Coronavirus

[Dglgmut]

24 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

D,

That is exactly the point.

I love seeing people using their independent mind in the middle of cognitive dissonance. You didn't shy away from that point.

And, speaking of cognitive dissonance, if that is what you are feeling right now, check your premises.

Didn't Rand say (I paraphrase) whenever you see a contradiction in nature, check your premises and one of them will be false?

Your premise is that Trump is trying to persuade people to take the vax. Or that he can persuade them to to that.

I wasn't clear, because he is owning the vaxx, and I do think that is a good move regardless. But to say he owns it and it's good, that's not difficult for the media to deal with. They just have to act like he's claiming credit for things he didn't really do again.

 

But to claim credit for developing the vaxx AND admitting it is not great... Well now the media are being pulled in two directions. Mostly in the direction of "Trump admits he messed up." That, to me, is more "throwing sand in the fuel tank of the machine", than what he is currently doing. And it's more honest.

 

And as for my premise, that's not it. I don't think Trump is trying very hard to persuade anyone, but he is sending out a false message that does have health implications... especially for young people. My premise is that this is another example of Trump not allowing himself to be associated with anything negative, which is usually a good strategy for him. But this time the sand in the fuel tank would have been better.

[Mark]

1 hour ago, Marc said:

... if you were around then you would have been complaining about Normandy thinking it was a bad move.

... President Trump is the King of the world!

This is going off on a tangent.  Re Normandy, what did Rand think?  She may not have spoken out against it publicly at the time but afterwards:  Ayn Rand on World War II.

[ThatGuy]

"Listen to your doctors! Trust the scientist! Don't get your information from crazy, alt-right sources such as (checks list)...the American Heart Association?"

Twitter Censors Links to American Heart Association over Vaccine Research

 

Quote

 

Twitter is warning users that the website of the American Heart Association may be “unsafe,” after it published an abstract in one of its medical journals containing research linking mRNA COVID-19 jabs to heart inflammation.

The abstract was published in Circulation, a journal of the AHA on the 16th of November. In their research, a team led by former cardiac surgeon Steven Grundy applied a cardiac test to measure a patient’s 5-year risk of a new acute coronary syndrome.

The abstract claims a 14-point increase in the five-year risk of acute coronary syndrome in participants. However, the American Heart Association later attached an “expression of concern” to the study, warning readers that it contains “potential errors.”

From the study’s abstract:

Recently, with the advent of the mRNA COVID 19 vaccines (vac) by Moderna and Pfizer, dramatic changes in the PULS score became apparent in most patients.This report summarizes those results. A total of 566 pts, aged 28 to 97, M:F ratio 1:1 seen in a preventive cardiology practice had a new PULS test drawn from 2 to 10 weeks following the 2nd COVID shot and was compared to the previous PULS score drawn 3 to 5 months previously pre- shot. Baseline IL-16 increased from 35=/-20 above the norm to 82 =/- 75 above the norm post-vac; sFas increased from 22+/- 15 above the norm to 46=/-24 above the norm post-vac; HGF increased from 42+/-12 above the norm to 86+/-31 above the norm post-vac. These changes resulted in an increase of the PULS score from 11% 5 yr ACS risk to 25% 5 yr ACS risk. At the time of this report, these changes persist for at least 2.5 months post second dose of vac. We conclude that the mRNA vacs dramatically increase inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.

Twitter is now warning users against traveling to the website of the American Heart Association’s journals, telling them that the destination website may be “unsafe” — a designation previously reserved for sites containing viruses and malware, but recently expanded by Twitter to include “misleading content.”

 

 

Twitter Censors Links to American Heart Association over Vaccine Research

WWW.BREITBART.COM

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Twitter is warning users that the website of the American Heart Association may be "unsafe," after it published an abstract in one of...

 

[Marc]

42 minutes ago, Mark said:

This is going off on a tangent.  Re Normandy, what did Rand think?  She may not have spoken out against it publicly at the time but afterwards:  Ayn Rand on World War II.

