In April, two California doctors accurately identified the reality of the COVID lockdown being a scam, but supposed “medical experts” fraudulently condemned their claims in the media

 by Edward Ulrich, December 10, 2020




[Note:  I’ve recently found this full video on Bit Chute on the Infowars channel, but I’ve seen excerpts from it before in other videos such as in the “Plandemic” video with Dr. Judy Mikovits.]

In an April, 2020 press conference in Bakersfield, California, two doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi explained their “E.R. physician entrepreneur’s perspective” on what was happening with the COVID situation.  They had been working with COVID patients in their clinics since the discovery of the virus, and they explained why COVID is not more dangerous than the normal Flu, and they also explained why the lockdown and social distancing procedures that are being mandated are not actually necessary.

The two doctors also appeared on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News television show to talk about their findings, and even Elon Musk tweeted their press conference to his 33 million followers.  After their news conference became popular, the corrupt political Establishment apparently panicked and supposed “health officials and medical experts” dishonestly condemed the doctors for their statements, which then caused the media to label them as being “debunked by the experts” despite the fact that everything the doctors said is accurate and easily proven to be true.

Their video was then blocked from YouTube for supposedly “violating its terms of service” due to it giving information about COVID that the political Establishment does not want to be known, but Facebook suprisingly has not blocked the video.

In this article I detail what the doctors said in their press conference, and I then examine the claims that have been made to supposedly “debunk” their claims.


Following is a summary of the points that Dr. Erickson and Dr. Massihi made in their discussion.  (Note that I have NUMBERED each of the points to refer to them in the second part of this article where I debunk the supposed “debunkers” of their statements.)


1 — Erickson’s opening statement:


2 — Erickson mentions that since the focus has been exclusively on COIVID, people with heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and various other critical ailments are choosing not to come to clinics based on fear, which is causing the health care system to be focusing only on COIVD. 

3 — Erickson said that many of the initial agendas of the lockdown, such as shutting down travel from China, were good ideas since nobody knew any facts about the situation, but other aspects of it such as having everybody “shelter in place” weren’t necessarily good ideas because typically sick people should be quarantined rather than the healthy.

4 — Erickson explains that in the last few months they have gathered a lot of data which shows that the viral infection is widespread in a manner that is similar to the Flu, which is also ubiquitous throughout California.  He says that 6.5% of the people that they have tested have been shown to be positive for COVID, and he says that 12 percent of Californians overall have been reported to be tested positive for COVID, which is very different than the initial models that actually predicted millions of cases of actual death.  12 percent of Californians is almost five million people, which shows that the disease is widespread, and there has been 1,227 deaths from it, which works out to only be a fatality rate of 0.03%.  Erickson explains that he thinks such a low death rate does not justify the extreme lockdown measures that are being taken, saying: “Does that necessitate sheltering in place?  Does that necessitate shutting down medical systems?  Does that necessitate people being out of work? ... And I should mention that 96% of people in California who get COVID recover with almost no significant continuing medical problems.”

5 — Erickson, “We’re sharing our own data— This isn’t data that is filtered through someone.  We found 6.5%, and California has found 12%, so the more you test, the more positives you get with the ‘prevalence’ number going up [but] with the death rate staying the same.  So [the death rate continues to get] smaller, and smaller, and smaller.  ... Millions of cases— [but] small amount of death, and you will see that in every state.”

6 — Erickson then explains the statistics that have been reported in New York State.  New York reported that 39% of those tested out of 649,000 people were positive for COVID, and they have reported nearly 20,000 deaths out of the 19 million people in that state, which is a 0.01% chance of dying from COVID.  There was also a reported 92% recovery rate from COVID.  He explains that it once again shows “Millions of cases— [but] small amount of death.”

7 — Erickson then compares COVID to deaths that have been happening due to Influenza A and B.  He explains that the number of people with COVID are very similar to the numbers of people who have contacted the Flu on a seasonal basis, with the death rates also being similar.

8 — Erickson said that a vaccine is available for the Flu, but most people don’t want to take it.

