“Biggest Health Scam of the 21st Century.” Report by 1500 Health Professionals

Global Research   February 25, 2021

“We are health professionals of the international collective : United Health Professionals, composed of more than 1,500 members (including professors of medicine, intensive care physicians and infectious disease specialists) from different countries of Europe, Africa, America, Asia and Oceania and, on August 26, 2020, we addressed to governments and citizens of countries around the world an alert message regarding the COVID outbreak.

We say : STOP to all crazy and disproportionate measures that have been taken since the beginning to fight SARS-CoV-2 (lockdown, blocking the economy and education, social distancing, wearing of masks for all, etc.) because they are totally unjustified, are not based on any scientific evidence and violate the basic principles of evidence-based medicine.

On February 4, 2021, United Health Professionals sent a followup report to national governments entitled:

International Alert Message about COVID-19. United Health Professionals  

Neither the August report nor the more recent February report have been the object of media coverage.  

The earlier UHP August 28, 2020 report (which was also submitted to national governments) laid the groundwork for the February 2021 report. 

***

The August 2020 report is entitled:

STOP the Terror, Madness, Manipulation, Dictatorship, Lies and the Biggest Health Scam of the 21 st Century, 

It is only a matter of time before we turn on the unvaccinated

The Guardian  27 Feb 2021

 It is easy to see how the pandemic could lead to class and racial strife by imagining how the UK will stand in six months’ time. The vindictive will start to describe Covid as a sickness of choice. Its victims will be victims of their own stupidity. They might have accepted vaccination. They might have protected themselves and others if, as seems likely, vaccines limit infections.

Rational people will ask why they should continue to accept restrictions on their freedoms because of ignorant delusions. Employers will demand to know what possible argument there is against allowing the owners of pubs, airlines, restaurants, hotels or holiday homes to demand proof of protection when immunity passports might save their business. To make it personal, how would you feel come the autumn if someone you love contracted cancer and the NHS delayed treatment because it had to look after needlessly ill Covid patients?

The poor suffer disproportionately from Covid as they suffer disproportionately from everything else. But it could soon be a sickness of poverty. In Birmingham – the only city to have produced detailed statistics – just 60% of people over 80 accepted the jab in Alum Rock, a deprived and racially mixed part of the inner city, while 95% accepted it in Sutton Four Oaks, an overwhelmingly white commuter suburb. Public health workers told me of their fears, but said they could never speak their minds in public. So let me spit it out for them. If good citizens who have taken their jabs, see poor white people, ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews, black or south Asian men and women, they may remember the stories about anti-vax illusions and cross the road or move down the bus to avoid them, or refuse to hire them or provide them with services.

Covid much less deadly says new study

Sebastian Rushworth   18 March, 2021

An article was recently published in the British Medical Journal that reported on a matched cohort study which compared the risk of dying for those infected with the new British variant (a.k.a. B.1.1.7) and those infected with the older covid variants.

A matched cohort study is a type of observational study where you take a group of people with some condition and then try to find a similar group without the condition to match against. Then you follow the two cohorts over time and see if they differ in some meaningful outcome (like death). Since it is an observational study, it can only show correlation. It can’t prove the existence of a cause and effect relationship, but that doesn’t stop many people acting like it does.

The article has resulted in fear-mongering headlines in news media around the world. Just to take the first example I could find, Al-Jazeera published an article with the headline: “UK variant up to 100% deadlier more deadly, study finds”.

Those darn studies, they’re always finding things. It’s like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. You knock one down here, and another one pops up over there. Anyway, let’s look in to the study some detail, and see if the claim is true.

There were two criteria that had to be fulfilled for a person to be included in the study. They had to have a PCR-test positive for covid at some point between the beginning of October 2020 and the end of January 2021. And they had to be over 30 years old. The authors don’t provide any reason for the second criterion. The only reason I can see for removing people under the age of 30 is that they pretty much never die when they get covid, and including them would therefore have resulted in less impressive mortality numbers, which would have made it a little bit harder to use the results as part of public fear mongering campaigns.

Is the covid ‘pandemic’ merely economic theatre?

 

Off Guardian Jan 22, 2021

Bringing together the US emergency bank lending crisis and the now massive Covid response, I’ve concluded that one of the main reasons it is happening, apart from the corporate looting, is because of a historic event, the USA’s economic collapse and the dollar’s demise, which started just weeks before this Covid operation kicked off, and has been put on hold by a world wide manufactured economic ‘freeze’.