No its not, that was WW2 this is WW3.

People do not understand what is really going on, just connect the dots.

 

[Peter]

On 12/2/2021 at 2:42 PM, Peter said:

And don’t leave out the most common reason that there is, to get a vaccine: to not get the disease and feel sick. Even younger people with no preexisting conditions should weigh the scales. Sick. Slightly sick with a sniffle. Not sick. In jeopardy. Not in jeopardy. Which is riskier, getting a shot or not getting a shot?

I would prefer to not get sick. NO Body around here has died from getting the shot. None. However, there is a constantly rising death rate from Covid though it has slowed because more people are vaccinated. If you go to your doctor with all the anti vax stats you might have accumulated, they may say, "Then don't get the shot."  

[Peter]

In her column "Introducing Objectivism," Rand gave "the briefest summary" of her philosophy: 1. Reality exists as an objective absolute--facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. 2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival. 3. Man--every man--is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own ~rational~ self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life. 4. The ideal political-economic system is ~laissez-faire~ capitalism. it is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as ~traders~, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. it is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and ~no man may initiate the use of physical force against others~. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force ~only~ in retaliation and ~only~ against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

From the CDC: . . . What are the implications for public health practice? There is no increased risk for mortality among COVID-19 vaccine recipients. This finding reinforces the safety profile of currently approved COVID-19 vaccines in the United States. All persons aged ≥12 years should receive a COVID-19 vaccine . . . . By September 21, 2021, an estimated 182 million persons in the United States were fully vaccinated against COVID-19.* Clinical trials indicate that Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2), Moderna (mRNA-1273), and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson; Ad.26.COV2.S) vaccines are effective and generally well tolerated (1–3). However, daily vaccination rates have declined approximately 78% since April 13, 2021^†; vaccine safety concerns have contributed to vaccine hesitancy (4). A cohort study of 19,625 nursing home residents found that those who received an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna) had lower all-cause mortality than did unvaccinated residents (5), but no studies comparing mortality rates within the general population of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons have been conducted. To assess mortality not associated with COVID-19 (non–COVID-19 mortality) after COVID-19 vaccination in a general population setting, a cohort study was conducted during December 2020–July 2021 among approximately 11 million persons enrolled in seven Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) sites.^§ After standardizing mortality rates by age and sex, this study found that COVID-19 vaccine recipients had lower non–COVID-19 mortality than did unvaccinated persons. After adjusting for demographic characteristics and VSD site, this study found that adjusted relative risk (aRR) of non–COVID-19 mortality for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 0.41 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.38–0.44) after dose 1 and 0.34 (95% CI = 0.33–0.36) after dose 2. The aRRs of non–COVID-19 mortality for the Moderna vaccine were 0.34 (95% CI = 0.32–0.37) after dose 1 and 0.31 (95% CI = 0.30–0.33) after dose 2. The aRR after receipt of the Janssen vaccine was 0.54 (95% CI = 0.49–0.59). There is no increased risk for mortality among COVID-19 vaccine recipients. This finding reinforces the safety profile of currently approved COVID-19 vaccines in the United States . . . .

[ThatGuy]

"Lies, damn lies, and the CDC..."

“You are a pathetic liar”: CDC senior scientist to CDC's head of immunization (DOCUMENT)

"A CDC internal email released through a Freedom of Information Act request reveals just how nasty things got behind closed doors after a CDC senior scientist confessed to covering up a link between vaccines and autism, and implicated his CDC colleagues.

"The email, dated Sept. 2, 2018, was written by CDC's Dr. Willam (Bill) Thompson to Dr. Frank DeStefano, CDC’s head of immunization safety."

“You are a pathetic liar”: CDC senior scientist to CDC’s head of immunization (DOCUMENT) | Sharyl Attkisson

SHARYLATTKISSON.COM

 

[ThatGuy]

"Case outcome: Recovered/Recovering 19582
Recovered with sequelae 520
Not recovered at the time of report 11361
Fatal 1223
Unknown 9400"
https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

... to claim credit for developing the vaxx AND admitting it is not great... Well now the media are being pulled in two directions.  Mostly in the direction of "Trump admits he messed up." That, to me, is more "throwing sand in the fuel tank of the machine", than what he is currently doing.