9 — Erickson compared the U.S. to Spain since Spain is #2 in infections.  In that country 22% of all tests there were positive for COVID, with a 0.05% chance of dying from it, and with a 90% recovery rate.

10 — Erickson then compares the situations of Norway being locked down while Sweden was not locked down, and he explains that the difference in the amount of cases was minimal, with the differences in deaths being statistically insignificant.  Norway had a .003% chance of death from COVID, and Sweden had a .017% chance of death from it.  Erickson then said, “So Norway’s numbers are a little bit better.  But does it necessitate the loss of jobs, destruction of companies, and furloughing of doctors?”

11 — Erickson explains that problems are occurring such as child molestation and spousal abuse, alcoholism and suicide during the lockdown, which all statistics show as well as them also seeing evidence of that at their own clinics. 

12 — Erickson says there is a 0.13% chance of death from the normal Flu in the U.S., which shows that the lethality of COVID is actually even less than the Flu.  He then explains that “hotbeds” of COVID exist in New York, but even that situation is not particularly extreme.

13 — Erickson explains that Dr. Massihi used to teach immunology, and they both have had years of microbiology, bio-chemistry, and virology studies, with both of them making it their life’s work to understand those topics.  He explains that people’s immune systems are built by constantly being exposed to various antigens and bacteria, rather than being isolated from such things, therefore, strategies of “sheltering in place” are actually causing people’s immunity to drop, and it likely will even result in a large spike of diseases once the sheltering orders are removed.

14 — Erickson is asked about Fauci claiming that COVID is “ten times more dangerous than the Flu,” and he said that according to the actual recorded cases COVID, it is indeed no more dangerous than the Flu, despite the false claims that the media has been making.  Erickson again said that their own data shows that only 6.5% of people tested have been shown to have it.

15 — Erickson was asked if he thinks that he knows more than the top immunologists in the United States and every other country in the world such as Anthony Fauci, and he repeated that he is only sharing real data.  He says that such top doctors came to their conclusions without having any data about the situation when they came to those conclusions.  Erickson thought the initial response was fine, but now the situation has shown itself to not be as extreme as was feared.

16 — A journalist then asked why the top doctors don’t have the same accurate and timely data that they do, and Dr. Massihi answered by saying that the scientists were initially working from theoretical data.  He said that this type of Coronavirus is transmissible through humans beings, which is new for such a virus, and therefore the medical Establishment overreacted about it to err on the side of caution.  Massihi explains that he wants to avoid blaming anyone of being “wrong,” but he is saying that he is not seeing the trends that Fauci and others have been talking about for the past six to eight weeks.

17 — The journalist continued to press the same question, and Massihi explains that the reason for the difference is because “We are actually seeing the patients, Dr. Fauci hasn’t seen a patient for twenty years.  It’s like the general contractor versus the sub-contractor.  He’s not seeing patients, he’s in an ivory tower. ... Academics and reality are two different things.  We’re just presenting our data as medical professionals in this community.”

18 — Erickson explained that he doesn’t necessarily need to live in Manhattan to watch their disease process as long he has access to the data.  He also said that COVID lives on plastic for three days while everyone is sheltering in place, but every time someone goes shopping they are potentially being exposed to such plastics such as water bottles, which he says doesn’t make sense to him.  He said, “If I swabbed things in your home I would likely find COVID-19.  You think you’re protected, but you’ve got [plastic items] coming from Home Depot and Lowes, and it’s ok for us to be mingling in those situations, but we have to not go to work.  It’s ok for us to go to Costco, but not to church.  Do you see the lack of consistency here, from a microbiological immunological standpoint that doesn’t make sense?  If you are going to isolate people you need to shut it all down because that is how [it is being transferred.]”

19 — Erickson: “We have both been through Swine Flu and Bird Flu.  Did we shut down for those?  Were they much less dangerous than COVID?  If the Flu less dangerous than COVID?  Let’s look at the death rates.  No, It’s not.  They’re similar in prevalence, and in death rate.  So we’re saying that [with] our response now that we know the facts, it’s time to get back to work, its time to test people.  But again testing gives you a moment in time.”

