Our great nightmare of 2020 won’t go away.

Sure, we’re done with the lockdowns, the masks, the social distancing, the closed schools and workplaces and the steady drumbeat of propaganda badgering us with “Don’t be selfish, get vaccinated,” “We’re all in this together” and “Do your part — get the shot.”

Those days are gone, thankfully, although a few mask-wearers remain and the COVID-19 vaccines are still pushed.

But now we’re looking at the debris caused not just by the worldwide pandemic but by how officials handled it.

Look at public health guru Dr. Anthony Fauci’s poor performance this week before a congressional committee as he told lawmakers some protocols were just made up.

Then there’s the vaccine.

That stupid shot may have caused an increase in deaths.

Research of 47 counties by scientists at one of the world’s most respected universities — the Netherlands’ Vrije Universiteit — found deaths were higher than normal from 2020 to 2022 even after accounting for what were listed as COVID-caused deaths.

While COVID-19 vaccines were “implemented to protect citizens from suffering morbidity and mortality by the COVID-19 virus, they may have detrimental effects that cause inferior outcomes as well,” Vrije Universiteit researchers wrote Monday in the journal BMJ Public Health.

Following introductions of the shots in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, controlled research showed those vaccinated were more than 20 times safer from getting the coronavirus than an unvaccinated group.

Despite what looked like positive results, “suspected adverse events have been documented as well,” the BMJ Public Health report said.

And that’s where it really gets bad.

Those taking the Pfizer shot in clinical trials had a “36 percent higher risk of adverse effects,” which the study defined as “events [that] lead to either death, are life-threatening, require inpatient (prolongation of) hospitalization, cause persistent/significant disability/incapacity, concern a congenital anomaly/birth defect or include a medically important event according to medical judgment.”

People in the Moderna trial had a 6 percent greater risk, the study found.

The researchers didn’t stop there — they detailed adverse vaccine effects including stroke, coronary problems and brain hemorrhage.

“Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases of the Western World. … These reactions included cardiovascular diseases, coagulation, hemorrhages, gastrointestinal events, and thromboses,” they wrote.

“Numerous studies reported that COVID-19 vaccination may induce myocarditis, pericarditis and autoimmune diseases,” the article said.

“Postmortem examinations have also ascribed myocarditis, encephalitis, immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, intracranial hemorrhage and diffuse thrombosis to COVID-19 vaccinations,” it said.

But examining death rates is where the researchers really drilled down, statistically analyzing deaths due to COVID; pandemic-caused overloads to the medical system; routine winter flu and respiratory illnesses; accidents and homicides; and extreme events related to heat waves, war and natural disasters.

The goal was to determine “excess mortality,” defined as the deviation between the reported number of deaths in a country during the pandemic and the expected number of deaths for that period under normal conditions.

In 47 countries, there were nearly 3.1 million excess deaths from 2020 to 2022, the study found.

The highest number of excess deaths occurred in 2021 — after the vaccines were introduced. That excess death toll was nearly 1.3 million, the researchers said.

They qualified their findings, noting difficulties in determining deaths directly caused by COVID-19; yet they noted that in the U.S., during the pandemic years of 2020-2021, heart disease deaths were up by 6 percent, diabetes deaths were up 17 percent, and there were increases in other illness-caused deaths.

The researchers used words such as “may” when considering linking the vaccines to the excess deaths.

Nevertheless, they considered the matter serious enough to require further research.

“Excess mortality has remained high in the Western World for three consecutive years, despite the implementation of COVID-19 containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines,” the researchers wrote.

“This is unprecedented and raises serious concerns,” they said. “During the pandemic, it was emphasised by politicians and the media on a daily basis that every COVID-19 death mattered and every life deserved protection through containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines.

“In the aftermath of the pandemic, the same morale should apply. Every death needs to be acknowledged and accounted for, irrespective of its origin. Transparency towards potential lethal drivers is warranted. Cause-specific mortality data therefore need to be made available to allow more detailed, direct and robust analyses to determine the underlying contributors.”

Another day goes by, and more people find their personal research, conspiracy speculations or mere intuition draw them closer to some aspect of what really went on during the pandemic.

Contributor, Commentary