D,

Once again, check your premises.

You are basing your comment on a false foundation: that inconsistency will damage the press.

But here's the fact. Inconsistency has never damaged the press and it never will.

You, D, are being pulled in two different directions.

That does not mean the media is. Or even should the media become pulled in two different directions enough for it to notice, that will not do anything to change the media.

Law of identity and all that...

 

(As an aside, for this post, I mean the same thing when I say media or press.)

 

By the way. how do you establish the identity (the characteristics) of something like the press? What principles do you use to deduce it from? Who can you go to in order to shed some light on this?

The basic way for me is Rand's method for ostensive definitions. Wave your arms around and say, "I mean that."

Simply observe and start noticing characteristics and patterns. 

If you do that about the media, try to find a case where inconsistency damaged it.

You might find narratives that damage the press, but not inconsistencies.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

... there is a constantly rising death rate from Covid though it has slowed because more people are vaccinated.

There is an epistemological error here. Correlation is not causation.

It's also perfectly reasonable to assume the death rate from COVID is slowing because it's becoming harder and harder to report deaths from motorcycle accidents and other causes to being COVID-caused.

 

Incidentally, I'm not sure the death rate from COVID is slowing down.

Like I said, I don't trust the stats for this topic--from anywhere.

Michael

[ThatGuy]

Hmmm...

(Was going to put this under "The Biden Troubles" thread, but couldn't find it...works here as well, though...)

"Psaki Defends Biden After He Gives False Information About COVID Testing

"On Friday the president spoke to reporters with a hoarse throat which, White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted, is a symptom of COVID.

"Biden explained that he got the cold from his grandson, but he also gave another piece of important, and apparently false, information."

Read the whole story here for full context:

White House Admits It - Biden Has COVID Symptoms

CONSERVATIVEBRIEF.COM

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This is serious.

 

[ThatGuy]

Speaking of Pfizer and Dr. Malone:
 

120 children hospitalized, province suspends Pfizer vaccine batch - VnExpress International

E.VNEXPRESS.NET

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Thanh Hoa has suspended the use of a Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine batch after over 120 students were hospitalized following their inoculation.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

TG quoting an article: 

1 minute ago, ThatGuy said:

Biden explained that he got the cold from his grandson...

No he didn't.

He got it from sniffing contaminated hair from a new underage girl.

 

Michael 

[anthony]

19 hours ago, Peter said:

"...it is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as ~traders~, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. it is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force..." Ayn Rand

"All persons aged ≥12 years should receive a COVID-19 vaccine . . . ." CDC

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi5yc6Eicv0AhXVgVwKHeT_D-oQFnoECAwQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.statista.com%2Fstatistics%2F1254488%2Fus-share-of-total-covid-deaths-by-age-group%2F&usg=AOvVaw1SYzPAIjdlJQ43oPpEs3Dh

From that graph (mortality rates by age according to distribution, in the US) how can one, an Objectivist say, find any moral and practical grounds for making anyone healthy get unwillingly vaccinated? Grounds that do not "obtain any values from others" at their loss, potential, future or actual?

IOW: What's IN IT for them? The healthy 12 - 49 yo? Or -- under 12 yo? Or a fit over-69 yo? We can broadly determine from the chart what's 'in it' for the average, very elderly person.

i.e. Combined groups 75-85+ comprise seven per cent of total pop. but 54.6% of fatality rate. Here the vax would be generally advisable.

But where is the "mutual benefit" for all the others?

 

[Ellen Stuttle]

19 hours ago, Mark said:

Trump’s December 2nd phone interview makes a total of six pro-vax speeches found so far. 

These speeches persuaded some of his admirers to get vaxxed – and get their children vaxxed – who would not have done so otherwise.