20 — Erickson: “When someone dies in this country, they’re not talking about the high blood pressure, the diabetes, the stroke.  They say, ‘Did they die from COVID?’  We’ve been to hundreds of autopsies.  You don’t talk about one thing, you talk about ‘co-morbidities.’  ‘Their vessels were narrowed, their lungs were a smoker,’ COVID was part of it, [but] its not the reason they died, folks, it is one of many reasons.  So to be so simplistic as to say ‘that’s a COVID death’ [is not at all accurate.]”

21 — Erickson said, “We aren’t pressured to test for Flu, but ... when I’m writing up my death report I’m being pressured to add COVID.  Why is that? ... To maybe increase the numbers and make it look like it is a little bit worse than it is?  I think so.  So this is what I’m hearing from physicians that I’m talking to in Wisconsin, New York, and everywhere.”  When asked “who” is pressuring them to do that, Erickson said, “The hospitals are pressuring us to add that to the diagnostic list, when we think it has nothing to do with the actual cause of death.”

22 — Massihi: “Why would you quarantine the healthy?  If you are young and healthy why would you quarantine yourself?  It doesn’t make any sense.  You quarantine the ill.”

23 — Erickson: “There’s two ways to get rid of a virus, either it burns itself out or herd immunity.  For hundreds of years we have relied on herd immunity. ... We develop the ability to take [a virus] in and defeat it, and for the vast majority— 95% of those around the globe, this is true.  And when we’ve looked at people who have locked down and who haven’t locked down— we have massive data— it is not statistically significant wether you locked down or not.  So why are we doing it?”

24 — When Erickson was asked if he though it would be safe for the state to end the lockdown, he emphatically answered, “Yes.  I’m outside with no mask.”

25 — Erickson and Massihi then further explained about the importance of people being able to naturally build immunity.

26 — Erickson: “One of the most important things is we need our hospitals back up.  We need our doctors back, we need our nurses back, because when we lift this thing, we’re going to need all the hands on deck.  I know the local hospitals have closed two floors.  Folks, that’s not the situation you want.  We’re essentially setting ourselves up to have minimal staff and we’re going to have significant disease [once the lockdown is lifted].  That’s the wrong combination.”

...

27 — (At about 42:45) When Erickson was asked if he thought it was safe to open up schools and sporting events again, he said, “I would start slowly.  I think we need to open up the schools, start getting kids back to the immune system.  The sporting events are non-essential, let’s get back to that slowly, lets start with schools [and restaurants.] ... I can go into Costco and shop with people, but I can’t go into a local cafe.  So, big businesses are open, but little businesses are not.  There’s no science behind that.  As we’ve gone over, that is not science, there is other factors in play that we don’t have time to go into, I want to make the clear.”

...

28 — (At about 56:00) Erickson and Massihi were asked that since they owned and ran their own health facility, then how would they respond to people who would accuse them of having ulterior motives for what they are saying.  Erickson replied, “Talk to ER doctors who have no ulterior motive.  They have the same viewpoint.  There’s a post today from a doctor from Wisconsin, I encourage all of you to read it, I’ll share his story with you.  It is exactly what we are saying.  He said, ‘I’m walking into this war zone, our ICUs are empty, I’m scared to go to my own place of work, there’s no patients, but we have people in hazmat suits checking my temperature as I walk through the doors.’  He’s [saying] something else is going on here, it’s not about science, and it’s not about COVID.  When they use the word ‘safe’ it’s not about COVID, it’s about controlling you.  So when I talk to ER doctors in the hospital with no stake in the game, it is the same opinion.”

