saying something that the Biden Administration doesn’t approve of. If she did this without the knowledge and approval of the administration, her career indicator light should be flashing very brightly. If she did have the approval of the Administration, somebody needs their head examined.

    • I think you can just take them until you die now. That seems to be where this is going. If it didn’t kill or seriously harm you then well, just try it again until it does.

    • The first and subsequent boosters, for those who survive the first dose, for the “natural immunity ” from getting the disease are currently expected on a median frequency of every 16 months.

      The science of SARS-CoV-2 is emerging and will continue – regardless of the rantings on scientifically illiterate pseudo journalists.

      • Jere. wow, arrogance on display with your comment above! So , while the science is evolving the correlating profits of Pfizer will continue to skyrocket ? Is that right? Oh BTW, what have sales of drugs to treat blood clotting done since the Pfizer Poke has been thrust on society? Wanna make a bet here?
        I say thank God for journalists, the real ones who report the truth and are not shills for the Establishment.

  9. Yes Ma’am! As usual you hit the nail on the head. Zink, as far as I can tell, is just like Fauci, NOT to be trusted. Neither if them takes responsibility for what they say and do, the circle backs to differing advice without any science to it, just politics as usual. They are both power hungry individuals who don’t want Alaskans to think for themselves. Juneau has followed suit. Not me, I have a mind of my own and use it quite well, thank you very much! I will continue to attend school board meetings, assembly meetings, etc, voice my opinion and refuse to mask. It is of VERY little to no value and has caused family members to have chronic sneezing, coughing and cold-like symptoms since the implementation of this “mandate”(i.e. power grab). I will NOT comply!

  10. We got possibilities here:
    1-Covid is out of control and will do what the Chineses designed.
    2-Covid was never the Armageddon it was reported to be and we’ve been conned from the beginning.
    3-The “medical community” doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing and can’t admit it.
    4-This is a political and propaganda tool.
    5-Fauci and his acolytes is are absorbed idiots who are desperate to stay in the news.

    Nowhere in any of these does the public health actually matter.

    • Masked Avenger: Your scenarios will never be proven. And maybe the opposite of what you claim will never be proven. So we have to turn to evidence and judge it against our life experience, our intellect and all the established knowledge and make a decision that, while not 100% perfect, makes the most sense.

      You scenarios do not make the most sense. They do not conform to the body evidence. And your number one possibility is logically contradictory.

  11. Zink has had her professional and economic situation dramatically improve due to her constant parroting of the Fauci behind the curtain. Follow the money and you will see the reason for all the propaganda.

  12. Just before the rapid spread of the possibly more highly transmissible Zeta variant.
    That’s my best guess at this point; I’ll need a few weeks to study the data and get back to you.
    In the meantime, get vaccinated and wear your d@mn mask, you puny peon!

  13. I lost a lot of respect for my doctor when I had Covid. I asked for an Ivermectin prescription. Her response was that Ivermectin had lots of good data, but she would not prescribe it because it would label her a wacko (her term). Not that it wasn’t approved or that it had not been proven to be useful. Her reputation was more important than my health.

      • Which begs the question why?
        Ivermectin is a FDA approved medication that is NOT a narcotic and not subject to more stringent regulation. She is a duly licensed physician making a diagnosis and ordering a medication, which in her professional opinion will improve her patient’s health or at least prevent further deterioration of his status.
        Bringing political pressure to bear to prevent medical professions to strife for the best outcome for their patients, is clearly what we are seeing here and undoubtedly this doc took her cue from Dr. Zink.

  14. Great article! Thank you, Suzanne.

    Dr. Zink is pretty good at appearing wholesome and earnest. It may be that she truly is, but anyone who thinks that their opinion should rightfully be FORCED upon others, is not someone that I find to be reliable. Unfortunately, the truth is hard to come by, and most of the time it only seems to be found by actively hunting for it. Those that have strived to find it, believe they have, whether they are correct or not, cannot reasonably be expected to be inviting to those whom openly push their superiority complex upon others. Individual liberty surrendered to tyrants is difficult, if not impossible to recover.

    As for me, I intend to stand my ground, and not be intimidated by the merchants of fear that seek to consolidate control. None of us were meant to live forever, the redefined ‘vaccine’ is NOT going to confer immortality upon anyone, and more than likely, we are all far better off without it.

    Let us, together, relegate those who seek to entirely control information, to obscurity.

    • Kee-rist North. Zink has NEVER forced her opinion on anyone. How do you even do that. She has consistently provided valuable, true and necessary information in a pleasant, honest way that should makes Alaskans proud.

      I think key to your complaint is your use of the term “ superiority complex”. It signals that you feel intimidated by those smarter than you. It signals that you are protecting a vulnerability or maybe some past trauma to your intellect.

      Zink’s advice is a gift and it could save your life.

      • Hello Evan. We have information. There is information that is unfamiliar, information that needs to be analyzed, information that can be disproven with facts and other accurate data, information that is perfectly useless and/or inaccurate, and it can continue to be broken down into any other myriad of ways. Regardless, swinging the words ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ is to disparage another’s source of information and to infer that one’s own information is superior. Are you getting it yet?

        Ultimately, freedom is what is on the line here. The tools of the totalitarians are effective, have become ubiquitous in this day and age, and it will be no easy feat to overcome them. It would be good to have you and everyone here on the same side. We all need to stand up and fight for each other. Alternatively, we can sit back and allow the totalitarians to take control, appeasing them as they proceed, then lament when they come for our neighbors, our loved ones, and possibly us. Our opinions differ, but I appreciate the fight in you!

  15. I think I’d like to add Paul Harvey’s take: The mandates are killing people in other ways. With the top-down medical collusory policy in favor of Big Pharma, all upper level strategists have become null and void in the eye of the public. The denial of proven Early Home Ambulatory Treatments provides suspicion enough when these same medications [IVM/HCQ] have been used off-label for decades and have less than 20 deaths PER YEAR. That reports of backloading vax injury and deaths (spiking horrifically) are occurring with regularity on the VAERS system, there’s even more suspicion. With Pfizer, et al rushing to clear the hurdle of pregnancy approval (for licensing) in spite of a quadrupling of stillborn cases is more than troubling. Sales globally are expected to clear $60 BILLION per year. That the “authorities” are now pushing the vax thru advertising for children who are at less than 1 in 1 million risk of dying from CV-19 tells you something. That Pfizer who was nearing bankruptcy has now over $4 billion in sales in the U.S. alone is telling. And for the coup de gras 4 members on the FDA board are Big Pharma shills. Of course they’re going to blame COVID on the patients. Why not? “https://nationalinterest.org/blog/coronavirus/billions-were-spent-coronavirus-vaccines-191338”

    • VAERS has limitations, including unverified reports, misattribution, underreporting, and inconsistent data quality. CDC cautions that it is generally not possible to find out from VAERS data if a vaccine caused adverse events, or how common the events might be.

