Day: September 29, 2022

• Evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 being the result of a lab leak, and that Dr. Anthony Fauci, Harvard researchers, China, the mainstream media, the World Health Organization and tech companies all worked together to cover it up. U.S. Right to Know has published a detailed timeline of the cover-up

• In mid-January 2020, then-director of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield voiced concerns that the pandemic may have been the result of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China. He called Fauci, Wellcome Trust director Jeremy Farrar, and World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urging each of them to “take the lab leak hypothesis with extreme seriousness.” To this day, he believes the lab leak theory is the most credible

• In his memoir, “Spike,” Farrar noted that emails were circulating among credible scientists “suggesting the virus looked almost engineered to infect human cells.” The topic so concerned him, he acquired a burner phone and instructed his contacts to use different phones and email accounts when discussing the matter

• January 29, 2020, Scripps Research virologist Kristian Andersen discovered a research paper describing gain-of-function techniques used on coronaviruses at the WIV that could have given rise to SARS-CoV-2. According to Andersen, the study looked like a how-to manual for building the Wuhan coronavirus

• Andersen and several other researchers who initially suspected a lab leak rapidly changed their minds, coincidentally mere days after the Chinese real estate company Evergrande made a large donation to Harvard Medical School

That all of our federal health agencies are captured by industry can no longer be in doubt. The COVID pandemic has confirmed lingering suspicions of this, and then some. Captured agencies that are now more or less openly working against the interest of the American public include the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They have repeatedly authorized experimental mRNA-based COVID shots despite overwhelming evidence of harm and little to no benefit. The National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which has been in charge of all U.S. biodefense research since 2003, under the leadership of Dr. Anthony Fauci, is also part of this group.

As reported by Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar (video above), evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 being the result of a lab leak, and that Fauci, Harvard researchers, China, the mainstream media, the World Health Organization and tech companies all worked together to cover it up. In his report, Saagar reviews the timeline of that cover-up, published by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) September 14, 2022.1

In mid-January 2020, then-director of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, a virologist, voiced concerns that the pandemic may have been the result of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China. He told Vanity Fair that he called Fauci, Wellcome Trust director Jeremy Farrar, and World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urging each of them to “take the lab-leak hypothesis with extreme seriousness.”2

In his memoir, “Spike,” Farrar also noted that emails were circulating among credible scientists “suggesting the virus looked almost engineered to infect human cells.”3 The topic so concerned him, he acquired a burner phone and instructed his contacts to use different phones and email accounts when discussing the matter.

January 27, 2020, Fauci was reminded that he funds coronavirus research at the WIV by way of the EcoHealth Alliance, which by then had been collaborating with the WIV on coronavirus research for the previous five years. Two days later (January 29) Scripps Research virologist Kristian Andersen discovered a paper describing gain-of-function techniques used on coronaviruses at the WIV that could potentially have given rise to SARS-CoV-2. As reported by USRTK:4

“Andersen became alarmed that a bat coronavirus may have been engineered to infect humans, pointing to the receptor binding domain and furin cleavage site … He also flagged a gain-of-function study that ‘looked like a how-to manual for building the Wuhan coronavirus in a laboratory.’

‘Andersen found a scientific paper where exactly this technique had been used to modify the spike protein of the original SARS-CoV-1 virus, the one that had caused the SARS outbreak of 2002/3,’ Farrar wrote. ‘The pair knew of a laboratory where researchers had been experimenting on coronaviruses for years: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in the city at the heart of the outbreak.’

The title of this paper is unknown. But it is clear that a 2015 paper5 involving gain-of-function work with a SARS-CoV backbone at the Wuhan Institute of Virology appears to have alarmed Fauci a few days later.

The 2015 paper had been given an abbreviated title: ‘SARS Gain of function.’ Andersen and [University of Sydney virologist Edward] Holmes met on a Zoom call. ‘Fuck, this is bad,’ Holmes said in response to Andersen’s findings.”

January 31, 2020, Andersen wrote an email to Fauci, stating that the virus looked unnatural to him and three other virologists who had looked at its genetic sequence, and that all four of them “find the genome to be inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”

The three virologists in question were Robert (Bob) Garry at the Tulane Cancer Center, Eddie Holmes at the University of Sydney and Michael Farzan, chair of the Scripps Research Department of Immunology and Microbiology. According to Farrar’s memoir, Holmes was at that time 80% sure the virus came from a lab, while Andersen estimated the risk of it being from a lab leak at 60% to 70%.

