What is causing the excess deaths?
Vaccines could enhance autoimmune disorders, and in rare cases, vascular disorders, however COVID is overwhelmingly shown to be the primary underlying cause behind sudden deaths and the excess deaths.
We have real-world data and studies that have been published over the past couple months and years that explain what has been occurring. COVID is a highly contagious airborne virus that spreads via aerosolized respiratory droplets. Once someone is infected, COVID avoids antibodies and infects many of our immune system cells, which weakens the immune system. COVID does this so it can infect organs and other areas of the body where the immune system can’t reach. Once there, it can persist for months and years, like many other viruses. The virus that causes chicken pox (Varicella virus), Epstein Barr virus (EBV) and Herpes viruses can persist for years and for life in most cases. The initial COVID infection, persistent infections and re-infections with new variants cause an initial inflammatory surge and ongoing inflammation, which can lead to autoimmune disorders, vascular dysfunction, and other issues.
A huge study looking at the national healthcare databases from the US Department of Veterans Affairs built a cohort of 153,760 individuals with COVID-19, as well as two sets of control cohorts with 5,637,647 (contemporary controls) and 5,859,411 (historical controls) individuals. They show that, “beyond the first 30 days after infection, individuals with COVID-19 are at increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease spanning several categories, including cerebrovascular disorders, dysrhythmias, ischemic and non-ischemic heart disease, pericarditis, myocarditis, heart failure, and thromboembolic disease.”(1)
“These risks and burdens were evident even among individuals who had mild initial symptoms. The risks increased, the worse the initial symptoms were. They showed a substantially increased risk of cardiovascular disease for at least 1-year.
Coronaviruses have a history of causing vascular dysfunction and blood clotting that could lead to heart attacks and strokes.
“Coagulation disorders in coronavirus infected patients: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV and lessons from the past” (2)
They concluded, “The dysregulation of the coagulation cascade and the subsequent formation of intra-alveolar or systemic fibrin clots are prominent findings in coronavirus infections associated with severe respiratory disease, and have been demonstrated in both humans and animal models. They can be attributed to the prothrombotic response, which attempts to prevent diffuse alveolar hemorrhage, but can instead result in overt clot formation with detrimental effects in patient recovery and survival.”
COVID has a history of causing vascular dysfunction, blood clotting and strokes prior to vaccines.
Studies from 2020 demonstrate how COVID affects the vascular system before anyone took the vaccines.
There are a lot of studies that get into much more detail between 2020 and today but this is to demonstrate that we already knew about this occurring before people started taking vaccines. Together, with all the evidence below, we show that COVID is the primary driver of the excess deaths. This is largely due to patients that die from a stroke or a heart attack weeks or months after the initial infection. As a result, COVID likely went undetected at the time of admission and thus was not recorded.
An analysis of over 17,000 cardiovascular events after COVID-19, using the UK Biobank looked at cases between March 2020 and 2021. It showed that the top 3 cardiovascular events were VTE, followed by heart failure and stroke. They noted the risks were greatest in the first 30 days after infection but that risks remained higher afterward. (3)
August 2020, Platelet and Vascular Biomarkers Associate With Thrombosis and Death in Coronavirus Disease “Our findings are consistent with recent reports of platelet hyperactivity in patients with COVID-19. We extend those finding and demonstrate that biomarkers of platelet activation are associated with thrombosis or death in patients hospitalized with COVID-19.”(4)
In a study published, on August 16, 2020, they noted that "coronaviruses are known to affect the cardiovascular system.” This was an early warning when they noted that COVID-19 itself might aggravate the myocardial injury, by causing the “release of multiple cytokines and chemokines that can not only lead to vascular inflammation and plaque instability but also to myocardial inflammation.”(5)
Additional References from 2020:
Coagulation abnormalities and thrombosis in patients with COVID-19.