  16. I believe that Big Pharma is controlling the information and Zink is just a pawn. Think about it: You must be vaccinated by Big Pharma’s vaccine, but you cannot take a proven drug that is not under Big Pharma’s control–meaning they cannot make big bucks off it. Even if you take the vaccine, you might get COVID anyway. Which is happening at an alarming rate. There’s breakthrough cases happening daily. Yet, you still must get another jab–again recommended by Big Pharma! I predict there will be many, many variants and just as many boosters developed by Big Pharma.

  17. SD – you are a blessing for the local community – with the devolution of local newspapers – you play a vital role in local news – look for my donation$ today.
    #1 – the Chinese flu isn’t some grave threat to humanity. The response from The State around the world is the grave threat – and their minions who will gleefully do their bidding – up to and including loading people, by force, onto buses and trains to “quarantine” camps. Remember, 69 yo and younger, without serious comorbidities have a 99.997% chance of survival.
    #2 – in the end Tyrants never give up power willingly. The power to be free must be wrested from tyrants with violence – history shows – by FreeMen who only wanted to be left alone.
    FJB
    Sic Semper Tyrannis!
    AkPureBlood.

  18. The fifth booster will come out to battle the new “Omicron” variant which will be here before Christmas. We will be told to lock down again and shame those who attend celebrations. If you’re an elite Democrat, you can still attend lavish parties as long as you leave your phone and recording devices at home (they don’t want the inconvenience of being recorded in large crowds not wearing masks).

    • Thank you, Evan. I think you misunderstand. I said the virus is likely a bioweapon. Sorry it was not clear. – sd

          • Clearly not a bioweapon. If it were, it would be much more deadly. And why would a bioweapon creator (other than God, of course) unleash something that would spread world wide and haphazardly? Bioweapons are designed to be short lived, lethal, and easily contained. Unless, of course, it is Mother Nature’s bioweapon.
            Viruses can be designed, but M.N. is the one who designs them. If Covid were human designed for bioweapon purposes, there would be an antitoxin associated with it. And, besides, Mother Nature is better at designing things than we humans.

    • We don’t know if it was launched as a bioweapon, but once it left the lab by whatever means, it was used as one. After it was launched or escaped in Wuhan, China isolated Wuhan and its surrounds from the rest of China and employed draconian means to control the access to Wuhan by Chinese citizens

      However, they allowed residents of Wuhan to travel internationally and allowed international visitors, including international air crews and passengers access to Wuhan. In effect they turned every person going to or from the rest of the World into a cruise missile carrying a biological weapon. It is not coincidence that the first place in The West to have to deal with mass casualties was Italy, which has almost become a Chinese province. The first case here in ANC was aircrew on a flight from Wuhan. The first cases around the US were in places in proximity to international airports. It wasn’t an accident.

      • Clearly a well oiled, world wide, conspiracy to release a moderately lethal, airborne virus capable of infecting people everywhere in order to impose the next New World Order on us hopelessly naive innocents.
        What else could it possibly be?

    • Our own intel agencies have disclosed that the CCP is actively gathering bio-metric info specific to ethnicity. It would be a reasonable inference that the CCP is researching biological weapons which won’t likely boomerang on them.
      Wuhan most likely was an accident, that was first covered up by minor officials simply because the CCP is well known to execute anyone who annoys them.

      • Joe, they openly admitted it in scientific papers. They collect Uighur and Tibetan DNA. They are developing minority facial recognition. They don’t care who knows about it. Certainly not Hunter and Ashley’s father (The Big Guy, Power Shower).

  19. Perhaps what we need is for the entire world to stand up to China and demand all of their knowledge of gain-of-function – of which research likely produced a cure and/or preventative. No contagious bio-weapon is of any use without the ability to protect your own side. The big loser is the medical establishment – will we ever trust them again?

  20. The greatest element of misinformation and disinformation in this pandemic is the failure of the medical community to say: “We don’t know.” Take away the vaccines and the emerging anti-virals, the advice from the white-coat people has not evolved much beyond 1920. Too often, the medical folks insist that they are oh-so-wise and that their fuzzy advice must be followed without question. That approach has not served humanity very well. It is time for a large number of medical folks to be honest – to admit that they do not know many of the answers and inform the public that their plans are quite incomplete. Limitations and qualifications of scientific studies must be shown up-front. I am tired of the arrogance and hubris. The best tool for everyone, which includes the medical and scientific community, may be a quiet, private moment in front of a mirror. I would recommend that this treatment take place without wearing a mask.

    • This is something people should have done long before covid. Doctors and lawyers are the only two professions who never actual do the job they were trained for, they simply practice. Far too many people think doctors know everything and do exactly what they say without taking into consideration that they are the patient being practiced upon. Everyone should be able to have a conversation with their doctor about their own personal well being, if you can’t do that get a new doctor. Each of us is ultimately responsible for our own well being, doctors should simply advise you about information they know that you do not.

      • Right on Steve-O!
        Medicine is a partnership between patient and their healthcare professionals. The goal should be to the find the best solution possible for each individual patient under the circumstances presented. One size never fits anyone. If your doctor doesn’t listen to you, make him/her or find another one. Trust in this relationship is everything. In the end you as the patient have to live with the healthcare choice made NOT your doctor.
        As for the good Dr. Zink, I find her blindly dismissing findings as “misinformation” intellectually dishonest and cowardly. Any physician should have the curiosity of exploration to find the best solution for her patients regardless.

  21. Everything is misinformation when you have a sincerely flawed, grossly inaccurate and continuously manipulated testing media in the RT-PCR. Without appropriate serial testing and use of clinical judgment, no “case” is what it seems. The EUA runs out on it December 31, 2020…what comes next? Who knows, but I suspect the new testing standard will again lead to more misinformation…

  22. Thank you for your capable critical thinking Alaskan mind. True Alaskans think for themselves, that is why we have and will continue to be more than capable to overcome challenges. Dr. Zink does not represent the true spirit and critical mind of Alaska. Her fear driven “leadership” incites impulsivity and externally controlled directives that is killing Alaskans. The mantra of “those and us” elicit divisiveness rather creative solutions, as well as denies the “them” (Covid 19 infected survivors who have natural vaccination immunity, yet denied antibody testing to determine how many 100,000s of us exist in Alaska). No Alaskans should have to die from Covid 19. Medical necessity requires that all options should be on the table to accomplish the prime directive of no deaths. Shame on Dr. Zink and other kindred
    physicians whose response in House Committees to “what people can do if they get Covid or if they cannot take the vaccination” is they should have gotten the vaccination, isolate permanently from society, or wait it out and come to our overwhelmed E.R.s if Covid has consumed you to the point of severe need.