Two hours after Andersen gave him the bad news, shortly past midnight, Fauci emailed NIAID principal deputy director Hugh Auchincloss, telling him “It is essential that we speak this AM. Keep your cell phone on.”

He also instructed Auchincloss to read an attached scientific paper, thought to be the 2015 Nature paper “A SARS-Like Cluster of Circulating Bat Coronaviruses Shows Potential for Human Emergence,” which the NIH had funded through an EcoHealth Alliance grant, and told him he “will have tasks today that must be done.”

That paper, co-led by WIV director Zhengli Shi, described how they’d spliced the spike protein of one coronavirus into a SARS-CoV backbone. Importantly, the authors noted that additional experimentation “may be too risky to pursue.”

Shortly before noon February 1, 2020, then-director of the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, emailed a preprint study authored by Shi to Fauci, describing several coronaviruses, including one called RaTG13. Collins added that there’s “No evidence this work was supported by NIH.” At 2 p.m., Fauci and Collins both joined a confidential teleconference organized by Farrar.

Other attendees included Andersen, Holmes, Garry, University of Edinburg virologist Andrew Rambaut, Erasmus MC virologist Ron Fouchier, Erasmus MC department of viroscience director Marion Koopmans, Institute of Virology at Charite Hospital director Christian Drosten, German Primate Center virologist Stefan Pohlman, Wellcome deputy chair Mike Ferguson, Wellcome chief operating officer Paul Schreier, and chief scientific adviser to the U.K., Patrick Vallance.

Redfield was not invited, despite his earlier discussions with Fauci and Farrar. Later that evening, someone in the group (name redacted) emailed the group (although only Farrar and Vallance’s names are unredacted) asking, “We need to talk about the backbone too, not just the insert?” That question is important, as scientists on this call ended up writing a paper dismissing the lab leak theory as pure bunk.

The next day, the virologists exchanged thoughts. At that time, several were leaning toward it being a manufactured virus. Garry stressed he couldn’t understand how SARS-CoV-2 could have emerged naturally, and Farzan was “bothered by the furin site” and could not explain the presence of it “as an event outside the lab.”

In an email, Farzan suggested the unique features in SARS-CoV-2 might best be explained by “continued passage of virus in tissue culture … accidentally creating a virus that would be primed for rapid transmission between humans via gain of furin site (from tissue culture) and adaption to human ACE2 receptor via repeated passage.”

Fouchier, who in 2011 alarmed the world by modifying the deadly avian flu (H5N1) to make it spread between ferrets,6 warned the group that continuing this debate “would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general.”

Within a couple of hours, Collins had jumped on Fouchier’s bandwagon. He emailed Fauci, Farrar and NIH official Lawrence Tabak, stating he was “quickly coming around to the view that a natural origin is more likely,” and that a “swift convening of experts in a confidence inspiring framework” was needed to quell “voices of conspiracy” that could do “great potential harm to science and international harmony.”

Within the hour, Farrar forwarded an article by ZeroHedge to Fauci, Collins and Tabak, which discussed HIV insertions found in SARS-CoV-2. Approximately 2.5 hours after that, Twitter suspended ZeroHedge.

While not included in USRTK’s timeline, investigative journalist Ashley Rindsberg in May 2022 reported on a curious coincidence that took place February 2, 2020.7 Evergrande, one of the largest real estate companies in the world, which has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and is in serious financial trouble, donated $115 million to Harvard Medical School.

Harvard dean George Daley emailed Fauci that morning, informing him of the meeting with Evergrande’s CEO Jack Zia and its chief health officer Dr. Jack Liu. For unknown reasons, Daley asked Fauci to share information “on your current efforts to coordinate a response.” Fauci and Collins phoned Daley and the Evergrande officials the next day.

Just two days after that, February 4, Farrar circulated a rough draft of what was to become “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,”8 which completely denied any possibility of a lab leak. Did Evergrande’s donation to Harvard have anything to do with Harvard scientists suddenly changing their views on the lab leak theory?9

According to USRTK, “Holmes had emailed Farrar the summary, noting that ‘It’s fundamental science and completely neutral as written. Did not mention other anomalies as this will make us look like loons.’” Farrar at that point stated he was 50/50 on the lab leak theory, while Holmes was 60/40 in favor of a lab leak.