A transcript of his remarks about the vax, starting at 2:08, follows.  Trump is not too coherent in places; the transcript is verbatim:

“[Interviewer asks about the covid deaths while Biden is president versus covid deaths when he was.  He doesn’t say deaths “with covid” or “of covid.”  And he seems to take for granted that unlike the Church, Medicine and State should be joined.]

“Well, he’s done a terrible job, just like he did with the, uh, uh, H1N1, he’s done just a absolutely terrible job, uh, getting it out.  And getting people to take it.  I mean people just don’t want to take it.  And the vaccines have been— you know I have to be very proud of the vaccines.  We did it in less than nine months.  People said it was gonna take five years to 12 years and probably wouldn’t work. They working incredibly well.

[I must interrupt.  The H1N1 was gotten out all right, and so many people died that it was quickly withdrawn.  And here is the point, the deaths were far fewer, as a rate, than under the covid vax yet the covid vax is not being withdrawn.  Apparently Trump, clueless and deluded, doesn’t know this.]

“Some people don’t want to take ’em, that’s their freedom and that’s what we have to do.  But people don’t want to take ’em because they don’t trust Biden, they don’t trust the administration.  We had none of that.  Everybody was fighting to take  ’em and we were doing great, we were doing really great on distribution.

“We also bought billions of dollars worth before we knew it was gonna be successful, which saved us one year.  So many things we did right, and what [speaking of the Biden administration] they’re doing is very sad when you look at what’s happening.  But [contra Biden] more people died during this year than last year by a very substantial margin.  And sadly this year is not up.

[One interviewer asks why people wouldn’t trust the vax when it was made under Trump’s administration.]

“Well, a couple of things.  Number one, they did a pause on Johnson & Johnson which really sent shocks through, over six people – that didn’t die by the way – but six people and for that, millions and millions of shots given and they did the pause with Johnson & Johnson, that was very bad, uh, and they just haven’t been able to sell it, people are not, they are not trusting this administration.

“And if you remember when, during the debate I think she said and he said [mocking voice], Oh if it’s Trump I won’t take the vaccine, I won’t take the vaccine.  And then as soon as he got elected he tried to claim that he didn’t but he forgot that he got a shot, during my administration he got a shot.

“But there was just a great distrust of what they were saying and what they were doing.  And I think that’s the problem and that’s why they’re trying to set up mandates and really hurting things with the economy, with the mandates, in addition to other things.”

Trump did not answer the interviewer’s question, though his brief and inarticulate mention of the Johnson & Johnson affair hints at the safety issue.  It was six women with overt systemic blood clots, including in each case cerebral.  He is wrong that none of them died.  One died and one was hospitalized in critical condition.  The last may have been injured permanently, how about the others?  Trump pretends that all problems with the vax get recorded and pretends no one is ever really injured, when both pretenses are grossly false given the actual numbers.

 

Gaack.  Trump would have to do some heavy apologizing to restore my opinion of his honesty after those remarks.  I think that there's no way he could still be so ignorant.  I've started to agree with you in viewing Trump as a second-choice candidate, better than a Democrat but not the person I'd want if I could have my preference.

Ellen

[Mark]

Two more abridged videos moved to BitChute, both about the propaganda aspect of the covid fiasco.  The old links will be automatically redirected.

2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece
bitchute.com/video/dDDOLtP12NSE
An interview with Mark Crispin Miller, professor of Media Studies at New York University, hosted by John Kirby June 10, 2021.

Covid: A Global Propaganda Operation
bitchute.com/video/4fglRHVKvReN
An interview with Piers Robinson hosted by Mike Ryan, August 2, 2021.
Robinson was a professor, and chairman of the Political Journalism department, at the University of  Sheffield, England 2016 – 2019.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

50 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Gaack.  Trump would have to do some heavy apologizing to restore my opinion of his honesty after those remarks.

Ellen,

Would it change if he destroyed the vax cabal?

Or would you prefer today's words and apology-seeking to tomorrow's reality without the problem?

It's a serious question.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Maybe I shouldn't have even asked that.