    This past month my daughter and grandson got Covid. Fortunately my daughter is doing humanitarian work in another country, which Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and other evidenced based interventions are attainable “over-the-counter” and did overcome Covid in 3 days. Under Dr. Zink, are we the third world community? True Alaskans would keep all options open.

      • …so are mandates and coercion!
        …especially if public policy boils down to a sign at the hospital door that reads:
        “If you are sick. Stay HOME”

      • Oh yes, Evan, and there’s been NO exaggeration by the corrupt corporate media and those in power over the risks of this very mild pandemic! No, no constant and unrelenting drumbeat of fearmongering and exaggeration whatsoever.

  23. If this is a bioweapon unleashed from the CCP on the world, why would anyone willingly subject themselves to this bioweapon? Shouldn’t anyone who isn’t a supporter of the Communist Chinese do anything in their power to prevent themselves from becoming infected and spreading this bioweapon? Why would someone claiming to be against the CCP act as the lapdog to these commies and try and convince freedom loving Americans to subject themselves to the communist brain damage causing disease? Wouldn’t you think using western medicine to protect yourself from a Communist Chinese bioweapon would be an honorable thing for those who believe in liberty and freedom, who believe that America is a special country? Instead we have some people who claim they are against the CCP, but then support the spread of their bioweapon through their words and actions.

  24. Although imperfect, the Establishment’s (including Dr. Zink’s) efforts and recommendations have done a lot more good than the exhortations of sites like MRAK, which recommend “doing your own research”, and which cast doubt on current vaccination and masking efforts.

    Science is good, but it’s not flawless. This virus is unpredictable, capricious, and tenacious. It may well kill many, many more before it’s through with us. Medical science is doing its very best to cope and to respond to an ever-changing situation. What we’re all involved in here is a battle wherein we use the best vaccines and therapies available in an effort to stay alive long enough until something better can be developed. Maybe we will win the battle, and maybe we won’t. Only time will tell. Even with the best of efforts, Covid may actually get worse, before it gets even worse.

    But please give credit where it’s due. The fact that medical science doesn’t (yet) have the ideal solution is no reason to question the motives or dedication of people like Zink, Fauci, et al. They have devoted their lives to helping citizens, and that includes you. What they are offering is pretty good, scientifically proven, safe, and with any luck it may just be buying us the time we need to develop airtight vaccines and treatments.

    So count your blessings, and stop throwing stones unless you have cooked up the perfect vaccine in your basement, and can prove it.

    • Anyone who decides to use the word ‘misinformation’ to marginalize what other people say or think, unarguably has questionable motives. They are battling for information and idea supremacy, and if you seek to appease this sort of supremacist behavior, you have lost sight of reality.

      Propaganda is legal in the US, and it has been for nearly a decade. Psychological warfare is no longer in its infancy, and for the most part, none of us has been trained to recognize it, how to deal with it, or to combat it. The tools at the hands of the totalitarians are well developed, and wielded with expert care.

      I don’t happen to believe that Dr. Zink is one of them, but her use of the word ‘misinformation’ is at the very least, quite careless. It is critical that each of stand for the rights that we have for so long taken for granted. By no means will be easy to regain our freedom as we fight every day, but once it slips away, there will be no recovering in our lifetimes, and perhaps not for many lifetimes.

  25. Good opinion piece! I to have been troubled by Doctor’s evolving protocols during this pandemic. I chose to take vitamin D, zinc, eat healthy, get plenty of exercise & sleep. So far my family is healthy.
    Thank you for your reporting of facts, that some media chooses to ignore.

    • ‘https://choiceclips.whatfinger.com/2021/11/28/the-covid-vaccines-were-designed-to-fail-doctors-for-covid-ethics/’

      Suzanne, a 10 minute clip it seems relevant to the covid debate.
      Thanks for a great article

      • Good link – I looked and it’s worth adding to our personal info base.
        Doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree. This 10 minute video is another piece of the puzzle.

  26. For those who didn’t take the time to read the words of Anne Zink, which is clearly the majority of those who commented…here they are:
    .
    “Like most of the patients in my hospital’s emergency department these days, a man I recently treated was middle-aged and otherwise healthy but had fallen ill with covid-19 — and was unvaccinated. By the time I met him, he was struggling to breathe, blue and scared, with oxygen levels not usually compatible with life. He had chosen not to be vaccinated because he feared side effects and misunderstood the risk of covid; when he became ill, he had spent hundreds of dollars for online remedies.
    .
    The room was quiet, except for the hiss of the machine forcing oxygen into his inflamed lungs. It was an oddly quiet moment during a hectic day, and we both fought back tears.
    .
    My patient (who remains hospitalized) was suffering not just because of the virus, but also because of the deadly combination of misinformation and disinformation in a broken health-care system, in a country of broken trust. As both an emergency physician and Alaska’s chief medical officer, after 22 months of fighting this pandemic, I found myself exhausted as I sat there with him, humbled by this virus and acutely aware of how much work we have yet to do.
    .
    Alaska has fared comparatively well overall during the pandemic, but this fall the infection rate soared. Surgeries were postponed, patient transfers were delayed and nursing ratios were stretched as hospitals ran out of staffed beds and almost ran out of oxygen. Our hospitals were like seaside rocks slowly being drowned by a rising tide of covid-19 patients.
    .
    At the beginning of the pandemic, when we had few tools and even less understanding of the disease, Alaska’s tragic experience during the 1918 influenza pandemic often came to mind.
    .
    During a visit to Bristol Bay’s hospital, originally built for orphans of the “great death,” I heard Thomas Tilden, chief of the Curyung Tribal Council, recall his grandmother’s story of returning to her village to find mainly children and dogs surviving. Many communities were nearly destroyed. The deadly flu left both a painful memory and at times intergenerational trauma, but also strength and resiliency.
    .
    The pandemic’s early days could have been similarly devastating for the state. One of Alaska’s main rural air carriers went bankrupt, threatening supply chains and essential travel. On one weekend, amid shortages, the largest hospital had only six swabs and the state government had none. But Alaskans, showing the same spirit that gets them through earthquakes, blizzards and long, dark winters, rose to the challenge.
    .
    We addressed the swab shortage by producing 3-D printed versions. We also made our own testing reagents and established alternate care sites for isolated rural residents. When vaccines became available, the state partnered with tribal health-care providers to deliver lifesaving shots in arms, fast and fair. Health-care workers traveled by bush plane, snow machine and dog sled, delivering vaccines. For months, we led the nation with high vaccination rates.
    .
    Eventually, as occurred in many other rural states, our vaccination effort stalled. Hesitancy and misinformation made many people underestimate the risk of covid-19 infections and overestimate the risk from the coronavirus vaccines.
    .
    During Alaska’s long, sunny summer days, cases plummeted. We were desperate to see friends and family and to get back to normal life. It was easy to ignore the darkening cloud of the delta variant and the festering discontent and mistrust many people felt after months of strain. With little natural immunity from previous covid-19 surges, relatively low vaccination rates and a population weary of mitigation measures — and with temperatures falling and indoor gatherings increasing — Alaska was overrun by the delta variant.
    .
    In September, hospitals adopted contingency plans called “crisis standards of care”; almost 500 government-contracted health-care workers from the Lower 48 were deployed across the state. Alaska’s case rate is often the highest in the country.
    .
    Covid-19 has highlighted an alarming shortcoming in U.S. health care: underinvestment in public health and prevention, resulting — not just with covid-19 — in higher mortality rates for rural Americans, communities of color and working families when illness strikes.
    .
    The pandemic reminds us how, even across great expanses like Alaska’s, we are all connected. To thrive, we must come together — urban and rural, left and right, young and old — embracing our strengths and acknowledging our fragility. We must invest in rural health care, train and recruit providers to work in nonurban environments, and expand research to embrace America’s wide diversity.
    .
    When the storm passes, recovery begins. The future will depend on how we remake our health-care systems, repair the tattered relationships between patients and providers, between scientists and politicians, and even among friends, neighbors and families. The focus must be on a healthier and more resilient future for all. Ultimately, how we remember and rebuild will be more important than how we responded.”
    .
    Sometimes, nay…every time it is worth finding out the information for yourself and forming your opinion and making decisions on your own based upon the information you have actually seen, not just that which was told to you.