Andersen, meanwhile, at this point changed his tune and encouraged the scientists to claim the virus was “consistent with natural evolution,” which is the complete opposite of his view just a few days earlier, when he told Fauci the genome was “inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”

At the same time that all of this was going on, members of the group were pressuring the WHO to convene a group to investigate the virus’s origin. As we now know, that group was biased beyond belief and its conclusions so absurd that the world rejected it wholesale, forcing Ghebreyesus to backpedal and promise to launch a new investigation.

February 11, Ian Lipkin, a virologist and professor of epidemiology at Columbia University and a coauthor of “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” sent an email to his coauthors — Andersen, Rambaut, Holmes and Garry — stating the argument against genetic engineering was “well reasoned,” but that it “does not eliminate the possibility of inadvertent release following adaptation through selection in culture” at the WIV.

He continued, “Given the scale of the bat CoV research pursued there and the site of emergence of the first human cases, we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess.”

In a March 6, 2022, email, Andersen thanked Farrar, Fauci and Collins for their “advice and leadership” on the “Proximal Origin” paper. “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”10 was published in the journal Nature Medicine in mid-March.

As intended, it received massive media coverage, with headlines like, “The Coronavirus Did Not Escape from a Lab: Here’s How We Know,” “Once and for All, the New Coronavirus Was Not Made in a Lab,” and “Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists. Study Concludes COVID-19 Is Not a Laboratory Construct.” March 26, Collins even highlighted the paper on the NIH blog — but didn’t say a word about his own involvement.

Alas, despite best efforts, and with all of mainstream media helping push the false narrative, “conspiracy theories” about the virus being a lab-created bioweapon just would not stop — a fact that probably kept Fauci and Collins awake many a night.

In an April 16, 2020, email to Fauci titled “conspiracy gains momentum,” Collins asked, “Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy, with what seems to be growing momentum … I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 would settle this …”

Fauci replied, “I would not do anything about this right now. It is a shiny object that will go away in times [sic].” Hours later, Fauci did a White House press conference in which he cited the “Proximal Origin” paper he helped conceive, telling reporters the virus arose naturally, and is “totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.”

That same day, April 16, Holmes and a Chinese researcher also published “A Genomic Perspective on the Origin and Emergence of SARS-CoV-2,”11 in which they argue that RaTG13 could not have been used to create SARS-CoV-2 because RaTG13 was sampled from the Yunnan Province while COVID-19 appeared in Wuhan. Furthermore, it would take 20 to 50 years for RaTG13 to mutate into SARS-CoV-2.

May 5, 2020, Lipkin emailed Chen Zhu, China’s former minister of health, expressing deep appreciation for “your efforts in steering and messaging” around COVID-19’s origin.

Fast-forward to July, and the authors of “Proximal Origin” had a new problem. An anonymous whistleblower contacted Science journalist Jon Cohen, sharing “the bizarre back-story” of the “Proximal Origin” paper.

Cohen, in turn, forwarded the message to Holmes and Andersen who, within three hours, conferred with Fauci and Farrar on how to respond. According to USRTK, Cohen has not released the email he received from the tipster, nor Holmes’ response. Cohen also never used it for an article.

By August 19, 2020, Fauci and Collins were again conferring about how to address critical news articles. One postulated the virus was created in a lab. The other two discussed NIAID grants to EcoHealth Alliance. Despite questions being raised about the connections between the NIH, EcoHealth and the WIV, the NIAID extended a new grant to EcoHealth and Andersen’s lab just eight days later.

Efforts to keep a lid on the lab leak theory didn’t fare any better in 2021. At the end of March 2021, the WHO released its COVID origin report, which dismissed the lab leak theory, but backlash forced Ghebreyesus to stress that the investigation was incomplete and would continue.

June 1, emails received by BuzzFeed following a FOIA lawsuit revealed Andersen and other authors of the “Proximal Origin” paper had initially leaned toward it being a lab leak, and that Fauci and Collins had participated in and probably steered its conception. Andersen denied the NIH had anything to do with the article and started deleting tweets amid the backlash.

In June, questions also arose about why the NIH deleted early SARS-CoV-2 genomic data from its public database. The deletion of the data was reported by evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom on the preprint server BioRxiv. According to Bloom, Collins, Fauci, Andersen and Garry encouraged him to delete the preprint, which he refused to do.12

In 2022, the cover-up started to unravel. BuzzFeed’s FOIA documents “starkly showed concerns among the authors [of the Proximal Origin paper] about unusual features of the genome,” USRTK writes. Garry, like Andersen before him, did what he could to protect Fauci and Collins, insisting they had nothing to do with the writing of that paper.