The end of ‘Extend and Pretend’

A few months before Covid appeared, the Fed were busy pouring literally trillions of dollars into the US banks, to prevent inter-lending bank-runs which were starting to develop. These were the same tectonic fissures that developed prior to the 2008 crisis, where the banks became so distrustful of each other’s solvency, that they massively increased interest rates to each other to factor in the risk. If unsuppressed the lending rates would continue to rise, laying a path to bank failures and a contagion which would eventually derail the economy and undermine the dollar itself.

In September 2019 the Fed intervened in the repo. markets for four consecutive days, pumping $75 billion per day into the banks, as the inter-banking interest rate – the repo rate – peaked at a terrifying 10% [1]. If this level were allowed to contaminate regular highstreet lending, it would cause widespread debt defaults & insolvencies.

The dangers are far greater today because, unlike in 2008, Quantitive Easing (QE) has pushed the Fed to the limits of its credibility, and are forcing them into causing some serious currency debasement. If they continue with the forms of QE they are shackled to, then dollar debasement becomes a certainty in a US economy that is far more fragile & indebted generally and less able to cope.

The Fed must have known for a few years that QE was not returning the economy to economic normality, and that they were still trapped in the solvency crisis of 2008. Knowing this, the Fed were prepared for the latest crisis. They had made it possible to inject hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system discreetly, unlike in 2008, without any additional Congressional fanfare, via the Financial Stability Oversight Council, formed in 2010.

They had given themselves almost unlimited funds and the resources of the entire government if necessary, to reassure the banks that collapse was impossible. This ‘rescue operation’ was being played out, relatively unreported except in the financial press, only weeks prior to the Covid flu appearing on the world stage. Issuing…

….. cumulative repo loans totalling more than $9 trillion to the trading houses on Wall Street that the Fed had been making from September 17 of 2019 – months before the onset of COVID-19 anywhere in the world…

A Miracle! Flu cases mysteriously disappear

Gateway Pundit  January 31, 2021

The Gateway Pundit reported news from the CDC in August that only 6% of all deaths in the US classified as Coronavirus deaths actually died from the China Coronavirus exclusively.

That means the number of those poor people who died from the coronavirus exclusively is much, much lower than the headlines.

Many local and state governments are shutting down their local businesses and institutions due to over-inflated statistics regarding the number of Americans who died from this China coronavirus.
Will this ever make the mainstream news?

But is the CDC also using other statistical tricks this year?

The number of flu cases in the US is at an all-time low this flu season.

The 2020 numbers are that line at the bottom with all the triangles.

 

Mask Harms in Kids: 68% of Parents Report Alarming Psychological and Physical Problems In First-of-its-kind Study

GreenMed 

A German study involving over 25,000 children reveals that major negative impacts on the physical, psychological, and behavioral health of children may be far more widespread than reported in the media and by government officials -- affecting approximately 68% and contributing to 24 distinct health complaints, according to parent submitted observations. 

 

A concerning study conducted in Germany has been posted online as a preprint (not yet peer-reviewed) titled, “Corona children studies "Co-Ki": First results of a Germany-wide registry on mouth and nose covering (mask) in children,” describing the results of 17,854 parent submitted reports on health complaints or impairments experienced as a result of wearing masks by their 25,930 children.

 

The study was designed to both explore the accumulating narratives reported by parents, educators, and doctors about increasing problems and health complaints in children and adolescents wearinng masks, as well as to provide the first known online registry where parents, doctors, teachers, and others can enter their first-hand observations. The registry and the questionnaire can be found online at www.co-ki-masken.de

 

The study authors stated:

“There are no manufacturer-independent studies on the use of masks for children and adolescents that are certified as medical products for occupational safety in professional applications. In addition, due to the unknown materials used, there are no findings on the potential protective effects or side effects of the often home-made "everyday masks" worn by the majority of children. In view of the ongoing measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, and in particular the varying obligations for children and adolescents to wear masks in school over a longer period of time, there is an urgent need for research.”