        • Jay,
          How’s that exactly, what am I advising people not to do in my post? I am advising people inform themselves about the topic they are commenting on, in this case Dr. Zink’s opinion piece.

          • No, Steve, you are NOT doing as you claim here, you are pandering to emotion over logic and presenting an emotionally-charged anecdotal story as data. How pathetic and how contemptible!

          • There is no useful information in her writing. Just emotional appeal. It is a waste of time to read it. A beaureaucrat looking for a better payday.

          • I haven’t “actually seen” anything that you cut and pasted. Now you know why people don’t waste time reading Zink. We have Suzi to do it for us.

          • Jay,
            If you are comfortable with farming out your thought process for you, good luck. I agree with a lot of what Suzanne writes, I won’t be found wholesale farming out my thought process to her or anyone else…to each their own.

          • “If you are comfortable with farming out your thought process for you, good luck.” Reading that tells me i’m not “farming” anything out to you.

    • Thanks Steve-O.
      So the good doctor said this:
      “Sometimes, nay…every time it is worth finding out the information for yourself and forming your opinion and making decisions on your own based upon the information you have actually seen, not just that which was told to you.”
      In other words she is contradicting herself, inviting patients and I dare say doctors to look beyond what they are told and assess information for themselves instead of relying on others for a label like misinformation….. She does have a future as a writer of drama though, if her day job falls thru.

      • AFH,
        The first and last paragraphs were my words. The second paragraph started with quotation marks denoting the beginning of Dr. Zinks words, the penultimate paragraph ended with quotation marks, denoting the end of Dr. Zinks words. The point of my words is that people should take the time to be informed about what they are commenting on, since many here obviously do not do that.

        • Yeah well nobody is perfect! I suppose her melodramatic “darkening cloud” paragraph, was a bit too much for my taste and I simply overlooked your quotation marks….as I said nobody is perfect.

          • AFH,
            No worries, I was simply trying to help those less tech savvy or less inclined to actually inform themselves see what Dr. Zink actually wrote. I never said I agreed with it all, I just thought it might be worth sharing it with those who obviously didn’t take the time to read what they were complaining about.

      • That’s nice. Sadly we did not hire her to be the Alaska Bard. We pay her to help make health policy and that does not seem to be her forte.

    • Hey did you hear? The new Omicron variant has been released. The next issue of your new Covid-Plus subscription. They say the new variant has the same symptoms as the reported jab side effects. What a coincidence!

      Step right up for your 4th jab, and after the holidays, your 5th jab will be discounted by 50%!

      This madness only stops when you stop feeding it.

  27. Dear ‘ole Dr. Zink shipped her husband and kids to the West Coast for a road-tripping, home schooling, van sleeping winter of ‘20/‘21 jaunt to opt-out of many rules and rule followers.

  28. Zink lost me last November when she took her family on a van road trip to go surfing, and conduct home school in Southern California, when us common folk could not travel through Canada. She is a true elitist. She is better and smarter than us, just ask her, or read her piece, she will tell you.

    In her WP piece she talks about the broken trust between healthcare providers and patients, yep that is all too real, and she is a big part of the problem. I suspect history will judge her those like her very harshly.

  29. Suzanne, I only recently discovered your website, and have found it to be the best in Alaska for publishing fact based truth, thank you. I understand the need to be fair, but I think Steve, Evan, and Dog are trolls intent on spreading their ignorance on a subject they obviously know nothing about. That is only my opinion, but I can make that statement with a high degree of confidence due to my professional background. I hold multiple degrees in science and the medical field, along with 100,000 hours professional experience. I am not a licensed physician, but have more training and experience in immunology than most physicians. I have been a board certified specialist in immunology for 24 years. I have nothing to gain by commenting here, but I wonder if the same is true for those I mentioned at the beginning of my post. Also, thanks to Nurse for those wonderful comments posted earlier. When the shortages of all types of professionals becomes worse after January 4, remember that our courts, legislators, and governor did not stand with Alaskans. Our final chance will be the constitutional convention, vote for it.

    • Since there are 2 steve commenting here, I should have been clear I meant Steve-O. Apologies to the other Steve.

    • Natural Alaskan: Thanks for the shout out. I can be snarky because the posters here make it so easy. I don’t have anything to gain by posting here other than I enjoy a conversation with people who aren’t like me. But fundamentally, I put my trust in conclusions backed up by proper science and I want others to do the same. Vaccines are the product of best available science and we fail ourselves, our families and our community if we dither with other strategies.

    • Natural,
      Surely instead of calling people trolls, you could put your 100,000 hours of professional experience over 24 years to work and try and add something to the conversation. Maybe point out where those you erroneously label trolls are wrong? Over those 24 years as a board certified specialist in immunology, putting in almost 4,200 hours per year or almost 11.5 hours per day…everyday…for 365 days per year, surely you must have learned something you could share here other than simply calling those you disagree with trolls?
      .
      Enlighten us, please. While your at it, I might suggest you review the term troll as that’s exactly what you’ve done here…

    • Welcome Natural Alaskan!
      We will love to hear your take on all this from a science based, rational point of view.
      You have the “establishment commenters” pretty much pegged. But we love them all! Without them, vigorous debate would be considerably less entertaining!