Lancet Haematol.2020;7:e438-e440 View in Article, Scopus (874), PubMed, Summary, Full Text, Full Text PDF, Google Scholar
Thrombocytopenia is associated with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections: a meta-analysis. Clin Chim Acta.2020; 506:145-148 View in Article,
Anticoagulant treatment is associated with decreased mortality in severe coronavirus disease 2019 patients with coagulopathy. J Thromb aemost.2020;18:1094-1099, View in Article , Scopus (2107), PubMed, Crossref , Google Scholar
Keep in mind that COVID was the #4 cause of death of 15 to 35 year old's in 2021. COVID was the #2 cause of death of 35 to 45 year old's, and the #1 cause of death of 45 to 55 year old's. This excludes the excess deaths described here. These numbers will likely increase in 2022. (6)
Immune Evasion and Suppression
We already have studies showing how COVID can infect CD-4 T-cells, dendritic cells, and neutrophils, so the question of whether or not COVID can weaken the immune system by depleting these cells has been answered.
We know that COVID has been listed as one of the leading causes of Lymphocytopenia. "People with lymphocytopenia experience recurrent infections or develop infections with unusual organisms & it is a risk factor for the development of cancers & for autoimmune disorders." (7)
COVID impacts everyone’s immune system to varying degrees. Some people recover faster than others, but it can take weeks to more than eight months to recover. (8)
The study looking at the immune response 8 months out said, “Several cytokines (mostly type I and III IFN, but also chemokines downstream of IFN-γ) were highly elevated in individuals following the resolution of active SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to HCoVs and UHCs at month 4 after infection. IFN-β and IFN-λ1 remained elevated in the LC group at month 8 after initial infection, while their levels began to resolve in MCs. Elevated plasma ACE2 activity was noted in the LC and MC groups at month 4 but trended toward normal by month 8 after infection. We identified a set of analytes (IFN-β, PTX3, IFN-γ, IFN-λ2/3 and IL-6) that highly associated with LC at month 8, indicating that components of the acute inflammatory response and activation of fibroblast or epithelial cells, T cells and myeloid cells are associated with LC.” (8)
COVID is suppressing the immune system so that it can get into places the immune system can’t reach and persist, affecting many organs, including our brain and central nervous system. This leads to an ongoing inflammatory response which increases the risks of autoimmune disorders, vascular dysfunction and other issues.
COVID Persistent Infection
Persistent infections increase the odds of an ongoing inflammatory response that leads to autoimmune disorders and the vascular dysfunction that causes VTE, heart attacks and strokes.
Persistent infections were found in organs throughout the body, including the brain.
"We were able to detect the virus in the oesophagus, large intestine, kidney, placenta, lung, and brain." (9)
Children without any symptoms had persistent infection in their tonsils. (10)
“This suggests that lymphoid tissue may play an important role in community transmission.” “Lymphoid tissue can be a reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 and may play an important role in community dissemination.” (10)
If COVID is infecting the lymphatic system, then that could cause significant and potentially permanent damage to younger children’s immune systems. This study also confirmed that COVID infects a large number of immune system cells. “CD123+ dendritic cells were the most infected cells, followed by CD14+ monocytes, CD4 and CD8 T-cells.” (10)
“Tonsils and adenoids are important sites of SARS-CoV-2 infection in asymptomatic children.” (4)
A study published in January 2023, “Tonsils are major sites of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 infection in children” (11)
In a pre-print, published January 30th, 2023, they looked at over 95,000 people, living in 75,000 households, in the U.K. They found that about 30% of people became symptomatic again due to the persistent infection, not a reinfection. These would have likely been misclassified as a re-infection with a new variant. They discovered strong evidence for a 55% increase in the likelihood of reporting Long COVID more than 12 weeks after infection if they had persistent infections. They found people are rarely re-infected with the same variant. (12)
They found that persistent infections may be occurring in as many as 1 out of every 200 infections. Tens of thousands of new infections occur every day, so we are talking about a huge number of people impacted by this. Without mitigation, people are exposed to high viral loads, making the odds of worse outcomes increase. We have little control over when we are exposed, so without mitigation in place, the risk goes up and the number of people with Long COVID will continue to climb.