Epidemiologist says 'Influenza has been renamed COVID

JTN January 1, 2021

Rates of influenza have remained persistently low through late 2020 and into 2021, cratering from levels a year ago and raising the puzzling specter of sharply reduced influenza transmission rates even as positive tests for COVID-19 have shattered numerous records over the last several weeks. 

Where have all the flu cases gone?

Epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski thinks he can answer the riddle.

"Influenza has been renamed COVID in large part," said the former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University.

"There may be quite a number of influenza cases included in the 'presumed COVID' category of people who have COVID symptoms (which Influenza symptoms can be mistaken for), but are not tested for SARS RNA," Wittkowski told Just the News on Thursday. 

Those patients, he argued, "also may have some SARS RNA sitting in their nose while being infected with Influenza, in which case the influenza would be 'confirmed' to be COVID."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly influenza surveillance tracker reports that the cumulative positive influenza test rate from late September into the week of Dec. 19 stands at 0.2% as measured by clinical labs. That's compared to a cumulative 8.7% from a year before.

How are the COVID vaccines different from other vaccines on the market?

Dr Tom   December 31, 2020

The COVID vaccines are mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines, which are completely new. No mRNA vaccine has ever been licensed for human use before. There are no other therapies or prophylactics on the market that use the same approach, despite a handful of efforts.

Traditional vaccines introduce pieces of a virus ("live" or inert), as well as adjuvants such as aluminum and mercury, to stimulate an immune reaction. The new mRNA vaccine is completely different. It actually injects (transfects) molecules of synthetic genetic material from non-human sources into our cells. Once in the cells, the genetic material interacts with our transfer RNA (tRNA) to make a foreign protein that supposedly teaches the body to destroy the virus being coded for. So the vaccine is hijacking the protein-makeup machinery.

Note that these newly created proteins are not regulated by our own DNA, and are thus completely foreign to our cells. What they are fully capable of doing is unknown.

The Moderna vaccine is given in two doses, 28 days apart. The Pfizer vaccine will require two shots, three weeks apart.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines also include the traditional toxic adjuvants. 

Here's How to Think About the Danish Mask Study

 Medpage  November 18, 2020 

I was drawn to science and medicine because of all human endeavors, ours is one where smart people can say, "I don't know." We don't stop there. We run a study or experiment that helps us know more. That is what makes what we do different than other human endeavors.

I start then with a humility as I take on the Danish Mask Study, published on Wednesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. This is a 4,800-person randomized trial that took place in the spring and early summer in Denmark. The trial was run at a time where most Danes did not wear masks when they left their house. It told participants to practice social distancing and randomly assigned them with the advice to wear a mask (and even gave them 50 surgical masks), advising them to change it after every 8 hours of use, or gave them no advice to wear mask, and followed them to see how many acquired SARS-CoV-2 by PCR or antibody testing. The answer was a nearly identical proportion -- 42 of 2,393 people (1.8%) in the mask group and 53 of 2,470 (2.1%) in the no-mask group. The difference was not statistically significant.

An in depth look at the beer bug

 

Did vaccines really save the world?

 

JB Handley June, 2020

Since 1900, there’s been a dramatic 74% decline in mortality rates in developed countries, largely due to a marked decrease in deaths from infectious diseases. How much of this decline was due to vaccines? The history and data provide clear answers that matter greatly in today’s debate about vaccines as the race to find a vaccine for COVID-19 pushes us towards a vaccine that might be mandated for everyone.

Since 1900, the mortality rate in America and other first-world countries has declined by roughly 74%, creating a dramatic improvement in quality of life and life expectancy for Americans.

The simple question: “How did this happen?”

Why did the mortality rate decline so precipitously? If you listen to vaccine promoters, the answer is simple: vaccines saved us. What’s crazy about this narrative is how easy it is to disprove, the data is hiding in plain sight. The fact that this easily-proven-false narrative persists, however, tells us a lot about the world we live in, and I hope will encourage parents to reconsider the veracity of many of the narratives they’ve been fed about vaccines, and do their own primary research.

1970, Dr. Edward H Kass 

Standing before his colleagues on October 19, 1970, Harvard’s Dr. Edward H. Kass gave a speech to the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America that would likely get him run out of this same profession today. At the time, Dr. Kass was actually the President of the organization, which made the things he had to say about vaccines and their impact on the reduction in American mortality rates even more shocking, at least by today’s standards. Forty-eight years after Dr. Kass’ speech, vaccines have taken on a mythological status in many corners of our world, hyped up by the people who benefit the most from their use. Of course vaccines saved the world. Of course every child should get  every vaccine. If you don’t vaccinate, you will enable the return of deadly childhood diseases. If you don’t vaccinate, your child will die. If you question vaccines, even a little, you’re an “anti-vaxxer” who should be shunned and dismissed!  