July 1, 2022, Lipkin, one of the “Proximal Origin” coauthors, was suddenly found to have once been a partner of EcoHealth Alliance, which was not reported in the paper’s conflict of interest section.

“The potential for conspiracy is really on the other side. The conspiracy is Collins, Fauci, and the established scientific community that has acted in an antithetical way to science.” ~ Former CDC director Robert Redfield

By the end of the month, new entries in an NIH genomic database revealed Holmes too has had an ongoing relationship with the WIV, including collaborative work on RaTG13, and Holmes, like Lipkin, did not disclose this in his “Proximal Origin” conflicts of interest statement.

In a recent interview with investigative journalist Paul Thacker,13 former CDC director Redfield discussed “inside battles with Fauci” and claimed classified information “will point to a lab accident in Wuhan.” Thacker writes:

“’Tony and I are friends, but we don’t agree on this at all,’ Redfield told me. ‘The potential for conspiracy is really on the other side. The conspiracy is Collins, Fauci, and the established scientific community that has acted in an antithetical way to science.’

Speaking with me from his home in Baltimore, Redfield said that evidence in favor of a lab accident in China continues to accumulate and he expects more classified information to become public.”

In related news, September 15, 2022, The Lancet Commission also published its long-awaited report on the origin of SARS-CoV-2, and it’s not what Fauci and his cronies were hoping for. On the contrary, the report outlines “the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic may have originated with a pathogen leaked from a lab …” The Independent reports.14

The report stresses that while it could have come from a natural spillover, it could just as easily be the result of a lab leak. Commission chairman Jeffrey Sachs has been outspoken about his suspicions that the virus emerged from a U.S.-backed research program in China. At the same time, continued in-depth investigation continues to be hampered by misplaced allegiance to the CCP. As reported by Matt Ridley in The Telegraph:15

“The Lancet Commission … has concluded that ‘the origin of the virus remains unknown’ and that ‘both natural and laboratory spillovers are in play and need further investigation.’ This conclusion matters because there has been an attempt to shut down all curiosity about the origin of the pandemic …

The Sachs Commission points out that a great many related viruses were collected from bats and engineered by a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in collaboration with US partners in the years leading up to the outbreak. That simple fact puts the Wuhan lab under suspicion.

Further, SARS-CoV-2 contains a dangerous feature called a furin cleavage site in its spike gene that is found in no other virus of this kind (the sarbecoviruses). Many scientists admitted early in the pandemic to being baffled as to how it could have acquired this feature naturally yet with minimal other mutations in its spike gene.

Last year a document surfaced showing that scientists in Wuhan and elsewhere were in 2018 considering inserting exactly such a furin cleavage site into newly discovered sarbecoviruses to test their virulence in human cells …

The point Sachs’s team is making is that the technology used in Wuhan to create ‘chimeric’ (hybrid) sarbecoviruses and insert material into their genomes originated in the University of North Carolina with other coronaviruses, and it would be nice … if US researchers who collaborated with Wuhan were more forthcoming about what they know.

The Sachs Commission makes the crucial point that ‘no independent, transparent, and science-based investigation has been carried out regarding the bioengineering of Sars-like viruses that was underway before the outbreak of Covid-19’ …

Pause to notice how shocking this is. Around 20 million are dead because of a virus new to the human species. A strong possibility is that it originated in laboratory research that was going on in the city where it started.

Yet the notebooks and databases from that lab have never been made available, and many scientists and politicians are not even prepared to criticize the Chinese government over this lack of cooperation.

The reason that prominent western scientists gave in private emails in 2020 for not wanting to discuss a possible lab origin of the virus was that it might do harm to ‘international harmony.’ What happened to seeking the truth?”

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The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

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• Prior to the pandemic, 57% of 10-year-olds in low and middle-income countries could not read properly, but this has increased to an estimated 70%

• The effects of the learning losses could be lifelong, leading to $21 trillion lost due to lower lifetime earnings

• Existing education inequalities have only worsened due to the closures; learning losses in lower income countries are significantly worse than those in rich countries

• Even under a “best-case” scenario, students made “little or no progress” during remote learning; students had a learning loss equivalent to one-fifth of a school year, and learning losses were up to 60% greater among students from less-educated homes

• With children still reeling from the educational, physical and social-emotional effects of school closures, data now show that their suffering is in vain, because the closures did little to influence COVID-19

The fallout from school closures that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic is only beginning to be understood, but the early data coming in are alarming. The percentage of children who cannot read a simple story has jumped dramatically, with those in low and middle-income countries most affected.