  30. Naturally, I appreciate any who comment thoughtfully. Occasionally I don’t fall into that category. Those that you mentioned keep us on our toes and looking for real answers and solutions. Judging by your accomplishments I look forward to hearing from you. We are all in this together.

  31. History will not be kind to Dr. Zink and her ilk. The suppression & vilification of early intervention & treatment of Covid 19 will go down in medical annals as the most egregious error in modern times. Tens of thousands of innocents needlessly lost their lives because of the miserably failed Covid protocols that we are still living under. Unfortunately, because of the monumental economic & adverse health consequences of those who spouted these falsehoods, they are being forced into the proverbial corner. They are literally just making things up now to avoid possible criminal/civil prosecution. We never had a pandemic of the unvaccinated – we had a pandemic of the untreated!

  32. Terrific essay just brimming with misinformation and downright lies. Steve-O, you posed an excellent question. Surely someone here can come up with a properly run and peer reviewed study that shows Ivermectin works wonderously against covid since it’s been touted so often in these columns as a wonder drug! No? How very odd. There are numerous studies that have shown it to be useless against covid, which any rational person would admit makes sense since it’s a paralytic poison that kills living organisms like lice and parasitic worms not non-living viruses! That aside, natural immunity has also been touted in this column as being superior to immunity acquired from the vaccines. If that is true, why are there 4 breakthrough infections (most of them fairly recent as it became apparent the immunity was waning and a booster would be needed, but then natural immunity has also been demonstrated to wane after 6 months or so and there’s no booster!) to every 9 reinfections, adjusted for population, in Minnesota?? Interesting. How very curious. Also, the most recent deep dive into the origins of covid by a scientist/epidemiologist who was very open to (and actually leaning toward) the lab origin theory prior to his very thorough investigation, resulted in an almost irrefutable conclusion that it actually originated in the wet market! He found ‘group zero’ (which included ‘patient zero’, an employee in the market) the first cluster of infections, and they very clearly concentrated in the area of the wet market. Several blocks, across the river, and a couple more blocks from the suspect laboratory. Thus, natural origin has been pretty much proven. Pity to blow up such a nice, convenient conspiracy theory, but there you have it. Suzanne, you might want to update whatever ‘research’ you used so you’re not misinforming your readers further!

    • Sniff, sniff…

      There is a Shill stench in the air…

      Esthera, if you really care, the proof on Ivermectin that you insist does not exist can be found at the FLCCC website. At last count there were 64 studies on it with relation to its use as a treatment for COVID-19. 32 of those were randomized control trials, and 12 of those were double blinded (the gold standard for these trials). Honestly, I don’t expect that you care enough to look.

      BTW – natural origin has been roundly disproven. There are a multitude of patents over the past decade (and longer) that leave quite a paper trail. There is no doubt, that the wet market story was a feeble minded attempt to transfer causality.

    • Esther, I had a link showing about 140 studies of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine and there proven effectiveness. I’d be surprised if it would convinceyou, so I won’t spend time trying to locate it. I’m recommending that those who test positive and are at home waiting to deteriorate, take a look at the early treatment protocol. Really the recommendations are very low impact. The hospital treatment on the other hand of remdesivir and vent are very detrimental.
      I did use the protocol myself, but had gathered them before I was sick. 4 days and the covid was gone. I’ve experienced no known negitive side effects.

  33. What we expected from Dr. Zink and her compatriots from the very beginning was honesty and deliberated thought. There was the expectation of Fauci et al to honestly acknowledge they knew very little about it, that they would study it and then make a recommendation.
    What we got instead were emotionally reactive and constantly changing knee-jerk recommendations, without consideration to the psychological or economic impact to the country as a whole. Masks good, masks bad, masks good again, 6 feet distance, a number that they initially wanted to be 10 feet, but thought nobody would go for that, lock-downs, vaccine, vaccine mandates, boosters………on and on. The effect on the population was predetermined chaos, confusion, anxiety and distrust. When people balked at their recommendations, due to very little actual facts to support them, their recommendations became more bizarre to the point were people not vaccinated, lost their livelihoods and Fauci now wants infants and toddler vaccinated.
    What we expected from our chief medical officer was to thoughtfully consider all the implications of recommendations, provide timely and complete information, keep ethical practices in mind, defend Alaskans “Right to Try” and forge a plan forward that allowed the individual Alaskan and their doctor to assess their need for care based on their individual circumstances. Because of our remoteness and large distances, one would have expected her to embrace ANY potential early treatment options.
    Instead we have hubris (I recommend all Alaskans to stay home and not go anywhere, but my family can gallivant about because my rules do not apply to me) and arrogance (my information is the only one that counts, yours is fake news). She did nothing to keep the medical community together, assuring that we have doctors and nurses at a time we needed them most. Instead she had the governor import new ones, when the ones, who had worked here from the beginning, knew Alaskans well and had a stake in this state were fired or resigned.

  34. Suzanne. Your article contains misinformation and missing information. Understand medical care evolves based on continued evaluation and re-evaluation of treatments and treatment outcomes. There is no straight line to “best practices”. Ivermectin has shown promising results in a few observational studies. Well controlled peer reviewed studies have shown conflicting results – with no clear positive results. There may turn out to be a slight advantage to using it – but that would have to be weighed against the risks of its usage. I am aware of no data that says it is a “cure all” for Covid 19.

    Perhaps you might consider this less of a political issue and more of a medical issue – for which we should get our best minds together to come up with a solution that is free of name calling and subjective biases. Let’s discuss COVID treatment and prevention without interjecting Trump, Biden, China etc. Thanks.

      • True, but too bad that it has largely been dealt with, officially, on a political basis instead.
        .
        If anyone still thinks that all the authoritarian mandates and restrictions surrounding this oh-so-mild pandemic are actually about public health, instead of the start of the implementation of the total surveillance, total control agenda long on the wish list of our globalist overlords, that person is woefully ignorant, gullible, and wrong.

        • Jefferson: I picture you living on five acres in the Valley, game cameras along the perimeter, flood lights, concertina wire around the home. A fortified gate, a stockpile of all flavors of guns and ammo stashed in strategic locations. Your TV is tuned to Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson.

          Freedom!

          • And Evan, I picture you as the stereotypical Millenium soyboy in his skinny mom jeans, staring almost non-stop into his little hand-held gadget, poster of Karl Marx and Che Gueverra on his basement bedroom wall, devoid of friends and meaning in life, with a perpetual sullen scowl on your face, hours spent lying in your bed dreaming of how the world would be such a wonderful place if only YOU were in charge.