But what if most of the history about the role vaccines played in declining mortality isn’t even true?

In his famous speech, Dr. Kass took his infectious disease colleagues to task, warning them that drawing false conclusions about WHY mortality rates had declined so much could cause them to focus on the wrong things. As he explained:

“…we had accepted some half truths and had stopped searching for the whole truths. The principal half truths were that medical research had stamped out the great killers of the past —tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia, puerperal sepsis, etc. —and that medical research and our superior system of medical care were major factors extending life expectancy, thus providing the American people with the highest level of health available in the world. That these are half truths is known but is perhaps not as well known as it should be.”

Dr. Kass then shared some eye-opening charts with his colleagues. I’m trying to imagine a President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America sharing one of these charts today at a meeting of public health officials. I picture someone turning the power off for the room where he’s presenting and then he gets tackled and carried off the stage…here’s the first example of a chart Dr. Kass shared in 1970:

 

But wait a minute, Dr. Kass’ chart doesn’t even include the measles vaccine…what gives? Well, in 1970, the measles vaccine was just beginning to be rolled out, and as you can clearly see, measles had long since experienced a dramatic decline in mortality. With Pertussis (Whooping Cough), he produced a similar chart:

In this case, you can actually see when the Pertussis vaccine was introduced. He also showed a chart for scarlet fever, which furthers the confusion about the role of vaccines, because there’s never been a scarlet fever vaccine, and yet the chart of a huge decline in mortality from scarlet fever looks very similar to measles and pertussis:

What’s the point?

Dr. Kass was trying to make a simple point to his colleagues, but one with profound implications for public health. His point was so important, I’m going to quote him in really big font to try and drive it home:

“This decline in rates of certain disorders, correlated roughly with socioeconomic circumstances, is merely the most important happening in the history of the health of man, yet we have only the vaguest and most general notions about how it happened and by what mechanisms socioeconomic improvement and decreased rates of certain diseases run in parallel.” Dr. Kass pled with his colleagues to be open to understanding WHY infectious diseases had declined so dramatically in the U.S. (as well as other first world countries). Was it nutrition? Sanitary methods? A reduction in home crowding? (We’ve since learned the answer to all three questions is, “Yes.”) He encouraged his colleagues to be careful not to jump to conclusions prematurely and to maintain objectivity and “devote ourselves to new possibilities.”

Luckily for us, Dr. Kass’ speech that day has been saved for posterity, as it was printed in its entirety in a medical journal. In fact, it’s a journal that Dr. Kass himself founded, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, and his speech is called, “Infectious Disease and Social Change.” There are a number of things about Dr. Kass’ speech that I found breathtaking, especially given that he was the President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Namely:

1. He never referred to vaccines as “mankind’s greatest invention” or one of the other many hyperbolic ways vaccines are described all the time by vaccine promoters in the press today. Vaccines weren’t responsible for saving “millions of lives” in the United States, as Dr. Kass well knew.

2. In fact, he never gave vaccines much credit AT ALL for the developed world’s dramatic mortality decline. Which makes sense, because none of the data he had would have supported that view. Which made me wonder, “has anyone tried to put the contribution of vaccines to the decline in human mortality in the 20th century in context?” Read more

Coronavirus and the new normal

 

Christians: Let's unite in pandemic to fight injustices

ABC August 27, 2020

VATICAN CITY -- Two authoritative religious bodies on Thursday called on Christians to band together to fight “sins” laid bare or aggravated by the pandemic, including racism and economic injustice.

The Vatican and the World Council of Churches, which is based in Switzerland, issued a joint document noting that the COVID-19 outbreak has drawn attention to "the scandalous gap between the rich and the poor.” The document declared that Christians are compelled to work to heal inequalities, including between men and women.

Christians must “own up to our own complicity and guilt in many systems of oppression” and resist the “temptation” to blame the poor for their poverty, it said.