Prior to the pandemic, 57% of 10-year-olds in these countries could not read properly, but this has increased to an estimated 70%.1 In Latin America, 10-year-olds unable to read rose from 50% to 80% during that time. The effects could be lifelong, leading to $21 trillion lost due to lower lifetime earnings.

Around the world, schools closed for an average of 95 school days from March 2020 to February 2021,2 but while many schools in western countries continued to teach remotely, those in lower income countries often did not.

There are also significant differences in how long full and partial shutdowns persisted. Schools in sub-Saharan Africa were closed for 32 weeks, compared to 73 weeks in South Asia.3 In the Philippines and North Korea, many schools are still shut down. The Economist reported:4

“Poorer countries stayed closed longer than their neighbors. Places with low-performing schools kept them shut for longer than others in their regions. Closures were often long in places where teachers’ unions were especially powerful, such as Mexico and parts of the United States. Unions have fought hard to keep schools closed long after it was clear that this would harm children.

School closures were also long in places where women tend not to hold jobs, perhaps because there was less clamor for schools to go back to providing child care. Many children in the Philippines live with their grandparents, says Bernadette Madrid, an expert in child protection in Manila.

That made people cautious about letting them mingle in the playground … decisions about reopening in places such as Brazil dissolved into local squabbles. In America a full year separated the districts that were first and last to restart properly.”

What’s clear is that existing education inequalities have only worsened due to the closures. Lower-educated parents in The Netherlands reported they felt less able to help children with schoolwork during the closures, for instance, while middle class parents in the United Kingdom spent more time homeschooling their children than parents from the working class.5

“If this is the case, and these learning losses persist, they can be detrimental for development of skills in the long run, and in turn lead to an increase of the existing inequalities in opportunities in education and on the labor market,” researchers wrote in PLOS One. Indeed, using data from 300,000 students in The Netherlands, they uncovered large inequalities in learning losses during the COVID-19 pandemic based on parents’ education and income.6

As early as April 2020, researchers from the University of Leuven in Belgium and Columbia University in New York warned that COVID-19 school closures were “a social crisis in the making,”7 with poor children inordinately affected. For children living in poverty with food insecurity, school closures meant going without regular meals.

Those in low-income households also did not always have access to computers or a reliable internet connection necessary to continue remote learning, and some had no suitable place to do homework or were living in homes without adequate heat or access to books.

“While learning might continue unimpeded for children from higher income households, children from lower income households are likely to struggle to complete homework and online courses because of their precarious housing situations,” the article, published in Lancet Public Health, explained in the early months of the pandemic.8

Indeed, we’ve now seen that learning losses in lower income countries are significantly worse than those in rich countries. According to the Economist:9

“A paper published in May by analysts at the World Bank, Harvard and the Brookings Institution10 looks at 35 studies of learning loss from 20 mostly rich countries. It finds that the average loss across these studies was equivalent to what would usually be learned in one-third to one-half of a year of normal schooling.

… Similar research in America found that children were on average between 8-19 weeks behind. In some countries the results were truly dire. In South Africa primary schoolchildren tested after a 22-week closure were found to have learned only about one-quarter of what they should have.

Brazilian secondary-school pupils who had missed almost six months of face-to-face school did similarly dreadfully. A study of 3,000 children in Mexico who had missed 48 weeks of in-person schooling suggests they appeared to have learned little or nothing during that time.”

The disturbing details revealed by World Bank’s analysis of COVID-19 student learning loss include the following — keep in mind that this data is from primarily high-income countries; data from low-income countries could be even worse:11

• 32 of the 35 studies showed evidence of learning loss, equating to over half of school year of learning loss

• 15 of 20 studies examining learning loss by socio-economic status found greater learning loss among students or schools with lower socio-economic status

• Learning loss tended to be worse for students who struggled academically prior to the pandemic

• The longer schools remained closed, the greater the learning losses

• For every week schools were closed, learning declined by 1.2 points, on average

The Netherlands presented a “best-case” scenario for school closures during the pandemic, with a short (eight-week) lockdown period, equitable school funding and “world-leading” rates of broadband access, which should suggest that impacts to learning would be minimal.

Even with this “best-case” scenario, however, students made “little or no progress” during remote learning, according to a study by University of Oxford researchers, and again those from disadvantaged homes had the greatest learning losses.12 The study found a learning loss of 3 percentile points, which is equivalent to one-fifth of a school year. However, learning losses were up to 60% greater among students from less-educated homes.