    • No one has claimed that IV or HCQ are “cure alls”. At this point the best solution is early intervention to keep people out of the hospital and recuperate at home. If a therapy can do that, then we can get on with living. It will be like getting pneumonia or a kidney infection. You go see your doctor, get a prescription, fill it and take it. Life goes on.

    • Real time results of horsepaste trials. Ivmmeta.com. 60+ studies, 40+ peer-reviewed. Hell, some of the studies might even use a Turkey baster. I don’t want to get Yankee excited. So know of what you speak, JNU.

  35. Just read Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s book ‘The Real Anthony
    Fouci’. A must read. Didn’t think that I would necessarily like or agree with it because, after all, it’s Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Boy, was I wrong. Thousands of references, all footnoted. Almost all of the Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin trials that were conducted in non-biased ways and not funded by NIAID showed up to 83% improvement. Info all squashed by Fauci, Gates, NIAID et al. Just read the book and you won’t need to ask for any more studies.

    • David Grove: Hopefully Steve-O sees your post. I have heard through the grapevine that he, through his own admission, does not have strong computer skills…has trouble using the “google” to search…thus he’s always asking for others to provide links.

      The book might be just the answer as long as it’s available in the library or the local bookstore….might be a problem for Steve-O if it’s only available online.

  36. I’ll be happy to look at those studies. So far, the vast majority that have results favorable to Ivermectin use have been found deficient in one or more ways or data has been manipulated beyond recognition. I’ll also ask a trusted friend who is a chemist who has conducted a few research studies to take a look and give me his professional opinion. The studies that have been truly double blind with straight forward data have trended heavily toward it being ineffective at best, somewhat hampering recovery at worst. Never has a poison that kills parasites worked against any virus because viruses can’t be poisoned. They aren’t alive! Shall I ask another friend, a biologist, come here and explain why viruses are not living organisms and how an ingested poison wouldn’t work on them? Only people who don’t understand the biology of viruses AND the pharmacological nature of Ivermectin would think it had a snowball’s chance in hell to work! That pretty much whittles it down to biochemists and epidemiologists with a few others. Me? I have degrees in the natural sciences with emphasis in chemistry and biology, geology, and I have an interest. I’m quite experienced at analyzing studies and statistics, but will ask for even more experienced assistance as long as people are willing to listen to results. If I ask these experienced scientists, experts, for their input I don’t want to hear a bunch of bs if the results aren’t in line with the hype here. As for RFK, Jr., he’s a politician right down to his gold-lined toenails!! He’ll say or write anything that he thinks will get him votes and increase his popularity with his chosen group of people! In general, he’s an ignorant idiot who runs his mouth (and pen/keyboard) about things he has no expertise in.

    • Then, why, if what you say about Ivermectin is true, in Uttar Pradesh back in April there were 200K new cases a day. Yet today the province is declared COVID free by the Indian Health Ministry? Uttar Pradesh is a province with about 240M people. There was not enough vaccine to distribute to such a large population. A package was put together consisting of Ivermectin, Hydroxychlorquine, C, D, and Zinc, and antibiotics with gloves and masks. Rapid Response Teams of citizens were given rudimentary training and sent out with the treatment packages to give to each family and individual who was single. Both WHO and CDC were on the ground. CDC funded the Rapid Response Teams. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that Fauci was briefed on the progress. Note that any MSM reports on Uttar Pradesh COVID infections ended around the 1st of Sept., about the time that India had achieved a complete eradication of COVID in 3 districts of Uttar Pradesh and a rapid decline in the rest. Today, Uttar Pradesh has been declared a COVID free province.
      Too many doctors in the U.S. used Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine early on and were squelched with their jobs and careers threatened, because this was not allowed by pharma sycophant Dr. jab and the CDC.
      Contact Dr. Robert Malone, the guy who invented mRNA. He treated himself with Ivermectin.
      Over 200 in Congress have been treated with Ivermectin.
      Please.
      Why is Zelenko’s protocol not being pushed by the minor god Fauci and the CDC? No money. $6 per pill versus $700 or more for Molnuipiravir, Pizer’s Ivermectin clone is far less effective, and Remdsivir is $3,120 per patient. Both Remdisvir and Molnupirvar have serious side effects that can be deadly.
      There are many drugs that are of benefit.
      The problem, not enough money for big pharma, Biden, and Fauci et al.

  37. BTW, just because Omicron seems to be a natural step that many viruses take toward becoming endemic, don’t be misled. Covid is a nasty, insidious virus that does a great amount of relatively invisible damage to the human body and brain! Until the in depth imaging and tests are conducted. In one serendipitous study where a university hospital had MRI records of the hearts of numerous covid patients, 100% of the patients showed heart muscle damage post covid regardless of gender, age, or severity. That does not bode well for the aging health and longevity of people who have had the virus. It also causes lung, brain, central nervous system, and circulatory system damage, some severe and some not so much, in virtually everyone who has it. It’s like mononucleosis or HPV. It may seem innocuous, but it WILL cause problems later in life and the problems are likely to be much more profound than those caused by mono or HPV. They’re likely to be disabling in many, many cases. Also, Omicron may have mild symptoms, but if covid is allowed to continue to run wild, the next variant that arises may not. Covid has proven itself to be a merciless, brutal killer of certain populations, the elderly, the asthmatic, the diabetic, and the obese (60+% of Americans) among them. Sooner or later, a variant with Omicron’s infectivity rate plus a greatly increased mortality risk and morbidity rate, WILL arise. The ONLY way to prevent the devastation that will bring is mass vaccination. Before vaccines many illnesses regularly devastated populations. Now some of those illnesses are essentially obsolete, gone. Ask any polio survivor how horrendous it was. Just how awful post-polio syndrome is or how bad the PTSD is from time in an iron lung (now life support or ECMO does that job but they’re nearly as traumatizing) where you still have nightmares in your 60’s from when you were 3 or 4! Our children will pay the price of Covid-19 in their futures. How a public health crisis gets politicized in this godforsaken country is beyond me. Whether it came from China or Alabama, natural or bioweapon, it doesn’t change the fact that our children will pay the price (and every indication is it will be substantial) for our lack of mitigation in a BIG way!!! And how do we say “Sorry!” in their old age?

    • Sorry to bring this up but you skipped over the part about the lack of data on potential long-term adverse effects of the vaccines. I personally experienced adverse side effects from the vaccine. It remains to be seen whether that side effect is permanent or whether the vaccine opens the door to problems down the road. It is a mistake, in the absence of data, to view the vaccines as a panacea. A reasonable debate on Covid and vaccines would acknowledge the risks and the unknowns. Using words like “ONLY” does not help, unless, of course, Dr. Fauci is speaking.

      • What data are you needing on long term affects of vaccines? Since vaccines leave the body within 1 to 2 weeks, and affects of vaccines are known within 6 weeks of inoculation, I’m curious what you’re expecting to find with long term data.

