Pandemic, Protocols, and Preventable Deaths

Remember when hospitals were places of healing? During the COVID-19 pandemic, that notion was turned on its head. TrialSite News recently published an article titled “How Hospitals Became Killing Centres—Misdiagnosis, Censorship, and the Suppression of Reason”, and it's a sobering read.

In the early days of the pandemic, hospitals adopted protocols that, in hindsight, did more harm than good. Ventilators were used aggressively, following guidance that mirrored early Chinese protocols. In New York's spring 2020 surge, nearly 9 out of 10 intubated patients died. 

Why such a high mortality rate? Because COVID-19 pneumonia was misdiagnosed as typical Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), leading to invasive mechanical ventilation when less aggressive treatments might have sufficed. Patients with “silent hypoxia”—low oxygen levels without distress—were sedated and intubated unnecessarily, resulting in preventable deaths from complications like ventilator-associated pneumonia and multi-organ failure.

Meanwhile, treatments that could have helped, like dexamethasone, were either dismissed or delayed. The clinical trial in June 2020 showed that this low-cost steroid cut deaths by one-third in ventilated patients, but by then, months had already passed. 

So, what went wrong? A combination of misdiagnosis, censorship, and suppression of reason. Public health leaders followed panic and centralised narratives instead of data. Hospitals enforced homogenised care, erasing individual patient contexts in favour of algorithmic treatment pathways. Families were banned from the bedside, unable to advocate for their loved ones.

It's a tragic reminder that in times of crisis, critical thinking and individualised care are paramount. We must learn from these mistakes to ensure that hospitals remain centres of healing, not harm. Although we are some years after the peak of this pandemic, the excesses are only now being exposed. If we are to avoid this recurring, it is critical to review every aspect of the failures that occurred and hold to account those who failed in their duties to their patients. 

---

For a more in-depth look, you can read the full article here:
👉 How Hospitals Became Killing Centres

---

Weekly Roundup – Top Articles & Commentary (Week 28, 2025)

Here are links to some selected articles of interest and our posts from this week.

• What Big Pharma won't tell you!
  
• Palestinian sheikhs propose historic break from Ramallah to join Abraham Accords
  
• Pandemic, Protocols and Preventable Deaths
  
• Will Elon sabotage the Republican Party? Here is Victor Davis Hanson's view ;-
• 
  
  
  
• Multiculturalism: The People Speak, the Media Spins
• Is Iran's enriched Uranium Still in Play?
  

We welcome all feedback, so please feel free to submit your comments or communicate with me via email at grappysb@gmail.com or @grappysb on X. 

What Big Pharma won't tell you !

Let me guess — you’ve probably never heard that 30g of flaxseed a day could do more for your blood pressure and cholesterol than your prescription meds.

Well, that’s what a double-blind clinical trial has found.
✅ Blood pressure down.
✅ LDL cholesterol down.
✅ BMI down.
✅ Side effects? Virtually none.
✅ Cost? Pocket change.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are charging a fortune for drugs that do less and come with a handy list of side effects that require more drugs to manage. Funny how that works.

You can read the study here — it wasn’t funded by Big Pharma (no surprises there), but by a group of Iranian researchers. Because, let’s be honest, why would drug companies promote something that threatens their golden goose?

Don’t expect your doctor to mention it. And definitely don’t expect a TV ad about flaxseed between the ones for diabetes meds and cholesterol pills.

As Dr. John Campbell explains in his discussion of the paper, the effects of flaxseed match or exceed the impact of many commonly prescribed drugs, without the adverse side effects.

 

Now, should you stop your medication and start eating flaxseed?
No.
What I’m saying is: read the paper, watch the video, and take it to your doctor. Ask the question. Challenge the script. Because clearly, the answers aren’t always coming from where they should.

Robots suck at soccer

In a spectacle that blended cutting-edge technology with slapstick comedy, Beijing recently hosted its first fully autonomous humanoid robot football tournament.

Four university teams unleashed their AI-powered creations onto the pitch, each hoping to showcase the future of robotics. The robots, designed to operate without human intervention, demonstrated impressive feats of engineering when they weren't toppling over or missing the ball entirely.

The final match saw Tsinghua University's THU Robotics team triumph over China Agricultural University's Mountain Sea team with a score of 5-3.

While the tournament highlighted significant advancements in AI and robotics, it also provided moments of unintended humour, reminding us that even in a high-tech future, the beautiful game retains its charm.

For a closer look at the action, check out the highlights below:

US envoy says Albanese not 'fit for position'

Many Australians would say, 'Thank goodness someone is willing to say it.' After all, the Australian PM has been shockingly ineffective in everything except winning elections. I won't bother venting about all the ineffective Woke policies his Labor government has foisted on a jaded public. Why jaded? Because Australia's opposition coalition has not decided whether it is a proper conservative party or is just slightly more conservative than Labor. As a consequence, the electorate has had no real choices. 

However, I must confess that the headline is misleading. A lie by omission, but that does not mean it isn't a lie. The headline was taken from the title of an article in The Times of Israel, and it should read "US envoy says Albanese ‘not fit’ for position as UN expert after post comparing Netanyahu to Hitler"

The article is about Francesca Albanese, UN employee with the rather lengthy title "United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967". 

She has been called out for consistent anti-Israel bias, with the US UN Ambassador calling for her sacking. Unfortunately, if every UN employee who held a strong anti-Israel bias were to resign, the UN cafeteria would be empty.

In summary, think twice before you employ anyone named Albanese.