“Are these results a temporary setback that schools and teachers can eventually compensate? Only time will tell whether students rebound, remain stable, or fall farther behind,” the researchers explained.13

“Dynamic models of learning stress how small losses can accumulate into large disadvantages with time … Moreover, our results may underestimate the full costs of school closures even in the context that we study. Test scores do not consider children’s psychosocial development, either societal costs due to productivity decline or heightened pressure among parents.”

The mental health effects of school closures are also difficult to quantify, yet cannot be understated. During COVID-19-related school closures in South Korea, parents with primary school children reported that children gained body weight, spent less time engaging in physical activities and spent more time using media. Aside from learning online, 87.6% reported that children watched YouTube while 78.3% said their children played online games.14

Research from Iran also found that school closures resulted in children increasing their screen time and altered their sleep duration and pattern, with the majority sleeping for 12 hours or more throughout the day.15

Loneliness, social isolation and related depression and anxiety were also cited as likely outcomes of school closures.16 Social isolation imposed during the pandemic has been cited as reason for pushing some children with mental health issues “over the edge,”17 and one-third of U.S. parents surveyed said their child became more sad, depressed or lonely during the pandemic.18

Regarding school closures specifically, a survey of 2,324 adults with at least one school-aged child found an association between school closures and worse child mental health outcomes, with older children and children from lower-income families most affected.19

With children still reeling from the educational, physical and social-emotional effects of school closures, data now show that their suffering is in vain, because the closures did little to influence COVID-19.

Researchers from the Croatian Institute of Public Health used data from week nine of 2020 to week 10 of 2021 in Croatia and revealed that school openings had no association with COVID-19 morbidity and mortality trends in the country, leading them to conclude:20

“In winter 2021 effect was completely lacking and numbers were independent of schools’ dynamics. The observed inconsistent pattern indicates that there were no association of school openings and COVID-19 morbidity and mortality trends in Croatia and that other factors were leading to increasing and decreasing numbers.

This emphasizes the need to consider the introduction of other effective and less harmful measures by stakeholders, or at least to use school closures as a last resort.”

Likewise, in a literature review and meta-analysis of the effects of lockdowns, including school closures, on COVID-19 mortality, researchers from Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, Lund University and the Center for Political Studies in Copenhagen, Denmark, revealed lockdowns had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.

The meta-analysis included 24 studies separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-place order (SIPO) studies and specific non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) studies. They found:21

“An analysis of each of these three groups support the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average.

SIPOs were also ineffective, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.”

In fact, back in 2006 public health officials went through a list of mitigation actions that could be used in the event of pandemic influenza, along with their potential repercussions.

Lockdowns, including quarantine and extended school closures, were not recommended, as this overriding principle was explained: “Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted.”22

Closure of schools beyond 10 to 14 days was not recommended, unless all other points of contact, such as restaurants and churches, were also closed. But, they noted, “Such widespread closures, sustained throughout the pandemic, would almost certainly have serious adverse social and economic effects.”23

The silver lining may be that 75% of countries have made some plans to help children catch up from the disastrous effects of COVID-19-related school closures. Tutoring, increased focus on reading and math, and return to in-person learning have helped some children to close the gap on the learning they lost during the pandemic.24

However, schools in one-quarter of countries have no plans to help students catch up, and many aren’t even tracking if students have returned to school. Speaking with the Economist, Jaime Saavedra with World Bank called school closures perhaps “the worst educational crisis for a century, and certainly since the world wars,” adding:25

“My fear is that 15 years from now people will be writing papers documenting consistently lower earnings, productivity and well-being for people who are now between six and 20 years old. I don’t see societies taking this seriously.”

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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

• Developed by scientists in 2010, magnesium L-threonate (MgT) is a patented magnesium compound with the ability to enhance working memory, short- and long-term memory and learning

• In 2016, scientists found that not only did MgT enhance performance on individual cognitive tests in older adults with cognitive impairment, but reversed brain aging by more than nine years

• MgT has been found to make dramatic improvements for people suffering from anxiety, sleep disorders and cognitive dysfunction

• People with low magnesium levels are at risk for a number of serious disorders, including cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and other signs of metabolic syndrome, as well as osteoporosis

• The latest discoveries regarding MgT were deemed critical because of the connection between the loss of synaptic density, brain shrinkage and subsequent cognitive decline

Described as a patented compound with the ability to enhance working memory, short- and long-term memory and learning in animal studies, magnesium L-threonate (shortened to MgT and pronounced “Mag T”) was developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010.