        In other words, your skepticism is without warrant.

        • You just made two statements about vaccines that I do not know to be true. Can you cite authority for these statements? I am open to being persuaded but will need more that your naked assertions.

          • Talk to your doctor. This is basic vaccine information. You could also google it in 5 minutes and confirm. Vaccines trigger an immune response and train your immune system similar to catching a cold. It leaves the body within days or a couple weeks. Instead of ignoring this, why don’t you look it up?

          • JMARK: That would be correct if it really was a vax. The jab is only a treatment being called a vax, which may or may not reduce symptoms, but doesn’t prevent catching, spreading, or dying from Covid.

          • Steve-O: There isn’t enough hard data to support either side of this debate. Everyone is still at the guessing stage. It will be at least a couple more years before anything gets carved into stone. To keep pressuring for something definitive at this stage is futile.

          • Jose,
            Then why are you speaking so definitively in your with your antivaccination assertions?
            .
            There are countless studies and indeed real world observations that the vaccines not only reduce symptoms, but also prevent catching, spreading, and dying from Covid. Because you and others choose not to believe that doesn’t make it any less true.
            .
            There is more than enough data, literally BILLIONS of data points spread across the entire world to show this.
            .
            Is it possible that the vaccine might possibly cause future health problems, no doubt that is possible. Is it possible that covid might possibly cause future health problems, no doubt that is possible…not only possible but probable, and not only probable but it is happening in real time and is being documented on a daily basis.

    • Esthera, your hysterical claims of widespread if not ubiquitous long-term damage from the Wuhan Virus sound MUCH more like REAL claims for long-term damage from the experimental so-called “vaccines” (sic).

      • Jefferson: would you please stop calling it the Wuhan Virus? Doing so fuels anti-Asian sentiments and Asians, or even people who look Asian, have been harrassed.

        • Evan, as I am not a hypocritical and irrational ‘wokester’, no, I will NOT stop calling it by its proper name, the Wuhan Virus. So please take your linguistic bullying and Stalinism and shove it.
          .
          As for “anti-Asian”, what does that even mean? Do you mean “anti-Oriental”, perhaps? Asia is such a broad and diverse continent, full of wildly different peoples and races, that to be “anti-Asian” would amount to being anti-human.
          Oh, but let me guess, in your rigid politically-correct zealotry you do not agree with using the word “Oriental” either.

        • LOL
          Think of the damage done by all the years of a pandemic being referred to as the “Spanish Flu.”
          It’s not even clear if it originated in Spain, what a injustice. If you’re from Spain, I’m sure you wouldn’t admit it because you might face discrimination.

    • Same with the vaccines. Therefore, why the vaccines over Ivermectin and other off label uses of other drugs? More drugs are being shown effective in the treatment and mitigation of symptoms.
      I agree regarding long term on COVID, and it is going to be far worse for those who vaccinated. I think there is going to be a progress die off, starting with those who ignored or deferred treatment for existing conditions, because of the fear mongering over COVID. Then, it will be the older who vaxxed, then progressively younger, over a period of 20 years or so.
      There is no reason for the healthy to vax, I did not, and I am 69. Vaxxing the kids is insane.
      I just recovered from the COVID-D, but I will say that the pneumonia was much worse.
      Had I had access to Ivermectin, maybe, I would have weathered the storm much better and the pneumonia would not have developed.

  38. After being away for a while, I was pleasantly surprised to see continuing comments on this article.

    Evan S, I appreciate your honest reply. I also enjoy interacting with people different than myself, and thereby have learned about people and cultures from around the world. Suzanne is doing a fantastic job of engaging the community, with comments from legislators, political appointees, nurses, scientists, and even physicians, I suspect.

    Steve-O, you misunderstand what I said. I never stated I accumulated all 100,000 hours in the past 24 years, that took nearly 35 years, not counting work experience during my 9 years of college and grad school. Your math did remind me of the years I spent juggling simultaneous jobs at up to three employers, working 110 hours each week, working 24 hour shifts, working 200 days without a day off, and working two full time jobs that were 120 miles apart. I regret that foolishness now. My children are grown and my cardiac health is poor. Don’t ever pass up a chance to spend time with lived ones.

    EstherA, I am surprised by your statement that a virus is not alive and cannot be poisoned. Go back and read about the WHO’s accolades concerning the tremendous antiviral properties of an antiparasitic drug in 2015. Then check the NIH website for which antiparasitic drug to use for treating Covid-19. Then read up on Uttar Pradesh, India, with a population of 240 million, and what they used to eliminate Covid-19. Hint: it wasn’t vaccines. See also Japan’s success. Maybe you can get out your cell biology text and read up on the physiology of mRNA, tRNA, and eukaryotic ribosomes, and how that applies to viral replication.

    Please read the research coming today from Israel, concerning the incredible correlation between severe Covid-19 and low Vitamin D. It gives an overview of cytokine storm. This is the same information that has been reported by ICU physicians in the United States (Did I mention that my favorite blood cell is the ubiquitous and adaptable Macrophage?)

    Most importantly, please remember that the disagreements we are having on this topic are foremost about medical tyranny vs. our right to make informed decisions about our medical care. I wish you all the best.

  39. Esthera – You owe it to yourself to watch this short 14 minute video by Geert Vanden Bossch (virologist and molecular biologist), which was a presented as a remote message to Austrian ralliers on November 20, 2021. He goes into the danger of vaccinating INTO a pandemic, which he has done previously. He does not waste one word…

    -Plug the following into your browser and it should take you right to it:

    voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/videos-and-interviews/the-only-fight-you-should-have-is-the-fight-for-your-health