The inter-religious appeal encourages reflection during the pandemic about the “scourge of religious intolerance, discrimination, racism, economic and ecological injustice and many other sins.”

Preparing the document for the Vatican was the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. The effort reflects Pope Francis' push for Christians to stress their common values in working to combat environmental degradation and to help those on life's margins, such as migrants.

The World Council of Churches brings together churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 110 countries and territories, representing more than a half-billion Christians.

The document cites the New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan as inspiration to “overcome religious prejudice and cultural biases in relation both to those whom we serve, and to those with whom we serve, as we strive to alleviate suffering and to restore healing and wholeness in a pluralistic world.”

Citing the gap between rich and poor, the appeal said the pandemic has “exacerbated racial prejudices and led to increased violence against those who have for long been considered a threat to the dominant body politic that is structured and sustained” by systems of inequality, discrimination and domination. The document named no country, society or political system.

Now is the “time for discovering new forms of solidarity for rethinking the post-COVID-19 world,” the document said. Religions, it said, can contribute to reawakening and guiding humanity “in building a new social order at the local, regional, national and international levels.”

That vision can draw on “a heritage of moral values common to all human beings.” And, the document's authors contended, such a reawakening would benefit from young people, “whose idealism and energy can be an antidote to the temptation of cynicism, in the endeavor to heal the wounded world of which we are part.”

 

Businesses are pushing for the right to sack staff members who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine

Dailymail 20 August 2020

Small businesses are pushing for the right to sack staff members who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine when one becomes available in Australia. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week announced the government had signed a memorandum of understanding with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca Australia to secure the promising Oxford University vaccine candidate. 

The government hopes the coronavirus vaccine will reach Australia by early next year and wants 95 per cent of people to get the jab.

Mr Morrison said he would like to make the vaccine 'as mandatory as possible' but does not have the power to make it compulsory. 

The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia has since proposed law changes that would give employers the power to sack workers who refuse the jab.

'If one of my staff members says, "no, I'm against it", then I'm going to have to say, I'm sorry then, you are a threat to my business',' Council CEO Peter Strong told 7News.

Puerto Rico imposes stricter measures amid coronavirus spike

AP News  August 19, 2020

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s governor announced Wednesday that she will place the U.S. territory on a 24-hour lockdown every Sunday as part of stricter measures to fight a spike in coronavirus cases.

Gyms, theaters and bars will remain closed and only restaurants with outdoor areas will be allowed to seat people, but at 25% capacity. Gov. Wanda Vázquez said violators will be shut down for a month.

In addition, beaches will remain open only to those doing exercise such as runners and surfers, and businesses, malls and banks will be allowed to operate at only 25% capacity.

 

Sunlight destroys virus quickly

Yahoo News April 2020

Preliminary results from government lab experiments show that the coronavirus does not survive long in high temperatures and high humidity, and is quickly destroyed by sunlight, providing evidence from controlled tests of what scientists believed — but had not yet proved — to be true.

A briefing on the preliminary results, marked for official use only and obtained by Yahoo News, offers hope that summertime may offer conditions less hospitable for the virus, though experts caution it will by no means eliminate, or even necessarily decrease, new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The results, however, do add an important piece of knowledge that the White House's science advisers have been seeking as they scramble to respond to the spreading pandemic.

The study found that the risk of "transmission from surfaces outdoors is lower during daylight" and under higher temperature and humidity conditions. "Sunlight destroys the virus quickly," reads the briefing.

The Great Reset & The New Normal

TLAV July 29, 2020

Clearly, 2020 has been unlike any previous year in the last century or so. The world is currently battling against an infodemic of propaganda spewing from the corporate media and official health authorities. Yes, people are sick and dying. However, the statistics make it clear that COVID-19 simply does not warrant a total lockdown of the planet and further destruction of the economy. 

Regardless, nations around the world are using COVID-19 as an opportunity to grab more surveillance and police state powers, institute mask and vaccine mandates, accelerate the push towards a completely digital world, enact more corporate bailouts, and generally, extreme control and involvement in citizens lives. The sheer magnitude of the COVID-19 operation is unparalleled, with the most recent similar event being the attacks of September 11, 2001. As with the 9/11 attacks, the predator class is using COVID-19 as the excuse to push plans and agendas which predate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Even so, the COVID-19 operation is unlike any other event to take place in modern history because the results of this event are affecting people in every single nation on the planet and will continue to for years to come. Also, unlike 9/11 – which took place over the course of one morning – the COVID-19 operation is taking place daily for months on end. The effects of this constant bombardment with fear and panic are taking a toll on the hearts and minds of free people all around the world. Quite simply, the people are ready for this to end and they will do almost anything to achieve this goal. It is within this space of fear and uncertainty which the predator class has now begun to insert themselves, ready to present the “solution” to our ills.