The animal study that first introduced MgT, published in Neuron in 2010, noted its ability to rapidly absorb into the brain, which structurally reversed specific aspects of brain aging by increasing the number of “functional presynaptic release sites while it reduced their release probability.”

Magnesium is already recognized as a mineral required by your body for more than 300 crucial biological functions, such as contracting your muscles, maintaining your heartbeat, creating energy and activating nerves to send and receive messages.

However, with all its importance to your bodily functions, a large percentage of the U.S. population is deficient in magnesium, with about half not getting the recommended amounts: 310 to 320 milligrams (mg) for women and 400 to 420 mg for men. Presumed deficiencies vary depending on your health status and age; for example, having heart disease and being elderly increase the risk for being deficient in magnesium, one analysis found.

But still, no matter the age, it’s apparent that magnesium deficiency is a genuine health concern worldwide. In fact, in 2006 a French study of 2,373 subjects aged 4 to 82 concluded that 71.7% of men and 82.5% of women weren’t getting adequate amounts of magnesium.

People with low magnesium levels are at risk for a number of serious disorders, including cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and other signs of metabolic syndrome, as well as osteoporosis.

A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2016 notes MgT’s benefits in the areas of anxiety, sleep disorders and cognitive dysfunction in human adults. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial took place in three separate institutions, and involved participants between the ages of 50 and 70 with reported episodes of memory problems, sleep disorders and anxiety.

In short, the study found brain atrophy is a natural part of aging, but supplementation with magnesium L-threonate, aka MMFS-01, for 12 weeks improved and even reversed symptoms in the study group:

“With MMFS-01 treatment, overall cognitive ability improved significantly relative to placebo. Cognitive fluctuation was also reduced.

The study population had more severe executive function deficits than age-matched controls from normative data and MMFS-01 treatment nearly restored their impaired executive function, demonstrating that MMFS-01 may be clinically significant … The current study demonstrates the potential of MMFS-01 for treating cognitive impairment in older adults.”

To come to this conclusion, this study conducted baseline cognitive testing, with the first follow-up testing six weeks later. Then, for 12 weeks, study subjects were randomly dosed daily with either placebos or 1,500 to 2,000 mg of MgT, depending on body weight, as cognitive tests were repeated at six-week and 12-week intervals in the areas of:

• Executive function

• Working memory

• Attention

• Episodic memory (ability to recall fleeting events)

Significantly, the most “startling” finding is that not only does MgT enhance performance on individual cognitive tests in older adults with cognitive impairment, but it serves to reverse brain aging by more than nine years. The study’s findings revealed four significant results from MgT use:

1. Improved body magnesium status — After 12 weeks, two things were noted in the treated group: They exhibited significantly increased red blood-cell magnesium concentration, indicating high circulating levels of magnesium in the body; and significant urinary output of magnesium, showing that large amounts of magnesium were absorbed.

2. Improved cognitive abilities — Visual attention and task switching revealed (in some cases as early as six weeks) increases in performance speed for executive function and cognitive processing. Notably, overall composite scores rose steeply compared with baseline scores and with placebo recipients at Weeks 6 and 12.

3. Reduced fluctuation in cognitive ability — Cognitive functions that are worse some days than others is one sign that mild cognitive impairment may be developing. Those on the placebo showed notable fluctuation in their cognitive scores, while the MgT group reflected mostly positive changes.

4. Reversed clinical measures of brain aging — Perhaps the most significant finding, which explains how MgT can “turn back time” in aging brains.

MgT boosts the magnesium levels in your brain when taken orally due to its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. Once it’s in your brain, it increases the density of synapses, the communication connections between brain cells. What’s more, MgT increases this function in precisely the places needed.

The importance of getting it to your brain shows why it isn’t as simple as adding magnesium to your diet, as MgT works differently than typical magnesium, which doesn’t reach the brain to change the factors of brain aging.

Even raising blood magnesium levels by 300% (known as “induced hypermagnesemia”) doesn’t change cerebrospinal fluid levels by more than 19%. An all-encompassing study showing the complex regulatory functions of the blood-brain barrier notes:

“The environment exerts profound effects on the brain. A large body of evidence shows that brain plasticity is strongly affected by exposure to stimulating environments, with beneficial consequences throughout the entire life span.”

One reason these discoveries were deemed critical is because there’s a connection between a loss of synaptic density, brain shrinkage and subsequent cognitive decline, the study authors said.