In O-Land, people think they know about politics. Rand herself thought she knew about politics. I don't mean in the sense of having political views. I mean in the sense of knowing how to elect people, how to govern, and so on. But she was very poor at this. 

Likewise, O-Land people in general are abysmal at it.

 

Rand certainly couldn't put any of her political knowledge into everyday practical political reality in her time.

The sad truth is that almost every candidate for president she openly campaigned for lost. And the one she openly campaigned against (Reagan) not only won, he got reelected and became a conservative legend.

The exception that comes to mind is Nixon. She campaigned for Nixon, holding her nose, but holding him to be the lesser of two evils. Then he opened the sale of the USA to Communist China and she had a cow in the Ayn Rand Letter. He also abandoned the gold standard. He tried a wage-price freeze. He did just about everything communists do. (Not that Humphry or McGovern would have done differently.)

I think part of why the Ayn Rand Letter was so dark and negative all the time is that she did not know how to implement her ideas politically.

She claimed she was good at propaganda ("taught by the best" was her appraisal of herself), but she was not good at moving the needle in any direction in terms of issues of the day.

 

On the good side, her strength was in creating a moral metastory for the culture that people found acceptable. (I have called this core story for a long time and I just recently learned there is a technical term for it--metastory.) Rand was such a good storyteller, she sold her metastory well and claimed she was presenting "a fully integrated philosophy" for the first time--which is kinda fudged. But not many complain because the metastory is the strongest kind of propaganda there is. And it's also the slowest.

As an aside, I think it's wonderful she wrote fiction. Without Rand's stories, I truly believe her ideas would have gone the way of many conservative-leaning system builders of the time and become part of the cultural background. Her nonfiction openly rides on the coattails of her fiction. In sales, too.

 

I believe this issue directly pertains to the Trump thing going on right now.

At least in Trump, he is a man who knows how to tell a great story that resonates with people and moves them to act (he got elected president without having held any office beforehand), he knows how to get things done administratively, he's a fact-based person in his projects, and he believes in all the right things freedom-wise. I've often said he is one of the most moral men ever to occupy the presidency. I still hold to that.

He's made mistakes, but what I just said is his core.

For those who don't like him, do your thing (that's your choice), but also, sit back and watch him literally change the world for the better, especially America.

You won't be able to stop him, so you might as well enjoy the show.

 

Michael

[Dglgmut]

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

You are basing your comment on a false foundation: that inconsistency will damage the press.

No, it's not that. It's that the press will choose either to continue their vaccine worship, or they will bite on Trump being a failure (in making a failed vaccine). Without Trump admitting he failed, they won't acknowledge that it's his vaccine, but if they do acknowledge it was his vaccine, that puts them in the position to switch the narrative on the safety and efficacy.

[Dglgmut]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

I would prefer to not get sick. NO Body around here has died from getting the shot. None. However, there is a constantly rising death rate from Covid though it has slowed because more people are vaccinated. If you go to your doctor with all the anti vax stats you might have accumulated, they may say, "Then don't get the shot."  

If you don't want to get sick, why not try being healthy? Stop eating refined sugar and processed carbs/oils. Build/maintain a little bit of muscle. You will be fine...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 minutes ago, Dglgmut said:

No, it's not that. It's that the press will choose either to continue their vaccine worship, or they will bite on Trump being a failure (in making a failed vaccine). Without Trump admitting he failed, they won't acknowledge that it's his vaccine, but if they do acknowledge it was his vaccine, that puts them in the position to switch the narrative on the safety and efficacy.

D,

My mistake. I thought we were talking about a conditional future.

What you are describing is the past.

The media has been doing that for a quite a while.

All of it.

Michael

[ThatGuy]

More crazy anti-vaxx conspiracies coming from (checks list): The FDA???

The FDA Slaps Major Warning About Pfizer Drug as Vaccine Reactions Come Under Scrutiny

Quote

 

The FDA has recently admitted there is now major concern over another Pfizer product. It is now slapping a warning on a class of anti-inflammatory treatments called JAK inhibitors.