Big Pharma firms will NOT be held accountable for side effects of Covid vaccine

RT31 Jul, 2020

A senior executive for pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has confirmed that his company cannot face legal action for any potential side effects caused by its Covid vaccine. Those affected will have no legal recourse.

AstraZeneca is one of 25 pharmaceutical companies worldwide already testing their Covid vaccines on humans, in preparation for injecting hundreds of millions of people. These are flush times for Britain’s largest pharmaceutical company, worth something in the order of £70 million. They have just reported bumper profits of $12.6 billion in the last six months alone.

But despite its healthy balance sheet, AstraZeneca is unwilling to be held responsible for any potential side effects of its ‘hopeful’ vaccine candidate. In other words, the company is completely protected, or indemnified, against lawsuits from people who are injected with their vaccine and experience negative effects, regardless of how severe or long-lasting they are.

The firm’s lawyers have demanded that clauses to that effect be put in their contracts with the countries AstraZeneca has agreed to supply with its Covid vaccine. The company says that, without such guarantees of indemnity, they would not be incentivised to produce the drug. And it seems most of the countries have ceded to this demand.

The growing evidence on vitamin D and Covid

Spectator 18 May 2020

The argument that vitamin D deficiency may contribute to more severe cases of Covid is gaining ground. It is now reaching the point where it is surprising that we are not hearing from leading medical officials and politicians that people should consider taking supplements to ensure they have sufficient vitamin D.

This is not the same as arguing that vitamin D is a magic bullet that will cure the disease. Vitamins are not medication, the taking of which will have positive effects on everybody. They are top-ups: things that hurt you when you don't have enough of them in your system but do no extra good when you have enough. Indeed, with many vitamins, including D, taking too much can be toxic.

However, it is true that many people are deficient in vitamin D, especially at the end of winter. That is because, uniquely, vitamin D is a substance manufactured by ultraviolet light falling on your skin. You can get some from fish and other foods, but not usually enough. So most people's vitamin D levels fall to a low point in February or March when the sun has been weak and its UV output especially so. Public health bodies have long advised people to supplement vitamin D in winter anyway.

The level falls especially low in people who stay indoors a lot, including the elderly, and in those who have darker skin. Whereas the safe level of vitamin D is generally agreed to be above 10 nanograms per millilitre, one recent study of South Asians living in Manchester found average levels of 5.8 in winter and 9 in summer: too low at all times of the year. Darker skin reduces the impact of sunlight; so does the cultural habit of veiling; and so does a reluctance among some Muslims to take supplements that might have pork-derived gelatin in them.

Biometric payment cards are expected to play a major role in the aftermath of COVID19

Biometric Update  May 15, 2020

Biometric payment cards are expected to play a major role in a trend towards the use of multi-factor contactless transactions in the aftermath of COVID-19, ABI Research forecasts based on new research.

Contactless payment card issuances are expected to increase by 110 million more than previously expected to more than 2 billion in 2020, driven by demand for touchless interactions due to the pandemic. The new numbers mean that issuance estimates are up 6 to 8 percent from estimates made prior to the pandemic, for total year-over-year growth of 14 percent. Nearly two out of three new cards this year are expected to be contactless.

“Although the overarching trend toward contactless was well in place prior, COVID-19 will further increase the speed of contactless adoption, particularly within countries and economies where cash remains king, and usage not only being encouraged by payment ecosystem players and suppliers but also by governments and health organizations including the WHO,” explains Phil Sealy, Research Director at ABI Research.

“The way people pay for things is rapidly evolving and changing. COVID-19 has driven a significant shift in consumer spending habits spurred by economic uncertainly and a push toward the purchase of mainly essential items. There is also a surge in e-commerce whereby consumers are becoming even more heavily reliant on online retail channels to avoid crowded places to limit social interactions,” Sealy points out in the press release.