According to researchers, your brain doesn’t age at the same rate as the rest of your body. For instance, a 60-year-old can have a brain that essentially functions like that of someone a decade older. How that varies is measurable via performance test scores as well as physiological parameters. It can also happen in cases of traumatic brain injury.

The MMFS-01 study shows an average chronological age of 57.8 years in their study participants. However, their cognitive function averaged 68.3 years of age — about a 10-year difference.

But supplementing with MgT made a dynamic difference: The subjects’ collective brain age decreased from 69.6 at the start of the study to just 60.6 in just six weeks’ time — a nine-year brain age drop. The improvements continued through all 12 weeks, with the brain age at the end averaging 9.4 years younger, which closely matched their peers with healthy brains.

The takeaway is the remarkable difference that magnesium, and more specifically, MgT, makes in regard to turning back time in people whose brain age is greater than that of their chronological age.

Studies also show how increasing concentrations of magnesium in cultured brain cells from the hippocampus (where memories are stored and retrieved) boosts both synaptic density and brain plasticity. The reasons this is important are twofold:

• Synaptic density isn’t just the measure of the structural integrity of brain synapses, but evidence suggests that greater synaptic density results in more efficient cognitive processing.

• Plasticity is a measure of the speed at which synaptic connections can change with new stimuli — it’s essentially learning at the cellular level.

Researchers cited a number of earlier studies exploring factors contributing to cognitive decline. Sleep loss and anxiety disorders with perceived memory loss. Not surprisingly, people with this particular set of conditions are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s, as the following studies can attest.

In a review published in 2013, researchers from several hospitals and research centers in St. Louis reported that symptoms of sleep disorders, anxiety and disrupted circadian rhythms are common in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. In their study objective, the authors wrote:

“Recent animal studies suggest a bidirectional relationship between sleep and amyloid-β (Aβ), a key molecule involved in AD (Alzheimer’s) pathogenesis. This study tested whether Aβ deposition in preclinical AD, prior to the appearance of cognitive impairment, is associated with changes in quality or quantity of sleep.”

The upshot was that amyloid deposition was associated with an inferior quality of sleep, specifically worse sleep efficiency (the percentage of time in bed spent actually sleeping) in comparison with those without amyloid deposition, although sleep time was similar in both groups. Significantly, “Frequent napping was associated with amyloid deposition.”

In 2007, scientists in Sweden followed 185 people for three years with no cognitive impairment along with another 47 people with depressive symptoms related to mood, motivation and anxiety. Interestingly, the scientists observed, “The predictive validity of mild cognitive impairment for identifying future Alzheimer disease cases is improved in the presence of anxiety symptoms.”

Another 2013 study as a collaboration between researchers in California observed that aging is associated with regional brain atrophy, reduced slow wave activity during non-REM sleep and impaired long-term retention of episodic memories. The researchers found that age-related gray-matter atrophy was linked to sleep disorders and impaired long-term memory.

There are a few little-known but important factors regarding magnesium. One is that like other minerals, your body doesn’t produce it, so it must be derived from an outside source. Second, magnesium works hand in hand with calcium, and the optimal ratio between magnesium and calcium is 1-to-1.

However, doctors have mistakenly pushed women in particular to concentrate on their calcium intake to avoid problems with osteoporosis. With insufficient amounts of magnesium, your heart can’t function properly. When the balance between the two favors calcium, especially to the 2-to-1 ratio promoted by doctors over the past 30 years, it can result in a heart attack.

In one study, high incidences of hip fractures in Norway were thought to be a result of an imbalance between the concentration of calcium and magnesium in municipal drinking water. In fact, 5,472 men and 13,604 women aged 50 to 85 years suffered hip fractures, which, after an investigation, researchers concluded that increasing magnesium may protect against them.

In addition, keeping your vitamin K2 and vitamin D intake on par with magnesium and calcium is also important. The four work together. For instance, people whose magnesium intake was relatively high were shown in one study to be less likely to have a vitamin D deficiency, compared with people with an inadequate magnesium intake.

If you opt for a magnesium supplement, note that there are several different forms. Additionally, one way to get it is through taking regular Epsom salt baths or foot baths. This form of magnesium, magnesium sulfate, absorbs into your skin to raise your levels.

Essentially, since you get only one brain to last your entire life, scientists believe supplementing with MgT appears to be imperative for anyone wanting to preserve brain function, and even recover some function that was lost.

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