They found that persistent infections last at least 2–6 months and that each person in whom COVID persists can cause unique mutations. When you think about how many people might unknowingly have persistent infections, you can see that the chances of mutations and new variants are increasing at an exponential rate.
They found that some people with persistent infections were likely spreading the disease. This suggests that if a parent, teacher, or child has a persistent infection, they could be contagious continuously or intermittently for many weeks or months.
Persistent infections lead to more mutations of the virus, giving it more time to evolve around any treatments people may be taking.
Treating during widespread transmission gives COVID an evolutionary advantage. This has been and will continue to be true. We must contain transmission in order to get ahead of the virus. Otherwise, we are inadvertently training it to get better at defeating our immune response.
For example, COVID has been evolving to beat the vaccines, has defeated all the available monoclonal antibody treatments, and is decreasing the efficacy of other treatments. (13, 14,15,16,17)
Consider that all of this is what they found with less immune evasive and suppressive variants. The risk is increasing with the newest variants.
Autoimmune Disorders
Autoimmune disorders and vascular dysfunction are often caused by a persistent infection, resulting in an ongoing inflammatory response.
When a virus or bacteria gets into places T-cells can’t reach, they often release more cytokines that increase inflammation, and can divide into cells that cause damage to healthy areas of the body in an effort to get to the virus or bacteria. This process is what causes Lyme arthritis and is likely behind the musculoskeletal dysfunction associated with COVID. “Lyme arthritis occurs when Lyme disease bacteria enter joint tissue and cause inflammation.” (18) If caught early, people can avoid permanent damage by taking antibiotics to treat Lyme disease. Antibiotics are not going to help with COVID because it is a virus, not a bacteria.
Another area that COVID can infect and cause an inflammatory response is in fat tissue. "SARS-CoV-2 infection drives an inflammatory response in human adipose tissue through infection of adipocytes and macrophages" (19)
“COVID-19, can productively infect mature adipocytes and abortively infect adipose tissue–resident macrophages. Infection of both cell types drove inflammatory responses, and the combination of viral replication and inflammation may help explain why obesity is associated with more severe symptoms” (19)
In this large matched cohort study, published on January 26, 2023, COVID-19 was associated with an increased risk of being newly diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 3-15 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
“The strength of the association with SARS-CoV-2 infection was most pronounced for autoimmune diseases in the vasculitis group.” (20)
Vasculitis involves inflammation of the blood vessels. The inflammation can cause the walls of the blood vessels to thicken, which reduces the width of the passageway through the vessel. If blood flow is restricted, it can result in organ and tissue damage.
Are you seeing how this ties together?
Immune suppression to persistent infection, to an ongoing inflammatory response, leading to autoimmune disorders and vascular dysfunction.
The orange line shows the excess deaths above or below the pre-pandemic 5-year average. The yellow circles show the excess deaths (orange) following the COVID waves (red). If excess deaths follow COVID waves, then it is fairly safe to say that these deaths are COVID related but aren’t being recorded as COVID. The green circles indicate where deaths were lower than the pre-pandemic 5-year average after the first and third shots. If the vaccines caused excess deaths, the majority would happen after the shots, but instead, deaths dropped below the average. The excess deaths return following the COVID waves. We can see that the excess deaths are from COVID, not the vaccines.
The second vaccine dose (blue shaded area) would have likely been more effective if it had been spaced out more. This shows the short-term duration of preventing infections and deaths. It also demonstrates that, even though we aren't seeing massive spikes, we are seeing wave after wave, killing thousands every week and adding tens of thousands to the number of people suffering from long COVID. At the current pace, we are on an unsustainable path without significant action to limit transmission. COVID is the number-two killer for 35 to 45-year-olds and the number-one killer for 45 to 55-year-olds in the U.S. COVID is the number-one infectious disease killing children in the U.S.