29 — When Erickson was asked why hospitals would cooperate with such an agenda since it is unnecessarily instilling fear in people and causing the hospitals to lose money, he said, “Exactly, there is something else going on.  And that is a different discussion, that is a political discussion.”  Massihi then said, “We’re simply presenting the medical data here, what I think about politics is irrelevant.”  Erickson then said, “We need to stay on things that we can answer intelligently, which is not ‘Why does the CEO of some hospital in Wisconsin do that?’  We need to stay on the topic of: ‘Do we need to shelter in place, and does that make sense from the microbiology knowledge we have known for thirty years?’”

30 — Erickson said, “We live our lives in the life sciences— biology, microbiology, chemistry, so everything you are asking us goes against that sheet of information.  Why people do things in a hospital is not really our area of expertise.  So from what we are seeing right now, it is time to open back up, the science says it is, the models we have been using to predict that disease are not accurate, [our] information is accurate that models the Flu.  Let’s go back to work, that’s what the data is saying.  Not “models”— but rather “data” is saying that.

31 — They were asked about the situation in New York City where it was currently being reported that the COVID situation is very extreme with the hospitals there being overwhelmed and swamped, with people working in the ERs even being reported to be dying.  Erickson said, “Look at Italy in 2016, hospitals where overwhelmed, and people were dying— from the Flu.  This [also] happens from the Flu.”  Massihi then explained that people do not fear hearing about the Flu because they are accustomed to it, however people are very frightened of COIVD because it is something new.

32 — When they were asked why the doctors in New York aren’t comparing their own situation to simply people having the Flu, Erickson said, “They are getting hit hard, they are a ‘hot zone.’  We don’t ride subways with a thousand people in a small car, they had reasons for the disease, and Coronavirus is shown to be very contagious, let’s be clear, it is contagious and it may even be more contagious.  But the actual cause of death and the disease cycle is similar to what we are seeing from the Flu, with more of a respiratory component.  They were screaming for ventilators [in New York.] What percent of people die on ventilators?— 80 or 90 percent! Once you are on a ventilator, you are in a bad shape.  And they are screaming for 30 thousand ventilators that they didn’t use, right?  They used five [of them].  How many hundreds of percent over did they order?  How many hundreds of millions of dollars?  Entire companies—GM, were forced to switch their production lines— for what?  ... We have ‘predictable negatives’ from the lockdown, and CORONA has ‘unpredictable negatives.’”

33 — When they were asked if they think that the amounts of infections in California have been low due to the lockdown and social distancing, Erickson said, “That’s why we [previously talked about] Sweden and Norway, because that is [a comparison of a] ‘lockdown’ and ‘no lockdown.’  That is fifteen million people, we have that data.  ..  The bottom line from those of us who study it and have a background in it is: lockdown vs. non-lockdown did not produce a statistically different number of deaths, that is the bottom line.”

34 — Massihi said, “Now that we have the data, we’re seeing the 96-97 percent of patients completely recover, and those 4 percent who die have over 90% co-morbidity [(meaning they likely died from other causes such as heart failure, emphysema, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or they are immuno-deficient.)] You get some healthy people who die but that is an infinitesimal number, tiny.”

35 — Massihi said, “We’re ‘in the weeds,’ we work with this every day, and the numbers [that the political Establishment is claiming] don’t make sense to us, and they don’t make sense to ER physicians and physicians all over the country, it’s not just us [making those claims].”






Debunking the Debunkers


In response to the press conference of Dr. Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi, organizations called The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) “jointly and emphatically” condemned the “reckless and untested musings” of the doctors, claiming that they are “inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19.”  Also the Establishment organizations claimed “As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.”

Due to the statement that was released by the organizations that “condemned” the statements of the doctors, the entirety of the mainstream media then adopted the same attitude toward them, multitudes of online articles were written that supposedly “debunked” their claims based on the claims made in the statement, and YouTube removed the video of their press conference.  However, all of the claims that supposeldly “debunked” the doctors were either very misleading or totally inaccurate, as the following information details.


Following are the specific claims that the joint statement made, with rebuttals to all of them:

CLAIM #1:  “These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

There is nothing “inconsistent with science and epidemiology” with their claims about COVID-19.  They are both very competent and qualified physicians, and they made use of official publicly available data for their claims.  In Erickson’s opening statement (point 1), he explains how they are certainly “following the science,” and also see points 5, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 29, 30, 33, 34, and 35 that attest to the credibility of their methods.