  40. I don’t know Dr. Anne Zink. I have a nephew and his wife who are nurses who have high regards for her. However, what they’ve said and what I’ve observed in her comments and her body language during the Governor’s weekly COVID reports are another.
    I called her the governor’s Oracle in a Yurt. She had a $30K Yurt build in her backyard to isolate herself from her co-workers and her family. She did not use her state offices, but required her staff to report to work while she remained isolated in her Yurt. Further, she was Dr. Gloom and Doom. Do this or die! seemed to be her mantra. Nor, did she care about the elderly or the kids. Too bad if one was in a nursing home or assisted living.
    She is Dr. Fauci’s parott, she just repeats what the minor god Antony Fauci might mumble and ignores his contradictory and continually changing policies and his outright lies. Not once did she side with the Constitution or the science. Fauci, Fauci, Fauci is all you heard.
    When the governor started to rescind mandates, she was not happy and was absent for several reports. You could see in her demeanor her disagreement with the governor.
    Unfortunately, the governor has ignored allowing Alaskans access to Ivermectin, Hdroxychlorquine and the other drugs now known to be of benefit, but much, much cheaper and safer than the new drugs and certainly the so called vaccines pushed upon us by the minor god Fauci. Obviously, Dr. Zink is still counseling against the use of these drugs to the detriment of Alaskans and denying their physicians the ability to practice medicine by allowing the Dr. and his/her patient to make informed decisions regarding the patient’s health care. In this, she is supporting Biden’s and Fauci’s tyranny that is killing Americans and Alaskans.
    In any accounting of needless harm to those who’ve been infected, from March 2020 forward, Dr. Anne Zink needs to answer why she ignored so many Doctors and medical scientists who counselled a prioritization of those who were most vulnerable and ignored the use of drugs that were proven to be incredibly effective. 240 million Indians in Uttar Pradesh are living proof that Ivermectin works.
    Dr. Vladmir Zalenko’s Ivermectin/Hydroxychloroquine/antibiotics/C, D, Zinc protocol has been demonstrated to be effective and saves lives.
    Yet, Dr. Zink ignores a tsunami of evidence that the vaccines are both harmful, ineffective, and not vaccines and that Mereck’s Molnuipiravir is a killer at $700/pill, Pizer’s Ivermectin clone is far less effective, and Remdsivir is $3,120 per patient and may kill them. Yet, we more and more drugs being used off label and found effective for use on COVID. Drugs that are cheap and available.
    One would think, that Dr. Zink and Governor Dunleavy’s first duty would be to our health and welfare, and the safety in treatment of Alaskans.
    Ivermectin has killed no one with over 3.7B prescriptions world-wide since the 80s. The worse side effect is a mild diarrhea.
    Yet, our pharmacies can’t stock, because of the arrogance of the governor’s appointee who is the chair of the state’s pharmacist standards board.
    Golly.
    Remember Bill Topel.

    • Last sentence next to last paragraph:
      “More and more drugs are being used off label . . .”
      Sorry about that.

    • “Not once did she side with the Constitution or the science.” She is a scientist Larry, she reports the conclusions that good science creates. You, on the other hand report this: “Ivermectin has killed no one with over 3.7B prescriptions world-wide since the 80s.” That may be true, but Ivermectin is for parasites Larry, not a virus. That’s science.

      • So I guess by your “logic”, Even, antibiotics are only for chickens and pigs, as they happen to be administered to chickens and pigs.
        .
        Ivermectin as a successful treatment in the early stages of the Wuhan Virus is PROVEN, Evan, proven beyond any doubt. It is only your stubborn and blind conformism to the dictates and propaganda of those in power that prevents you from understanding that.

      • Ivermectin is a prevention and treatment for cytokine storms. Covid doesn’t kill, it’s the cytokine storm it invokes which kills.

      • Evan, science has taught us, you can not cure a virus with a vaccine. The rigorous testing now underway appears to show that’s still fact.
        In this case, it may be that this cure is worse than the disease. We can all guess, but need to step back a bit and be very observant. The science is not in or settled. The virus is here to stay, a informed decision is required as to how it should be minagated.

  41. Very appreciative of all this input, after a good article. Very strong even after several days. Just catching Dr. Farr and a great update on dan Fagan podcast about 70 minutes into Tuesdays show.
    Checking out the link above, thanks

    • Greetings Reed.

      If you watched the Geert video linked above (where he questions the wisdom of mass vaccinating in the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of a pandemic, thereby creating the circumstances necessary for the virus to escape from immune response – which is a massive threat to everyone of us. He also speaks about how children are “immunologically naive” and how their innate immunity can easily be suppressed by vaccinal antibodies…) and are interested in the Highwire episode that he refers to, it can be found here:

      “thehighwire.com/videos/vaccine-expert-warns-of-covid-vaccination-catastrophe/”

      He is speaking truth, from his heart, with a very high level of understanding. He has been on about this, publicly, for most of this year (that I am aware of). Unfortunately, those in control of the flow of information (‘The Ministry of Truth’) are NOT interested in having this message find wider consideration.

      • I watched it. If he is right, we’re due to lose a third of the world’s population.
        Even if he’s wrong on this, the refusal of open dialog is a Pandora’s box of future catastrophes.

        • He is a brilliant guy, and courageous, too.

          That relatively new website he put together, the “Voice for Science and Solidarity’ is an excellent resource, and growing every day. He has started answering questions that people submit in the comments on Substack (which is where it takes you). One can sign on to the email list, and so far, they come every day. Today’s was an answer to this question:

          “I am a nurse in CT. Can you tell me, if we have received the vaccination, what should we do to support our immune system now? Will our immune system ever return to normal or clear from the MRNA vaccines?”

          The answer is commensurate with his intricate understanding, and a great read. The FAQ page has a wealth of interesting information, too.

  42. Well said Suzanne! I’m a little late to this party but the bottom line here is about controlling the masses and belittling anyone that gets out of line with Big Pharma and the American Medical Association. This isn’t about Science, the truth and protecting the patient. It is about protecting the money train as Pharma continues to pump money to any physician or hospital that will protect their profits. There is more than ample evidence of the success of Ivermectin and HCQ as well as boosting your immune system with D3, Zinc and Vitamin C. The Vaccine is a farce that doesn’t work and in fact is harming people’s health at an alarming rate. It is very dangerous when a society stops asking questions and blindly believes those in authority around them. This is when tyranny takes over and America is in the grip of the greatest medical tyranny ever thrust upon our country. It has already been proven that natural immunity is much better than anything the vaccine can do and there are heart wrenching stories of how the vaccine is destroying peoples health and actually weakening persons immune systems making them more prone to catching the virus. This is why the highly vaccinated States are still having spikes! The lower vaccinated States are doing tremendously better. We need to stop feeding out of the propaganda machine and start looking at the science and research that has already been done.

  43. Interesting, you say Floridians handled COVID well, because they currently have low COVID numbers. Did you intentionally distort the truth, by failing to report Florida ranks among the worst states for COVID deaths and case counts over all? If you’re trying to point out hypocrisy in the medical field, it’s best to not be a hypocrite in the journalism field.

    • JS – Florida has an elderly population, and many nursing homes, which also skews the data, since the virus is especially hard on the elderly, but I appreciate your viewpoint. – sd

      • Thanks, but that only reinforces how badly Florida responded to COVID, considering they have an at risk population and allowed the virus to run rampant. If you look at the numbers, Florida did awful. And yet, your article for some reason claims otherwise.

  44. It’s amazingly simple. If air still gets in and out of your body, so does everything in that air. There is a wonderful video showing a person wears no several kinds of masks breathing in water vapor from a vape pen then exhaling while masked. Vapor is visible coming out everywhere! Around the mask and thru the mask.

    But wearing a mask is a visible sign of obedience to our elected, self importance leaders. They can say “see, we took action!” Sad.

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