Similar to the U.K., In the U.S., we see the excess deaths parallel COVID deaths. Together, this is showing that we have been undercounting COVID associated deaths, particularly in younger adults, likely because they are coming in as heart attack or stroke patients.
The same mechanisms that cause autoimmune disorders also lead to the vascular dysfunction we are seeing with COVID
In a study published on September 5, 2022, titled “Long-term cardiac pathology in individuals with mild initial COVID-19 illness," they summarized their findings by saying, individuals with mild initial COVID-19 illness, cardiac symptoms were related to subclinical inflammatory cardiac involvement, which may, at least in part, explain the pathophysiological background of persistent cardiac symptoms.”
“Subclinical cardiovascular inflammation is increasingly recognized as a risk factor in chronic autoimmune systemic conditions"
We have to acknowledge that vaccines cause autoimmune responses in some people.
Could an undiagnosed persistent infection increase the odds of having adverse reactions from the vaccine? Yes it could. We know that the cytokines are boosted after the vaccine is taken. In rare situations, that could increase the odds of or worsen existing vascular dysfunction. For example, “13 patients (11M and 2F), median age 15 years, affected by acute pericarditis/myocarditis after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. At 12 weeks of follow-up, (92%) were asymptomatic with normal ECG. One was still presenting w mild pericardial effusion at ECHO.” (21)
For more information on this, please read Boosters: Important Considerations.
The data shows young adults have had the largest increase in heart attacks since COVID began.
In a data analysis from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, published on September 29, 2022, they ran the data and showed that increases in heart attack mortality have coincided with increases in COVID-19 infection, even during the pandemic's assumed milder Omicron phase. Also, the increase was most noticeable in people between the ages of 25 and 44, who are not usually thought to be at high risk for a heart attack. This age group is less vaccinated than the older adults, who tend to be at the highest risk for heart attacks.
They found that acute myocardial infarction deaths during the pandemic increased across all age groups but were most significant in the youngest group they looked at, which was ages 25 to 44. In 2021, the "observed" death rates from heart attacks were 29.9% higher than what was "predicted" for adults 25–44, 19.6% higher for adults 45–64, and 13.7% higher for adults 65 and older. The most vaccinated older adults are dying less often than younger adults due to acute myocardial infarction.
The 25–44 age group is more likely to be re-infected by COVID through their jobs and by their school-age children.
In the year before the pandemic, there were 143,787 heart attack deaths; within the first year of the pandemic, before vaccines, this number had increased by 14% to 164,096.
T.A.C.T.’s Conclusion: On the basis of the science and data now available, it is highly probable that COVID is the principal cause of the excess mortality among younger and middle-aged adults. Vaccines contribute to vascular dysfunction in certain individuals, which can, in rare circumstances, produce serious and life-threatening adverse responses; nevertheless, the risk is extraordinarily small when compared to the obvious and overwhelming evidence implicating COVID as the leading cause of the excess mortality. That does not make it any less miserable for individuals living with adverse reactions. We must acknowledge these risks and take actions to prevent what is occurring from happening to more people.
The media and public health sources would like us to believe that COVID has become less dangerous and is not a significant concern. The media reports have dwindled to nearly zero. That is why it is important to have completely independent views, that are not beholden to large donors, political parties, or any other groups. Updates are based on the most recent verifiable science and data. It takes time and research, so if you find the information important and useful, please become a paid subscriber today. Thank you for your support.
Thank you for your astute summary.
Have you written about covid and pregnancies? I am concerned that Americans won’t be able to carry a healthy fetus to full term.
Since pregnancy happens to women, research is limited. Women are losing their placentas and fetuses and the medical profession is telling these women that they don’t know why this happened!
This is cruel.