CLAIM #2:  “As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

The doctors addressed any concerns of supposedly having “ulterior motives” in particular in point #28, where Erickson said, “Talk to ER doctors who have no ulterior motive.  They have the same viewpoint.  There’s a post today from a doctor from Wisconsin, I encourage all of you to read it, I’ll share his story with you.  It is exactly what we are saying.  He said, ‘I’m walking into this war zone, our ICUs are empty, I’m scared to go to my own place of work, there’s no patients, but we have people in hazmat suits checking my temperature as I walk through the doors.’  He’s [saying] something else is going on here, it’s not about science, and it’s not about COVID.  When they use the word ‘safe’ it’s not about COVID, it’s about controlling you.  So when I talk to ER doctors in the hospital with no stake in the game, it is the same opinion.”

Also, any reasonable person who watches their press conference can tell that they certainly have much regard for the public’s health, and nothing that they are saying needs to be “peer reviewed” since they are simply explaining official data along with offering their own personal observations that many other physicians also agree with.




CLAIM #3:  “Members of ACEP and AAEM are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

You mean like what is happening in New York City?  See Erin Marie Olszewski’s video explaining the horrific situations that she witnessed when working as a nurse at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, where she treated large amounts of non-COVID patients who were intentonally roomed with COVID patients, as well as her seeing many people being ordered to be put on ventilators depsite not needing it, which ended up killing them.  Also see this article that explains how the amounts of COVID deaths are being radically exaggerated by the political Establishment for ulterior motives.




CLAIM #4:  “While ACEP believes strongly that practicing emergency physicians have valuable insight into the COVID-19 pandemic, specialists in Immunology, Infectious Disease, and Epidemiology, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, are the most qualified at interpreting this data and making representations.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

Dr. Erickson and Dr. Massihi are simply explaining the officially reported data.  See points #15, 16, 17 where Erickson and Massihi answer questions as to why their suggestions are different than the current “official” ones, and later in points #27, 29, and 30 they explain that the “reasons” why the official policies are the way that they are is for political reasons that are beyond the scope of their discussion.




CLAIM #5:  “The data cited by Drs. Erickson and Massihi is extrapolated from a small population to the state of California, resulting in misleading conclusions regarding the mortality of COVID-19.  Their data is flawed and represents selection bias.  In order for data to be extrapolated to a population, the investigator must assure that the populations are homogeneous, and in this case they are not.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

The doctors are basing their claims on the data that is being reported about what is happening in countries all over the world (see points #9, 10, and 33), as well as all over the U.S. such as in New York City (see points # 5, 6, 12, 18, and 32.)

I’m sure the doctors wouldn’t have any problem admiting that they are working from the best data that is available to them when it comes to infection rates, however I think it is reasonable to assume that the amounts of actual deaths resulting from COVID in California are being measured to a relatively accurate degree.




CLAIM #6:  “For example, it is stated in the video that in one area of California, there is a 12 percent positive test rate.  That is then erroneously used to conclude that there are almost 4.7 million cases in the entire state of California.  But that framing only looks at the 12 percent of people who had access to a test.  California is a large, diverse state, and it is unlikely that any one area will be representative of the state at large.  As testing nationally is limited, there likely is a larger pool of people who have yet to receive a test but have a high probability of having the disease or who are asymptomatic and potentially contagious.  What we do know is that the number of cases in most states is growing.  The same extrapolation was used in his New York example, when again, the only people tested were those who were symptomatic.  Because of the limited availability of testing and the as yet unknown sensitivity and specificity of the various tests, we cannot use this data to extrapolate to larger populations.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

ACEP’s claim is not accurate, as you can see in point #4, the 12 percent positive test rate stated in the video is for all of California, not for “one area” of it.  Also the most significant statistics are the ones of people who are actually symptomatic with COVID or die from it, and the doctors are also looking at trends all over the country and the world, as mentioned for the previous claim.