“The U.S. health regulator has added its strictest warning to the labels of drugs from Pfizer, Eli Lilly and AbbVie belonging to a class of anti-inflammatory treatments called JAK inhibitors, citing risk of serious health issues and death in patients 50 and over,” Reuters reported on Friday, citing the drug manufacturers.
“The addition of the warning on the labels follows the agency’s review of Pfizer’s Xeljanz after initial results from a February trial showed an increased risk of serious heart-related problems and cancer in some patients being treated with the drug,” the report added.
The alarming development is a reminder of the rushed approval of Pfizer’s “vaccine.” In June, the COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Work Group noted the adverse reaction in vaccinated males between the ages of 16 and 24. The development of the heart condition was observed in adolescents and young adults and was considerably higher after the second dose in males.

Rep. Thomas Massie noted that the Expected and Observed categories in VAERS diverged dramatically for Myocarditis and Pericarditis in the age groups ranging from 12 to 49.

 

 

read more below:

 

The FDA Slaps Major Warning About Pfizer Drug as Vaccine Reactions Come Under Scrutiny

TRENDINGPOLITICS.COM

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The FDA has recently admitted there is now major concern over another Pfizer product. It is now slapping a warning on a […] More

[Never you mind that, now...just listen to your doctor, and trust the science...]

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

People don't want to be force to take the jab.

And some people are getting desperate, albeit creative.

Italian Man Gets Busted Using Fake Arm to Try and Circumvent COVID Vaccine

WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COM

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An Italian man went to great lengths to get his COVID certificate without actually getting the shot on Thursday. The unnamed 50-year-old man is now facing charges of fraud after rolling up his sleeve to get the shot...

They should just let the guy go and stop the shit.

Michael

[Mark]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ellen,

Would it change if he destroyed the vax cabal?

Or would you prefer today's words and apology-seeking to tomorrow's reality without the problem?

...

Trump himself energized the vax cabal and has been boasting about it ever since.  

MSK posits this opposition:

Very soon Trump realizes and publicly admits that he made a colossal mistake.  With his considerable persuasive power he urges people to ignore Biden and the medical tyrants, and follow Peter McCullough, Steve Kirsch, Jane Orient, and other good people.

vs.

Trump continues his alliance with evil and keeps urging “Take the vax, it’s good,” then three and half years from now, because of that alliance, he regains the presidency and destroys the vax cabal.

Talk about the moral and the practical not being in conflict.  The first option is better all around, the second sacrifices Trump’s public to an impractical future.  (The end of my last post caricatures how it supposedly works.) There is no reality in it at all.

Will Trump ever realize that he blundered?  I very much doubt it.

The covid disaster:

1.  How easily people, even highly intelligent people, were fooled by the propaganda.

2.  How easily they knuckled under when yet more of the Bill of Rights got thrown out the window.

3.  The complicity of doctors, media, business, local governments.

4.  The short and long range harm to people’s health.  The monsters are going after five year old girls as you read this.  And all Trump, that idiot, can say is “Take the vax, it’s good.”

Trump could take on the medical establishment and at the same time take on Biden.  It would be consistent to do both but he has to admit he blundered first.

There is no contradiction between admitting the blunder and fighting Biden.  The contradiction is between not admitting the blunder and fighting Biden.

[anthony]

https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/south-africa/

The top question: Why, happily, are fatalities staying low (while infections in most countries are rising)?

I used to think the vaccinations have been more greatly instrumental, at least with preventing deaths. They no longer top my list. E.g. a low vaccination rate here in SA, while deaths have also subsided. Now the order appears to me, generally (and brutally, I'm afraid) -

1 . A great number of the most frail, elderly, ill or otherwise susceptible have already died. (Last year and this, in previous waves).

2. Many survivors achieved natural immunity.

3. The vaccines help a little further with the remainder.

The coronavirus acts like natural selection, imo, taking the weakest ("lowest hanging fruit") earliest. Who is left have stronger resistance.