CLAIM #7:  “The speaker discusses the fatality rate in New York and states that there are 19,000 deaths out of 19 million people in New York, so New York has a fatality rate of 0.1 percent.  However, he is concluding a fatality rate based on the total population—both symptomatic and healthy, which is a contradiction to how he calculated the fatality rate in California.  Further there are a large number of patients who have yet to recover, and many of them whom remain on life support or are likely to die.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

Nonetheless, the amount of deaths from COVID in New York are very low, and the numbers are similar to the number of deaths from the normal Flu, despite the fact that officials in New York have been shown to be covertly attempting to do whatever they can to increase the number of people who become infected and die from COVID.  For example, Governor Cuomo has been exposed in the mainstream media to be intentionally sending COVID-infected patients into nursing homes, and a New York nurse Erin Marie Olszewski has exposed the fact that people are being put onto ventilators when they don’t actually need to be, which is killing them.




CLAIM #8:  “Another concerning misuse of data include comparisons to the flu despite different methodology for calculating deaths.  Comparing flu deaths and COVID-19 deaths are apples and oranges until the same methodology of calculating flu deaths is applied to COVID-19 deaths.  Additionally, final flu data is calculated after the season is over.  The physician in the video is comparing two months of COVID-19 data, which again at this point is incomplete.  It is not scientifically valid to make a comparison to the completed six-month flu season.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

It is totally reasonable for the doctors to make that comparison based on the data that they have up until that point.  Two months is enough time to find a meaningful trend based on the data, since many thousands of people have exhibited symptoms around the world.




CLAIM #9:  “There are other faulty data issues in their video, including basic scientific errors that call the conclusions into question (e.g., they call the flu and COVID-19 “DNA” viruses when COVID-19 and flu are both RNA viruses).”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

That is an insignificant criticism when taking into the account the legitimacy of everything they are communicating on the whole.  They were communicating in layman’s terms for easier understanding.  Obviously they understand the difference between DNA and RNA, as Massihi used to teach immunology.  See points #1 and 13.




CLAIM #10:  “Most concerning for ACEP, they used their ‘emergency physician’ titles to provide credence to their opinions.  In any statement that proports (SIC) to be based on science, data need to be carefully analyzed and the conclusions limited by the data source and integrity.  By presenting themselves as authorities, and without fully disclosing their conflict of interest, they were misleading the public.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

The doctors are obviously able to be trusted for the information they are communicating.  They are highly experienced professionals who are simply reporting the data that has been accumulated around the world by other “professionals” who the ACEP would have no choice but to acknowledge the legitimacy of.

Also, the doctors certainly do fully disclose their supposed “conflicts of interest” of them owning their own clinics.  They even called their press conference “an E.R. physician entrepreneur’s perspective,” and they specifically answered the question of them having any supposed “conflicts of interest” in point #28.




CLAIM #11:  “This is not to say that individuals should not have their own opinions, or that their opinions will not turn out to be true.  Emergency physicians should speak those opinions in controversies such as this.  However, in doing so, we must be careful not to overstate our qualifications, particularly when we are in domains outside of medicine.  As emergency physicians, we should be all too familiar with other specialties and providers who feel qualified to practice in our domain without our level of education.  Opinions vary on one’s experience; emergency physicians in New York City are likely to feel differently.”


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

The doctors aren’t overstating their qualifications, they are very qualified to be saying everything that they are, as the other rebuttals in this section explain.




CLAIM #12:  “ACEP feels strongly the traction and popularity of these dangerous conclusions had the potential to lead to bad policy decisions and public health outcomes."


MY REBUTTAL TO THE CLAIM:

All of the conclusions that the doctors have reached are based on readily available global data that clearly shows that Coronavirus is not as dangerous as it was initially projected to be, and it is all entirely within their areas of expertise.

The obvious blatant dishonestly of the joint statement that was released ACEP and AAEM shows that they are corrupt organizations who themselves are the source of bad policy decisions and bad public health outcomes.